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Single-Player Game Model 'Finished,' Says EA Exec

Posted by Soulskill on from the sorry-about-your-luck dept.

Frank Gibeau, label president for EA Games, recently spoke with Develop about the publisher's long term development strategy. Gibeau thinks developing major games without multiplayer modes is a passing fad: "...it’s not only about multiplayer, it’s about being connected. I firmly believe that the way the products we have are going, they need to be connected online. ... I volunteer you to speak to EA’s studio heads; they’ll tell you the same thing. They’re very comfortable moving the discussion towards how we make connected gameplay – be it co-operative or multiplayer or online services – as opposed to fire-and-forget, packaged goods only, single-player, 25-hours-and you’re out. I think that model is finished. Online is where the innovation and the action [are] at."

28 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Piracy by Americium · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's also the only way to combat piracy that works. You need the legit game to play with your friends that use legit copies.

    1. Re:Piracy by Xest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, kind of works.

      Seeing as multiplayer is shit and not worth playing for around 95% of games that come out, I don't think it's particularly effective.

      Look at Assassins Creed, AC2 was fucking superb because they concentrated entirely on single player. This year they released Brotherhood with multiplayer and whilst it was still good, it wasn't a touch on AC2.

      If anything AC2 was proof that focussing on single player can lead to a far superior experience, even if it means sacrificing a multiplayer mode, which will be dead in the water within a few weeks, or couple of months after release anyway.

      It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact companies tie achievements to their shitty multiplayer modes no one plays either, because it basically means if you are a completionist and like collecting achievements and don't get them on release week then they'll be permanently unobtainable a few weeks later.

      I'd rather games which are primarily single player stay that way and focus on that, rather than cut single player features/quality in favour of a waste of space multiplayer mode.

    2. Re:Piracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      in another related news, gamers say that EA as publisher has finished.

      if player want 'quickies' they expect to pay 10$ for them, not 60$.

    3. Re:Piracy by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >>>not worth playing for around 95% of games

      Plus my wallet is not infinitely deep. All the games I buy are $20 or less in cost and never expire (I'm still playing 30-yr-old games) while online games are constantly sucking money month-after-month and eventually die (when the server shutsdown) so all the money I invested is wasted. The online multiplayer model is as bad a ripoff as the $80/month* CATV charges.

      Which is probably why EA thinks multiplayer is so innovative (for them). It's like printing money.

      *
      *$60 base plus $5 per tv plus tax

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:Piracy by alaffin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bingo and then some. If you listen closely EA is not saying "single player games are dead". What they're saying is "we have to work harder to produce a profitable single player product, therefore we are killing it."

    5. Re:Piracy by timeOday · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In my experience, FPS was almost dead from banality 10 years ago. There's only so many ways you can flog a dead horse, and improving the graphics isn't it.

      FPS won't go away, just like soccer and poker don't go away. The rules and equipment don't need perpetual novelty; it comes from the people playing.

  2. It's about money by emj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They just look at Zynga and hope they can make the same amount of money making crappy games.

    1. Re:It's about money by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, they've got half of that equation down.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
  3. Bollocks by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, that's why everyone is still waiting and crying out for HL2:Ep3, Duke Nukem Forever, etc. It's got nothing to do with whether the game is single- or multi-player. It's just that single-player games you have to actually put more work in so the player *doesn't* feel alone (or feels *suitably* alone in the game's environment). Whereas any shit that has a multiplayer mode saves you from having to write tons of AI and instead just keep a couple of servers up.

    Multiplayer was/is a twist on a game to increase longevity. Now it's *replaced* bothering to make the game's have longevity themselves. I play tons of multiplayer games, but as they age, they die except for the ones that were *always* going to be played by people anyway (e.g. Counterstrike). Single-player games and LAN-playable games and games that you can just connect to random IP addresses TOO last forever.

    Stop tacking on "multiplayer" as a feature and instead make a decent game. Apart from a handful of exceptions, almost every Steam game I own is primarily single-player. I own very, very few multiplayer-only games for the same reasons.

    1. Re:Bollocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not to mention Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas that are single player only and both huge successes and amazing games.

    2. Re:Bollocks by NickFortune · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's cool. I don't play multiplayer as a rule, so unless a game has a decent single player mode, I'm not going to buy it.

      Of course, it's a long time since EA produced anything I wanted to play in the first place, so it's not a big deal.

      EA can do as they please. It's not going to affect me :)

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
    3. Re:Bollocks by melikamp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lately I think, what makes a game truly great is the art, period. The whole is greater than the sum. I agree with you: the multiplayer/singleplayer axis is completely orthogonal to both the goodness axis and the longevity axis. The goodness is in the explicable combination of graphics, sound, writing, controls, UI, and that viscerally felt response to the user input. And that other thing you know, but I am forgetting.

      Counterstrike I will give you, even though I personally was never a fan. It just feels so crisp. But also Quake, and Commander Keen, and the whole multitude of godly platformers. And all HalfLife. And Diablo I and II, as different as they are. And most (but not all) games starting with Sim. And ditto for games starting with Sid. And pretty much everything done by Interplay and Black Isle. And, like, every PC adventure that didn't suck, which is a good chunk of them. And I cannot even begin to name console titles, since I am a PC boy, but I am fully aware that I am barely scratching the surface here. There are dozens of excellent games from every genre, ancient or relatively recent, that I could put in this list right now, so I'll just stop.

      What the EA drone is trying to say is that they cannot design an effective copy protection for a singleplayer game, so they are not going to finance one. And nothing of value is lost.

    4. Re:Bollocks by RogueyWon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, I think he meant an actual hard-coded skill. As in, those with more experience of the game actually get a more powerful character. So to use a sporting analogy, it would be like saying that more experienced soccer teams would be given a smaller goal to defend when playing against novice opponents. I'm not saying I agree with GP's point (persistent-experience is a major hook these days), but it isn't as ridiculous as you make it sound.

    5. Re:Bollocks by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      +6 insightful to the parent.

      I am a player who avoids multiplayer games as the devil flees from the cross. I hate to interact with brats addicts that are unable to act civilized, much less playing a game without nasty and dirt tricks to win at any cost.
      And the story of "the singleplayer game is over" is completely bullshit. It's only a stupid excuse for not need to make a decent AI and to force the user to stay connected with the company's servers responsible for the game.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    6. Re:Bollocks by NickFortune · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thank God for that. Be sure to update us when you next buy a game.

      The point is, trollface, that a company already infamous for churning out tired, low-quality sequels is adopting a policy aimed at further alienating a sizable portion of the market.

      They're acting like they have enough of a grip on the marketplace to dictate trends, but I very much doubt that is the case. There are too many other game developers out there

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
    7. Re:Bollocks by thesandtiger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A traveller came upon a village and asked a man by the gate what the people ithe nside were like. The man asked, "What were the people like where you came from?"
      The traveller replied, "They were mean spirited, petty and cruel." And the man said, "You will find them much the same here."

      Some time later another traveller came to that same man and same village and asked about the people inside. Asked about the people where he came from, the traveller replied, "They were kind, honest folk, and always friendly." The man replied, "You'll find them much the same here."

      The point being you will find what you expect. When I play these games I usually meet friendly, helpful and fun people. Oh, I'm sure there are jerks but I just don't pay them much attention since I'm having fun with the others. It works for me, and means I don't have to miss out on things that are fun because some people suck.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  4. Pub, social, dollars by evanism · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I want to socialize I'll go to the pub or the park. I suspect Mr Exec is more interested in the endless monthly fees they can gouge from players. These guys arent gamers, they are business zombies who contantly moan like the undead itself.

    --
    Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
    1. Re:Pub, social, dollars by Berkyjay · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You only got the point half right. What is happening is that many people are not buying EA's single player games that only have 20 hours of game play because their games are generally crap. EA is not willing to put the money into making worth while 20 hour game much less a good 50-60 hour single player game (it hurts their profit margin). They have realized that it is cheaper just to add a multi-player and try to pass it off as extra playing time. But really, who the hell buys a game based on the amount of playing time. I would rather spend 60 bucks on a 20 hour master piece than a 60 hour turd.

  5. co-op instead please by bmcage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't want connectivity, I want co-op, so I can play together with family members. WTF do care for some dude the other side of the ocean?

  6. retarded EA exec says PC games are finished. by Zurk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    wasnt EA one of the slave shops who claimed PC gaming was finished too ?
    hint to EA execs :
    DO NOT WANT stupid asshats and 12 year olds who whine incessantly in your spyware laden voip enabled gaming franchises.
    DO WANT games which are engaging, fun and can be picked up with no significant time investment.
    DO NOT WANT incessantly annoying DRM which requires online servers AND a CD in the drive to validate the game is "legal". Oh and typing in a 80 digit serial number.
    DO WANT games which have a compelling storyline, decent graphics with no advert ware built in and are engrossing enough to keep people occupied for the 60 bux you charge which is more than movies, theatres and any other reasonable form of alternative entertainment costs.
    DO NOT WANT monthly fees ON TOP of the 60 bux you charge for the game.
    DO WANT to resell games once I have finished plowing through your inevitably buggy DRM infested pile of franchised crapware.

  7. It isn't dead; you want to kill it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If playing with your freinds is so great, then why are developers taking away support for lan and dedicated servers? It's a whole load of crap! I don't want to spend $120 on a game only to play it on a server on the other side of the world, with a ping of 500! It's not the players' demand for connectivity, it's studios want to charge subscription fees!

  8. Saying it wont make it true by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and it wont make us stop wanting to spend weekends sunk in some game where no one will bother us. Sometimes its about being disconnected.

    --
    I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
  9. Hey EA Brainiac... by BulletMagnet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're right - please stop making single player games.

    Sincerely,

    Bethesda Softworks / Obsidian Entertainment
    (you know, the people who brought you Fallout 3 which sold 4.7m copies in the first two weeks of release in 2008 and Fallout: New Vegas - which just happened to sell 5m copies in the 1st three weeks since release in 2010)

  10. What he meant to say by Xelios · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What he meant to say is "online is where the money is". DLC, DRM, lower development costs due to lack of story or AI, mini-transactions, monthly fees, it's a wet dream for EA.

    --
    Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
  11. The problem with multiplayer is... by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem with multiplayer is you can't play casually. The servers are full of people with absolutely no life who get their jollies fragging newbies (usually shouting obscenities as they do so...)

    It might be somebody's idea of a 'game' but it's not mine.

    --
    No sig today...
    1. Re:The problem with multiplayer is... by peragrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And that is why single player games will never really go away.

      Multiplayer is fun when you have time. but games that keep on going and going means that people who only play casually won't ever truely be a part of it.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:The problem with multiplayer is... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree. I don't game much because I suck at the game and I don't have the time to be proficient at a game. My life has many more pressing goals to achieve then mastering a game. However when I play a game I done want to suck so much that it isn't fun.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  12. Not to Mention by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No everyone wants to play in an environment populated by potty mouth teenagers jumping around like monkeys.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.