Slashdot Mirror
EA Exec Won't Green Light Any Single Player-Only Games
An anonymous reader sends this quote from Geek.com:
"Frank Gibeau, the president of EA Labels, has shown that business truly does come before gameplay with comments he made as part of a preview document for the CloudGamingUSA event happening on September 11-12 in San Francisco. Gibeau is very proud of the fact he has never green lit a single project that consisted solely of a single-player experience. He insists that every game EA publishes has an online component to it. His reason for doing this? Apparently EA has 'evolved with consumers (PDF)' suggesting he thinks this is what consumers want in every game. ... Forcing online into every game makes little sense. While it works for a Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Fifa or Need for Speed title, there's just as many games that don't need it to succeed, or even work for online play. A good example of this would be the forthcoming SimCity, which has upset fans of the series because it will require an constant Internet connection to play. That isn't a DRM measure, it's due to the tight integration of multiplayer and how all players impact each others games."
"multi player only" is just code for "always connected to the internet", been there, tried that, no thanks.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
EA, for a while now, has been spooked by Facebook and web games' rapid rise in market share, and desperately worried that they're eking out legacy profits on a sinking ship. To make matters worse, their last gamble on a designer-led Maxis game, Spore, didn't turn out to be very profitable. So I'm not too surprised by this position, even if I don't like it artistically.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
He isn't saying that they're shoehorning multiplayer into every game. He's saying that every game should include an online component of some sort, as he says right here. They're not saying that games should all have multiplayer involved. They're saying that they should involve the internet in some way. There is nothing wrong with this. For example, take optional high score challenges in Mirror's Edge. The Sim City example, where online is required, is a bad example because that's just one game and the game was designed to be multiplayer-centric from the start. There are many, many single player games, like Mass Effect, that don't require the multiplayer or online functionality whatsoever. This is just FUD. EA isn't the best company around, sure, but including online features in single player games is definitely possible and it can't always be a bad thing depending on how it's implemented.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
I'm going to avoid the DRM/always-online part of this, but I'm thrilled SimCity is going online. Cities do not exist in a vacuum, and it's about time the game really tries to simulate a regional economy.
It's a game that doesn't have to be online, but I'm glad it will be!
"That isn't a DRM measure, it's due to the tight integration of multiplayer..."
Its nice that they can claim a legitimate sounding reason for it but it still sounds like DRM to me. The proof will be what happens when you cannot contact their servers while playing. If you get kicked out of the game then it is DRM!
They've bought their fair share of studios that were previously oriented around a great single-player experience, and have proceeded to suck the life force out of many of them. Bioware is one such studio that comes to mind. After seeing what they did to Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3, it's likely I won't buy another EA game again for a long while. It's really sad seeing these once-great studios killed by the plague that is EA Games.
Seriously, what the fuck?
If you asked me to name one thing that pisses me off more then most other things today, I'd say that it's this "forced-socialization" everyone is jumping on.
I deal with people all day, I'm a consultant for some seriously niche and highly proprietary technology. Sometimes I deal with nice people. Sometimes I deal with smart people. Sometimes I deal with stupid people, and sometimes I deal with complete and utter fuckwads. I do this every day, five days a week. I usually spend one day on the weekend hanging out with friends and family, which leaves me one day to forget about reality and escape to the far reaches of some magical galaxy where I can have a nice private adventure in the comfort of my own living room.
The last thing I want is to be forcefully shoved into a virtual room with a bunch of vulgar screaming 12 year olds who think they're "the shit" while I'm simply "shit".
I don't play games to deal with people. I play games to get away from people. I deal with people enough during the day.
Why the fuck can't game companies understand this?
-AC
Look EA, these days my problem isn't a lack of good games, it is a lack of time. I have so damn many games it is insane. There are a lot of companies in gaming and though a lot of crap comes out, a lot of good stuff does as well. So I don't need your games. I want them, but I don't need them.
If you force always online for a game that doesn't need it, or force me to play multi-player in a game where I want a single player experience (like Dragon Age 3) then I just won't buy it. I'll get other games instead.
I don't at all mind multi-player games, I have many. However any good multi-player or single player game almost always is good because they focus on it. If there is stupid shit bolted on that you have to play to play the real game, it will diminish things.
As a good example, compare Battlefiled 3 and Mass Effect 3, both EA games. BF3 has phenomenal multi-player. It is a ton of fun. The single player is crap though, it was clearly bolted on to the game as an afterthought and really shouldn't be there. However, it isn't required so it is fine.
Mass Effect 3 is a single player game, that is what the whole series has been and that is how it is made. However it has some shitty multi-player bolted on. Not RPG multiplayer, just a bad shooter. If you have a real shooter, it is amazing how bad it is comparatively. However worse than that you have to play it to get the "best" ending in the game (I use the term loosely since the ending is garbage). So you bought a game for SP and they want you to have a shit MP experience.
Well lesson learned, I won't be buying a game like that again. I want a game that focuses on what it does well.
A good example of one that does is Tribes Ascend. It is a multi-player shooter. It does have SP, but only in so far as practice levels. You can free roam any map to learn it and practise cop routes, or try out weapon loadouts on a test map against bots that do various things (stand still, walk in lines, jump, etc). They didn't try and put some cheesy SP in the game, it is an MP game, they just put in something to serve the MP better.
Rather than making bad games that do everything poorly, why not focus on better games that do a few things well?
Looks like zombie Steve Jobs has come back from the grave to make an AC post on Slashdot.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
This somewhat tangentially reminds me of the Onion's jab on HP and the cloud. That is, it sounds like Gibeau wants to move the company blindly in a direction and he barely even understands why. Being able to slap "online multiplayer" on the box was a cool thing...ten years ago. After many successes and many failures of applying online multiplayer to different types of games I think we these days have the information to apply it judicially. Some games benefit, others don't. Requiring online multiplayer takes out a HUGE chunk of your potential content, and thus customers. Either that or it bogs down what would otherwise be an excellent game with onerous multiplayer development and support.
Uh... That's exactly what they're saying they do (they don't execute but that's another matter). They're focusing on games that have an online component. If you want to make a strategy game that's single player, or if you want to make a single player adventure game, they don't have the skills to market or test that, and they have no intention of acquiring that skillset. Which is why there are other publishers.
I miss solo games. I purchased Diablo once I finally had a high speed internet connection (because dealing with logging in over satellite would have sucked). Yup, PAID for it. No desire to go multiplayer and my inability to play it up at the ranch prevented my initial purchase. Sad too... there isn't much to do in places where your best option for internet is satellite. Seems like the area, while sparsely populated, should be a great market for game studios. Downloading a multi gigabyte torrent is unthinkable over satellite. Thing is... it would require game makers take the time to publish DVDs that don't have a hundred outstanding bug fixes that would require a multi gigabyte download. So, no games for you rural world! Fear of piracy and complacency in QA pretty much make studios incapable of serving you.
I do so love my apartment in the city. A shorter commute and the joy of broadband.
Baseball: http://2ksports.com/games/mlb2k12/
Basketball: http://2ksports.com/games/nba2k11/
EA effectively owns the concepts of 'football' and 'hockey', so no one but EA can make those games. But 2K Sports releases PC versions of their titles.
Hold up. You read "adapt their business models" as remove offline/single player games
I'm a different AC, but I think his point was that studios ARE adjusting their business models in ways that work, and those ways might not be what the average slashdotter wants.
They don't have to please the few hardcore gamers, they have to please the many casual gamers, and that's the direction they are moving. You can't blast them in one breath for not changing with the times, and turn around in the next and blast them for doing exactly that, when the market is moving towards more casual online gaming experiences. Just look at games like Farmville which are designed from the ground up around casual online play. It's one of the most successful games of all time. Studios are changing their business model to more closely align with what works. That's exactly what slashdotters were telling them they should be doing. You don't get to redefine "adapt their business model" as "do what **I** personally want them to do". Adapting their business model means doing what the market as a whole rewards.
I really like that the industry no longer wants to sell me games; I've saved hundreds of dollars not buying must-be-connected-to-the-internet games, and a couple of thousand not upgrading my PC to run them.
The difference has gone into an exploration of finer Scotch and Irish whiskies that would otherwise have been out-of-budget.
I'm confused and don't play games online. Medal of Honor games are fun for a few hours though.
BlameBillCosby.com
For a a (longer or shorter) while, multi-player may be fun, but at some point I have always run into too many morons eventually. In a real MMORPG you can at least limit exposure by finding a guild, but in all the others, you can just forget about it. People that do not understand basic game-play but tell everybody what to do, cheaters, etc. Hence, my interest in these games is basically zero.
That said, besides MMORPGs, all my best gaming memories are single player games. If EA does not want my money, fine. I spend actually quite a bit on gaming, as I have given up TV a long time ago, but I refuse to have my time wasted or spent non-fun. This also pretty much rules out a lot of F2P titles.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually Steve Jobs has been reincarnated and is a warrior-philosopher. Fox News covered it, it has to be true! http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/08/31/steve-jobs-has-been-reincarnated-as-warrior-philosopher-thai-group-says/
BlameBillCosby.com
It sure is terrible that EA is trying hard not to go down the tubes. The cost of modern games is enormous, a lot of them never even recoup their losses, and yes EA is trying to eke out every penny from games that do succeed. That way, they can be in business one more year.
--Matthew
EA seems to focus its creativity into innovating new and increasingly subtle ways to nickel and dime players. You really have to hand it to them, that is one area where they shine.
It's not just in multiple levels of payment options for new content or in enhanced gameplay. They've taken it to the level of the psychological effect that branding has to mask the sensation that they're sucking money out of your pockets. Pick any game in the "Play4Free" universe, and see just how far you can actually get "playing" for "free". Then reflect on the choice of name: Play4Free. Why imply that a nonfree service is free? Maybe research showed that this kind of branding gave people less sense of how much money they were actually spending. It certainly strikes me as something straight from the late night infomercial school of salesmanship.
If you look at if from their perspective, they continue to do an impressive. It's just that their theory of game design is obviously not that they should necessarily create enjoyable, entertaining, engaging games, but rather to design games that extract as much money per player as possible. Enjoyment, entertainment, playability: these are all simply tools to be used to that end.
I bought Sims Medieval just last year, not long after it was released. It has absolutely no multiplayer component that i am aware of.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Your boycotting EA is not going to change the fact that the always-connected DRM model is going to be significantly more financially successful than the securerom one.
Put all the code on the servers, ship only the art, watch the money flow in. That is what Blizzard taught everyone.
Simcity isn't going multiplayer because it's "better for gameplay and the consumer" -- it's FORCING online play to attempt to pad EA's wallet with microtransactions. And on another front -- most likely putting some of the game logic on the server side only, much the same way that Diablo3 only has art assets and the engine on your PC, and the rest is all done on the server side.
If they really felt multiplayer was best, they would give you the OPTION to go online, or the OPTION to use the global commodity market online, and let the features and word of mouth speak for themselves in getting people to use them. This kind of heavyhanded design work can only be explained by greed.
Fallout 3. Game of the year for several years by several groups. Massively successful. And a completely single player game. For the first time since Mech Warrior, I actually want to see a game I play/played put online (but inside I know it would likely fuck it right up). Many people obviously enjoy single player games. You aren't alone.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
This is the exact reason I haven't bought an EA game since Dragon Age: Origins.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I'm quite sure that someone other than EA will publish SP only games... so this really doesn't bother me. I have a love hate with them anyways.
Similar, but different - when I am online I am generally working. When I have time to relax, I get away from it to the cabin. That's where the gaming pc goes, and that's where it'll be played. There is no internet and there will be no internet, that's the entire point. I can copy patches in on a keydrive if need be. If a game wont work under those conditions, then I have absolutely no use for it. And if game companies wont understand that, then I guess I just wont need to upgrade it again.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Remember back when Civilization had no multiplayer mode, and Sid Meier infamously said that his games would never have multiplayer because his customers didn't have friends? How the times have changed.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Some great single player games use novel play mechanisms that could not be implemented in multiplayer mode - think games like Fallout3 with VATS.
So, if you are only going to sign off on multiplayer games that means:
1) Either some single player games wont get made, or
2) The multiplayer mode wont represent the single player experience at all and will essentially be two games in one box, at twice the development effort and twice the cost.
Seems like a pretty shitty choice for the business and consumers.
Last year EA bought PopCap, the producer of a number of simple, but well done single player games, including Plants vs. Zombies. Although they've added multi-player elements to their games, the core experience is a single-player one. Recently they laid off about 50 people, including the designer of Plants vs. Zombies.
It seems to me that EA doesn't care much about game play, just raking in more profits.
EA exec out of touch. That's probably a better phrasing.
Or EA exec won't green light anything I would pay them for.
Multiplayer is cool for some things, but I don't much care for it. In this phase of life, I don't have the time to set aside to play online with friends, and like some other posters, I have no desire to play with a random stranger.
Also avoid "always on" crap, on principle, and due to the fact I work in a remote place (where I have to stay for extended periods) and have no internet that I can use to be "always on" while there.
So they don't want my money.
What have you got against a policy that says games will have multiplayer?
The fact that physical buttons and online multiplayer capability in handheld devices tend to be mutually exclusive. The 3DS and PS Vita purchased from ordinary retailers have no cellular data and thus no online multiplayer away from hotspots. The iPhone and Android phones have no physical buttons and thus aren't very good for genres that don't involve clicking on things on the screen. The only handheld devices I know of that have physical buttons and cellular data are the PS Vita purchased from a carrier and the Xperia Play phone. So the multiplayer part of the budget of a 3DS or PS Vita game will be spent on things few people will be able to use.
is a technological trap, so they can shut down master servers when new releases arrive for more sales incentive.
Has anyone learned from their Madden series?
I'm in the male 25-35 demographic. I have disposable income. I don't play multiplayer games.
Guess which gaming company doesn't get my money...
There are rumors that BioWare is working on a modernization of the Baldur's Gate saga, beginning with the 1st game and it's expansions. A game like Baldur's Gate is an entirely different proposition than a multiplayer online shooting game. It makes essentially zero sense to waste time adding multiplayer to the Baldur's Gate games because the characters, dialog and story are meant to be savored, like a good novel or a fine wine, at one's leisure. If people want stupid minors and their juvenile pranks, they will play World of Warcraft instead. Frank Gibeau is an idiot for saying that "every game must have an online component". He just doesn't get it. Other than patches and updates, there are many great games, particularly adventure and story based games, that need no "online component" and are in fact diminished by attempts to add them. This is especially true when those efforts come at the expense of extra work on the character interactions, plots and more time spent on good story telling and dialog options. People want to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in the world of the game, they want to become their character, and it's difficult to do that when someone else is being stupid and spoiling the whole experience, as would happen with the "online component" in these games. Hopefully EA will be smart and not meddle in the Baldur's Gate modernizations. Remember Frank that we're watching and we will not forget it if you ruin or otherwise diminish any remake of the greatest RPG franchise of all time.
Dear EA CEO,
Do you play your company's own games? If not, you should be fired and replaced with somebody who does.
How can we expect a company to make good products and good business decisions about their products unless they are a fan, themselves? Well, we can't.
Most likely the author wrote "an internet connection" and then revised it to add the word "constant". Not a typo, not a spelling error, but an editing error. Happens to us all, to one degree or another, so it's not worth getting too upset about. You must be insecure; probably European.
(Actually, that last sentence was a demonstration of coming to a unwarranted conclusion because of a bigotry. Did you recognize the flawed logic? It's easier to see it in a stranger than in yourself.)
What have you got against a policy that says games will have multiplayer? Nothing in the "story" says there won't be single player content.
Ah. That's easy. Firstly, as has been mentioned a lot, not all games need a multi-player component. But if your game doesn't have a multi-player component it won't get the green light from EA. Ergo, developers will tack on a half-assed MP component to all their pitches. These MP game modes will add no value at retail, because there are a very limited number of successful MP games. Nobody buys Crysis for the Multi-player, for instance. So developers will divert resources from making compelling single-player content to make inadequate MP content and the game suffers massively overall. Consequently the game tanks and the failure is blamed on the lack of MP focus. Thus, death spiral of the industry and we all end up playing piano and reading novels to kill the black emptiness of our spare time.
2 reasons.
First, the whole crap really smells like they plan to pull that "always online" crap of deals that have been so terribly popular lately, complete with the sword of Damocles looming over your head where they can whenever they want pull the plug on the authentication server and essentially decide how long you may play a game you bought.
And of course the obvious one where time to develop a pointless multiplayer option could better be spent on improving the single player content.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is a reason I've stepped away from modern gaming. There is the occasional title or two I want to play or my wife does, and we do that together, able to share some time. Honestly, those are getting fewer and fewer.
Gaming is expensive, and the value proposition keeps getting diluted down to a point where it's really starting to show. Think the same kind of death corporate radio is suffering. The dynamics are very similar, as will be the end game.
Fuck these guys. Go retro and or indie. Lots of platforms from home built micro-controllers to older machines that can play great games to phones, PC's and other devices that can also play great games.
There is also the homebrew scene. It's a lot like indie, but different in that it usually involves older machines. Much of the homebrew scene is open too. You can see the code, modify the game, interact with the developer, be the developer, contribute graphics, or just collect 'n play. I've spent more on homebrew titles than I have modern gaming for a few years in a row now. There are scenes for the 8 bit machines, some computers and odd devices. AtariAge is one place where it's happening. Quality works too, right along with a bunch of people doing games and getting help on it from others ranging from insiders who just like retro, to enthusiasts who just have picked up how things get done.
Wrote one for the 2600 a while back for a Minigame compo. Need to do it again too, because I had a lot of fun and got some great feedback. On many of the titles I buy, I know the guy who wrote it, and I know they love that "this game kicks ass! Thanks for it!" feedback as much as they do the few $$$ they get from a physical media run or two.
Right now, I'm gaming on older gear, and building fun little projects with micro-controllers that have classic ports. Learning about the tech, building things, modifying them, and such is just as much fun as jamming on a modern title is, and I know I'm way better off for it too. Long ago, this started on the old Apple ][, which I have setup to play on to this day. The kids like the thing for all it's weird games, sounds, and such.
Back then, cracking 'em was as fun as playing them, and several of us did, getting good enough to start careers in computing too. We used to write games, share them, laugh at them, play them, build on them, and just enjoyed it on a lot of levels besides just playing through some linear, scripted pile of shit that's full of licensed IP to the gills. Same game, different skins, diluted value each time... Now that people are picking up on this stuff, they are insuring that they maximize their return on the least value possible, and that's the end game for a top heavy industry suffering as so many others have.
So yeah, fuck you very much. EA was founded on some great ideas. Now it's just riding a wave, so seriously disconnected from the art of things it's sad to see.
Blogging because I can...
Just another excuse to make lame games. Well, he'll get fired soon enough.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
If you want to try once, there are free ways. And some are even legal! Phone a friend!
Are you seriously suggesting that in 2012, few people are able to use a wifi hotspot?
Yes. A lot of people who play video games on handheld devices still don't have cell phone plans allowing tethering.
Interesting analogy, but to make the analogy correct, Bob would have to be selling access to his driveway to people who want to skateboard on it.
Which of course, means that the people paying him can request that he repave it, yes, as a gravel driveway is suboptimal to skateboard on.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Look at how Zynga has been tanking as far as their stock goes because while they have the eyeballs they just can't get enough people to spend money on their in game crap to make any real money.
What's interesting about Zynga and DLC is that in a lot of their games, spending money gives you tactical advantages that makes the game unfair, and thus less fun. It's pretty bad when the DLC will actually result in a negative game experience.
Umm, if you don't want DLC, then... don't buy it? Is that hard? Is someone holding a gun to your head and making you whip out a credit card and buy DLC?
Not the GP, but likely because companies are shipping games that aren't complete. Either they're missing what could be considered important story elements or in some cases the game's ending. I haven't played it, but I've heard Alan Wake is like this; you need to download not one, but two DLCs to get the game's actual ending.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Asked by kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5940782/ea-says-theyre-not-killing-single+player-games), he made a clarification: "Let me clarify," Gibeau began. "What I said was [about not greenlighting] anything that [doesn't have] an online service. You can have a very deep single-player game but it has to have an ongoing content plan for keeping customers engaged beyond what's on the initial disc. I'm not saying deathmatch must come to Mirror's Edge."
So, in other words, it has to either have multiplayer or mandatory DLC?
Mr. Gibeau, please go die in a fire.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
If I were an EA Shareholder, I'd be looking at changing the board of directors - there is a market for single player only. offline playable games, and if you are completely ignoring that market, you are leaving money on the table.
Just ask Bethesda. Last I checked, Skyrim made in the neighborhood of a Billion dollars (exact figures don't seem to be available, but there were reports that they had made at least $650 Million in the first week of sales - and I don't think that included sales from Steam, which I don't think were ever released publically - so $1 Bn total seems a reasonable estimate).
That's just *one* game. Granted, probably the most successful single-player game so far, but still, if you factor in all the single player console and PC games, it's probably 2 to 3 Billion a year for the whole industry.
So, we have a corporate executive proud that he's ignoring a market. Way to go, EA! #winning
A few months ago, EA released an updated SSX. The original (PS2, probably one of the best launch games ever) was great and the following 2 sequels (Tricky and '3') moderately good. There were a few incarnations in between but they were lacking.
The newest edition is visually stunning but they left out the one thing that made the first 3 so fun to play - split-screen, local multiplayer. Everything you want to do against an opponent is either from a 'ghost' (a recording of a previous run) or online against a friend. You can't just jump in and race against a friend sitting in your living room, they have to be connected to the internet on their own machine.
Thankfully my wife and I had only rented it. We were huge fans of the first ones with the local multiplayer / party game type action as most significant reason. Sorry EA, you broke something that didn't need to be fixed.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
? my origin account hasnt been on since ... euhm, since i finished the single player campaign on bf3 actually ... which took about five hours, fat chance i'm spending any more cash on EA games
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
I've played plenty of multiplayer games that were turned based (they usually suck, but that's beside the point). There's no reason someone couldn't invent a turn system that didn't suck. It might be possible.
Learn to love Alaska