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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
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!
LOL The reality is he wants to use the internet to normalize DRM one small step at a time. Everyone has seen diablo 3's success and the are CHOMPING AT THE BIT to do the same to every other game. See through the PR matrix.
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
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.
Mass Effect is a great example. Thanks for bringing it up. When the series began, Bioware wasn't part of EA and there was no online component. EA's Mass Effect 3, on the other hand, requires players to either pvp or play an awful iPhone game to improve the effectiveness of their forces and unlock the most positive ending. This is the sort of shoehorning EA demands.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's simply not true. In Mass Effect 3, the online component is completely optional. You can use the multiplayer component or the iPhone game to get the better ending if you want, but it's entirely possible to get the best ending in the game entirely through single player, without ever touching the online components. Furthermore, the multiplayer is cooperative, not PvP. In fact, there is no PvP option in ME3 that I'm aware of. I'm not EA's biggest fan by any means, but at least get the facts right.
Gamertag: WyleType
I wouldn't say exactly that. Shoehorning in some kind of internet functionality, especially into a game where it is utterly extraneous, is extra time, complexity, bug issues, and costs. It does effect the final product, and when it's shit slapped on just because the CEO said to, it makes the final product worse, not better.
(You don't really think they allocate extra money, devs, testing, or time to a project for an unnecessary bolt-on just because the CEO wants that extra whatever now do you?)
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.
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.
I've bought the game, so I'll play the game, but *damn* I'll be wary of anything else that isn't a true MMO but still "needs" to be welded to an online server.
The repeated downtimes from patch, after scheduled maintenance, after hotfix, after unscheduled maintenance, ad nauseum... the horribly inflated/distorted auction houses thanks to shoehorning the game into being an ersatz MMO whilst failing to implement a proper MMO economy accordingly... none of this would be an issue if the damn thing wasn't welded to Blizzard's online-only servers, thanks to Blizzard's higher-ups failing to see anything but the $$$ signs in front of their eyes at the thought of being able to make money from auctioned pixels.
Quid pro quo, dammit.
Diablo 3 was a pyrrhic victory. It burned an INSANE amount of Blizz cred.
Good-bye
"Diablo 3 was a pyrrhic victory. It burned an INSANE amount of Blizz cred."
6 million + in sales says what gamers say and what they do are two different things. Most gamers are addicts. They will bitch and buy anyway. If you have an audience like that then the publisher/devs are just going to milk that. That's what has traditionally happened when companies get that kind of power over their audience.
People complained about the lack of LAN in SC2 but 5 mill+ bought it anyway. Complaining isn't enough for some types of games that just do huge sales regardless.