Single-player is dead
“Single player experiences are no longer the future,” Electronic Arts UK’s general manager Keith Ramsdale told an attentive crowd at the EA Winter Showcase yesterday.
“Single player experiences are no longer the future,” Electronic Arts UK’s general manager Keith Ramsdale told an attentive crowd at the EA Winter Showcase yesterday. The event was highlighted by Bioware’s upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic though Mass Effect 2 and Command & Conquer 4, both single player titles with online content as part of the experience, featured.
Ramsdale’s opening speech confirms EA’s gravitation towards online content as an integral part of all games in its portfolio, even those traditionally played offline such as Dragon Age: Origins, which goes on sale tomorrow with downloadable content and online community features available from day one.
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This is all about control. Tell me how the Rockstar Club or Windows Live or controlled servers or internet registration and other online DRM benefit gamers more than causing grief?
Wow, the modern gamer must be a wonderfully socially adept creature, keen to socialise with all around him.
Personally, I’m a morose misanthrope with no wish to spend time with “other people” (shudder).
I thought I was a fair reflection of the average gamer. I guess I was wrong.
So something like Dragon Age: Origins, which was released a few days ago is a dead end? I beg to differ, Dragon Age is one of the most absorbing games I’ve played for a long, long time.
Online, multiplayer elements are of course, nothing new. However, there are plenty of problems with online play, such as, balance, cheating, Pre-Mades vs PuG’s, connection problems. Take a look at what Modern Warfare 2 is offering for it’s online play; it’s a joke wrapped up inside a kick in the cobblers!
Now if they spent as much time, money and energy in stopping hackers (cheats) as they did in pointless DRM it would be a start.
Anyway…sometimes I play video games to get away from people, not to have to put up with a horde of idiots.
“Single player experiences are no longer the future,” – says who?
I actually do not like being harassed by 8 year olds online while I’m trying to enjoy an immersive experience. Silly me, and here I am with the money and knowledge to buy and build real gaming rigs.
I do not like the direction that games are heading in, no more SDK’s because companies would rather release DLC’s instead of competing with free mods from the community that are often better!
Nope, I don’t like it ONE BIT!
The day single-player games die is the day I stop playing games.
**sob**
Personally im a big fan of online interaction in games, the ability to interact with human players far exceeds the entertainment provided by AI/NPC/computer players in my opinion.
I am also a big fan of Star Wars and am excited to hear that Bioware is producing a Star Wars MMORPG game, even more so now after hearing that all efforts towards the game will be focused on the multiplayer aspect without reducing the efforts to cater for single player fans.
Although many single player players will be dissapointed with this news, there might be a bright side for them in the long run;
Im aware that multiplayer games are harder to crack than singleplayer games which, if true, would reduce the amount of people attaining the game without paying, which cripples the game designers profits, reducing the funds that are invested in future games. If this is the case, Bioware are probably likely to make more effort to make sure the singleplayer mode exists in future products due to earning a nice sum of money from multiplayer restricted releases such as this one.
Please correct me if im wrong, ths is just my own analysis of the modern gaming community.
the day i take anything said by the second evil empire is the day i quit buying games and turn my PC base unit into a desk ornament. lets face it EA themselves havent released a decent game in years that isnt either the sims or a game from the EA sports Stable.
I have a collection of over 1,000 PC, Commodore Amiga and Commodore 64 games, along with the machines of course. With emulation I could play many of my games on PC, downloading them from abandonware sites, but playing them on the original machines is just so – right!
When EA says no single player games, I think they mean more and online registration shenanigans, online microtransactions, online to get DLC’s that actually never go on your hard-drive, all that in the past would have been part of the game (Dragon Age anyone?!)
The mainstream games market will die because we won’t buy games from the major publishers, but GOG.com will hopefully still be there, the Eastern European publishers will still be there, the indie’s will still be there,so there is some hope. But the big AAA titles will be those retro titles you still have in your collection. If you have any gaps, I would get to ebay now. Because boxed games with manuals are going to skyrocket in price soon!!
*Hides entire single player RPG collection, Hides C+C Series, Hides wing commander series*
Em Sorry what now? How can we take anything EA says seriously?
Oooo wait i know, its because of EA’s extensive understanding of the online market. Thats right… With that massive success of Warhammer online: Age of Reconing where they REALLY listened to the gamers that keep it going, you know fixing server issues, sorting class balance, sorting bugs which are all things we didnt want of course all we needed to keep players happy is this..
*Flash to the board room at EA*
“Gamers are complaining that games are not perfoming as we promised.” Says Jim
Bored of Directing, “Whats our options?”
“WE could fix the issues and release unbroken and complete games, its what we used to do and lets be fair its tried and tested.” jim
“We could pull wool over theyr eyes and release additional content to hide the issues!” Bob
“I know!” “We could release new content and CHARGE them for it!!!” Bored Of Directing Junoir
“And to make sure that no-one knows about this, Jim your fired.!”
HAHA, yea, I stay indoors and play my computer because I want to interact with other people! I’m an anti-social, introverted person.
I hate MMO’s.
What's your opinion?
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