Single Player Games Are Kaput, says EA

Frank Gibeau of EA recently sat down to talk with Develop, and in his discussion he noted that Single Player only games are a dying breed.

It’s one of my core cultural studio values to allow developers to decide more on what they want to build. And a studio’s creative call needs to be balanced against a commercial imperative, and if you look at online these days – that’s the place to be (online).

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, is at.

This definitely explains all the crap inclusion of multiplayer experiences that are included with every game.  Personally, I’m a little confused by his comments because I was just thinking the other day, how games needed to get back to their roots, games of personal experiences, and not these social messes that many of them force themselves to be.

I like a good multiplayer as well, who doesn’t.  The problem is that not many developers can implement multiplayer in their games and have them be on par with what gamers consider the “gold standard” : Halo, CoD, Battlefield etc. etc.    Being that most of these games are the same price, when you just bundle in a multiplayer for the sake of going with the trend, I’m pretty sure most gamers will agree that your time would be much better spent just making a better game in general, and focusing on the strengths of the title, not the trends of the market.