EA Pivots Away from Single Player
- Thread starter Andy
- Start date
Because that just means 80% of the top 10 are multiplayer.
Those 2 games sold less than a 4 year old game.
In the last 12 months only Breath of the Wild represents in 10th place and that will vanish with new CoD and Battlefront.
The biggest single player shot this year is Assassins Creed...and that normally has multiplayer.
Those 2 games sold less than a 4 year old game.
In the last 12 months only Breath of the Wild represents in 10th place and that will vanish with new CoD and Battlefront.
The biggest single player shot this year is Assassins Creed...and that normally has multiplayer.
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Well many with single player and multiplayer but the question is about them being dead. There is no question about multiplayer being bigger.
Zelda has only been out for half that time on a brand new system that hasn't even had its first Christmas. Its a massive hit.
I'm sure like any other corporation, they're going to move toward implementing more GaaS elements. It's inevitable. But otoh, Sony have made a name/reputation for themselves based specifically on great SP games. To give that up would be to give up the main differentiator they have in the market. So I can't see them moving away from that in any definitive way.
I'm glad Nintendo is having a resurgence. They, too, are a source of great SP games.
I sure hope so, but with all that I'm reading, and seeing... I'm not as confident about high end SP games lasting as you are.
Well, standalone AAA SP games, with no GaaS elements, are a dying/dead breed. That doesn't mean that SP games themselves will die. Heck, the entire industry was founded and built on SP games.
What we'll have is --
1. SP games with more and more GaaS strategies, especially at the AAA level, where budgets demand it. This may include MP, co-op, DLC, MTs, loot crates, additional paid content, whatever.
2. SP games developed outside the AAA structure. So, for instance, indies or AA games.
SP will never die. But the trend to MP, microtrans etc.... keeps inching higher and higher.
That's why even great selling SP games like some Sony games, drastically fall off NPD charts after a few months. And when MS used to do those top Xbox Live activity charts, you'd get some hit SP games like GTA, Fallout etc.... but the games that populated the chart (I think it was Top 20), were mostly MP games like shooters and sports.
And with MP games, you get all kinds of added-value stuff like map packs, skins, loot crates etc..... Pretty hard to pull that off in SP games when most games are front loaded and once gamers are done with it, might as well sell the game. Little point having these types of microtrans as you aren't competing against others, so there's no point anyway. A good MP game will last all year until the sequel comes out next year.
That's why even great selling SP games like some Sony games, drastically fall off NPD charts after a few months. And when MS used to do those top Xbox Live activity charts, you'd get some hit SP games like GTA, Fallout etc.... but the games that populated the chart (I think it was Top 20), were mostly MP games like shooters and sports.
And with MP games, you get all kinds of added-value stuff like map packs, skins, loot crates etc..... Pretty hard to pull that off in SP games when most games are front loaded and once gamers are done with it, might as well sell the game. Little point having these types of microtrans as you aren't competing against others, so there's no point anyway. A good MP game will last all year until the sequel comes out next year.
Always something with these guys. One step forward, two steps back. Oh well, don't think we'll have to worry about getting our fix of single player games with Sony around. If you don't own a PS4, you got problems though. Big problems.
"By the middle of 2017, people who saw the game say it resembled Uncharted too much for EA’s liking. “The three levels we made for the 3.5 gate, every single one of those levels you could hold up a video of Uncharted beside it,” said one former Visceral employee, “and you could literally say, ‘OK, this part is like this part from Uncharted. This level is like this level from Uncharted.’”
WTF.
WTF.
EA being EA:
"At EA, however, things were different. “She was giving these massive presentations on the story, themes,” said one person who worked on Ragtag. “EA executives are like, ‘FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year.’ Where’s your version of that?”
"At EA, however, things were different. “She was giving these massive presentations on the story, themes,” said one person who worked on Ragtag. “EA executives are like, ‘FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year.’ Where’s your version of that?”
That last quote doesn't sound real.EA being EA:
"At EA, however, things were different. “She was giving these massive presentations on the story, themes,” said one person who worked on Ragtag. “EA executives are like, ‘FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year.’ Where’s your version of that?”
Frostbite has always been buggy. Remember the crazy (and funny) long neck bugs in BF3?
The quote may be hyperbolic, but in every meeting room it comes down to business.EA being EA:
"At EA, however, things were different. “She was giving these massive presentations on the story, themes,” said one person who worked on Ragtag. “EA executives are like, ‘FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year.’ Where’s your version of that?”
She is making a big mistake if that meeting was true and she's plugging stories and characters and such. Nothing wrong with that if it leads to some end benefit ($$$), but she's got to make the connection.
It's like a packaging manager in a meeting plugging the new artwork and dimensions of the box. The person has to communicate why the artwork leads to better business, and why the new dimensions work for both the company and retailers who have to stock it.
EA being EA:
"At EA, however, things were different. “She was giving these massive presentations on the story, themes,” said one person who worked on Ragtag. “EA executives are like, ‘FIFA Ultimate Team makes a billion dollars a year.’ Where’s your version of that?”
You know, I think there is a solution that could have worked and not affected the actual game design much but still been extremely lucrative.
First, you would need to have Jar Jar assigned as an unkillable, constant companion character. He wouldn't do anything at all in combat, although I suppose you could use him for inventory management/store/whatever if you wanted to pretend he was anything of any value whatsoever to the player. Every piece of dialogue in the game, at some point, Jar Jar would weigh in as he tended to do.
The microtransaction part of it would be that you could spend X tokens to have him remain silent for the remainder of the mission, or much more to be silent for the remainder of the game, or a s*** ton more than that to have him be targetable and killable in combat. He would also die just before the last battle, so it's not really "pay to win" getting rid of him, just doing so early.
"Yousa people going to buy? Or meesa keep talking to bombad Stormtrooper?"
I Just realized that Respawn is making a 3rd-person action adventure Star Wars game too.... I wonder if that had an effect on changing the focus of the game visceral was working on.
Also lol. How many games have been panned for being linear? Now all of a sudden, there are too many Open world games with skill trees! All it is is the typical trend. It'll all come around again. It's as if these Companies are trying to give people what they want to buy! There are plenty of SP games, anyway.
People act like because a few MP only games exist (more proof that Devs try provide what consumers are looking for is Titan Fall going from MP only to having a great SP campaign in 2), or if a game has SP and MP in it, that that somehow is cause fro alarm. Much ado about nothing, if you ask me.
Also lol. How many games have been panned for being linear? Now all of a sudden, there are too many Open world games with skill trees! All it is is the typical trend. It'll all come around again. It's as if these Companies are trying to give people what they want to buy! There are plenty of SP games, anyway.
People act like because a few MP only games exist (more proof that Devs try provide what consumers are looking for is Titan Fall going from MP only to having a great SP campaign in 2), or if a game has SP and MP in it, that that somehow is cause fro alarm. Much ado about nothing, if you ask me.
Confirmation that the cancellation was primarily because it was a linear action-adventure SP game:
The studio was trying to build a game that “really pushed gameplay to the next level,” but Electronic Arts kept reviewing it, it continued to look a “much more linear game, that people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or ten years ago.”
https://www.dualshockers.com/visceral-games-closed-linear-games/
The studio was trying to build a game that “really pushed gameplay to the next level,” but Electronic Arts kept reviewing it, it continued to look a “much more linear game, that people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or ten years ago.”
https://www.dualshockers.com/visceral-games-closed-linear-games/
What he meant to say was
but Electronic Arts kept reviewing it, it continued to look a “much more linear gameand we can't make much money off that as compared to an always online GaaS title.”
But begs the question- if it makes more money, does that not demonstrate more interest? Super linear games are often panned. Even Uncharted opened itself up more and got positive reactions for it.
It would be more interesting if we didn't just resort to "evil greedy corporation" and not ignore that markets still follow demand. If straight up linear games sold more, you can bet we'd see more of them. It's amazing to me that people moan about it online, but don't show up on release.
On another note, it's one thing to say they were pushing the envelope on gameplay. Harder to deliver. People giving them the benefit of the doubt because they are the "victim". Game could have blown goats, or been super generic for all we know.
Doubt it. Might have had problems, but I doubt "super generic" would describe it.
There's profit-oriented, and then there's greedy. EA is greedy. EA knew that there were better ways to make lots more money. That was why they cancelled it. They could make s***loads more money by using the resources to build an open-world/GaaS game.
Don't get me wrong. I don't expect corporations not to be greedy. I'm just annoyed at their greed for killing this game. I was looking forward to it.
We already got the big scoop on the game and why it got canned so no reason to pay attention to whatever damage control EA is doing this week.
If he said that it wouldn't be that much more honest then their original statement. EA are a business and the best way to be in business is stay in business.
If the game wasn't going to make any money visceral would still have been closed on the games release and EA would simply be more conservative then they already are. They cut their losses and acquired a pretty good studio with a pretty good IP. If only every publisher did that when they cancelled a game.
Looking forward to what, though? My point is we don't know enough to get too judgemental. Yeah, it's likely they wanted something that would fit a GaaS model, but they also said they wanted something with greater scope. If the game was looking good and coming along with no troubles, I just have a hard time thinking they'd ditch the invested effort. I really don't like the crazy mob mentality that goes on without full details.
Eh, waiting for full details on most stories would result in no discussion. I don't feel premature in judging EA for ditching what could've been a great SP game because they wanted more money via GaaS. Boo, bad EA.
It was probably a combination of the two factors, though. I'm just focusing on one, and you're focused on the other (while being a corporate apologist for EA, but hey, that's ok).
It's not about being an apologist. It's about not participating in the knee-jerk moral outrage.
You're not participating in knee jerk outrage? I don't know you well, but that pisses me off. Burn!