Single-Player Game Model 'Finished,' Says EA Exec 439
Frank Gibeau, label president for EA Games, recently spoke with Develop about the publisher's long term development strategy. Gibeau thinks developing major games without multiplayer modes is a passing fad:
"...it’s not only about multiplayer, it’s about being connected. I firmly believe that the way the products we have are going, they need to be connected online. ... I volunteer you to speak to EA’s studio heads; they’ll tell you the same thing. 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 [are] at."
Re:Pub, social, dollars (Score:5, Informative)
Not just that: the only effective way to enforce CD key checks and other such anti-piracy measures is via a significant multiplayer component. In short, either our servers validate you or you don't get to play the game. It's the only form of DRM that works, because it turns them into the gatekeepers of content - in essence, due to the fact that the game is primarily multiplayer, the other people become the game's content and the publisher sticks their server between you and other people.
I mean, just look at Star Craft 2! Oh, how the once-great have fallen; in Starcraft 1, you could use the second disk to create a multiplayer-only spawn install for an essentially unlimited number of LAN players; now, every single multiplayer game has to be authenticated via Battle.Net, even if it's just going to be played over the local network between two full copies of the game (which is, I suppose, something of a misnomer, because now there's nothing but full copies of the game).
Re:Piracy (Score:5, Informative)
in another related news, gamers say that EA as publisher has finished.
Indeed. I want to play games with a good single-player experience. I find MMORPGs and on-line FPS shoot-outs to be the things lacking in action and innovation. They become monotonous very quickly with each new game, and then you have all the issues with bots, connection problems, etc.
Total games played with some regularity in our household in, say, the past 6 months:
Single player only: 4
Social (single player, but comparing scores with others via Facebook etc.): 2
Full multiplayer: 0
Every one of those was legal, but none was a recent, high-cost, AAA title.
Good single player games used to have some replay value by virtue of non-linear storylines, different playing styles, taking different characters with you or making different alliances, etc. And they used to last more than 10 hours. And they used to ship at least reasonably bug-free.
Given that a lot of people seem to show up with this sort of opinion every time the multiplayer/online gaming discussion comes up, I have to think that if a giant like EA can't manage to produce games like that any more even with the crazy prices they are asking, then their management have lost the plot. Then again, given all the horror stories about working conditions there, it's not surprising.
Re:Pub, social, dollars (Score:4, Informative)
And yet, still better than Starforce :)
Play dates defined (Score:5, Informative)
To expand on what garvon wrote:
In the days before Internet multiplayer video games, before magnet schools and suburban sprawl, children used to visit their neighbors or classmates at their home after school or on weekends to play together. But now that children who go to school together tend to live far from one another, now that both parents work, and now that the mainstream media has been spreading phobia about kidnapping of children, parents have demanded that these visits be arranged in advance. This is a play date [google.com].