I vastly prefer single player experiences. I prefer playing games on my own. I've noticed the trend in social gaming increasing, streams and games that seem to be made specifically for them. It's not something that I'm interested in.
The only multiplayer game I have truly taken to in the last ten years was Splatoon on the Wii U. I enjoyed the gameplay and the maps, and the lack of voicechat.
I primarily play singleplayer games, but I will dabble in online multiplayer if it feels worthwhile to do so, but I much prefer quality stories to endless online shenanigans. Both aspects of gaming have their upsides and downsides, but the dominance of the online gaming sphere concerns me. I see it as indicative of certain big shot industry players becoming single-mindedly obsessed with wringing gamers out for all they're worth, at the expense of everything else that makes games great. I worry that if they were ever to stamp out the singleplayer side of gaming, that we would on that day lose everything that elevates games to the level of art.
I don't see singleplayer games becoming a "thing of the past" any time soon, though, if only because there will always be some people of import throughout the industry who love a good story, or who care more about storytelling than figuring out the next big loot box scam. I can, however, see some of the big publishers (EA and Activision) outright marginalizing them in favor of multiplayer-focused/-exclusive titles. I hope they suffer for it.
I think the issue with the games as service models is that all the publishers are looking at the most successful titles and saying "look at all the money these guys are making" but I think the realisation very quickly is that gamers still only have finite time and there can't be hundreds of different communities in the same gaming space. So you're gonna see some huge bombs that quickly lead to a rethink of this model.
It's funnybthat the multiplayer games that have been a surprising success, PUBG, Friday the 13th, both have really novel mechanics and it's those things that's keeping gamers coming back, not just the fact that it's multiplayer.
Pedro wrote:I think the issue with the games as service models is that all the publishers are looking at the most successful titles and saying "look at all the money these guys are making" but I think the realisation very quickly is that gamers still only have finite time and there can't be hundreds of different communities in the same gaming space. So you're gonna see some huge bombs that quickly lead to a rethink of this model.
It's funnybthat the multiplayer games that have been a surprising success, PUBG, Friday the 13th, both have really novel mechanics and it's those things that's keeping gamers coming back, not just the fact that it's multiplayer.
Not saying I disagree with you but if huge bombs led to a rethinking of the business model single player games would have died out a long time ago.
A rethinking of model is definitely the solution to ensuring the industry continues to thrive.
I don't think AAA single-player games will disappear entirely, as I think there's still a number of developers and publishers out there who want to/are willing to make them, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them become fewer in number. Publishers will want to go where the money is, which is 'games as a service/platform'; why charge someone £40 for playing your game once when you could keep them hooked in for a lot longer and have them paying all along the way, whether that's for episodes, DLC, microstransactions, etc.
Personally speaking I only really like traditional styled single-player stuff, and anything with episodic content, a multiplayer focus, loot boxes, microtransactions, season passes, early access, etc etc it's pretty much an instant turn off. I can't fight the trend though, and it may explain why I haven't got into the current generation, or why I increasingly look to the past when searching for new games to play, rather than what's out now or is coming out soon.
If publishers are up-front about what they're doing, i.e. are they cutting a game up into chunks and charging over the odds for each 'episode', are they deliberately making the game a pain in the arse to complete unless you buy a particular item or items, are they giving players who spend money on items an advantage over those who don't...then it might not be so bad, as you'd know which to avoid, and I think publishers would soon get the message. The problem comes when they don't do that (and let's be honest, why would they) or when people are just happy to go along with it anyway. People always talk about boycotting certain publishers because of dodgy practices, but they rarely follow-through, or the ones that do barely make an impact.
In the same way that 'money talks' in terms of the decisions publishers make, money also talks in response, as it's our (the consumer's) best way of showing what we like or dislike. Unfortunately for me, most people seem to like the things I dislike, and so more and more games get made with these dodgy ideas or with a focus on things I'm not into. But there'll always be alternatives I think, even if in the 'AAA' space they become fewer and further between. 2017 has shown there's still a tonne of quality single player games though, and perhaps having slightly fewer to play wouldn't be a bad thing, as who's going to get to play them all anyway?
Preezy wrote:Remember Haze? Man that was a gooseberry fool game. Good times.
Where is TimeSplitters 4 :'(
Haze is actually a really interesting game. Like, it's bad, but then you read about how it was originally a third person action game that got changed halfway through development to suit the market, and you feel some sympathy. I also don't know how intentional it is either, but it has this great meta-narrative about the desensitisation of violence in videogames. Enemy bodies fade away after you kill them, which is just a regular thing in videogames - apart from in Haze, it's an affect of the in-game drug (nectar, I think?) designed to hide the horrors of war from soldiers - when you glitch out from its affects very early on, you still see all those dead bodies.
Pedro wrote:I think the issue with the games as service models is that all the publishers are looking at the most successful titles and saying "look at all the money these guys are making" but I think the realisation very quickly is that gamers still only have finite time and there can't be hundreds of different communities in the same gaming space. So you're gonna see some huge bombs that quickly lead to a rethink of this model.
It's funnybthat the multiplayer games that have been a surprising success, PUBG, Friday the 13th, both have really novel mechanics and it's those things that's keeping gamers coming back, not just the fact that it's multiplayer.
Not saying I disagree with you but if huge bombs led to a rethinking of the business model single player games would have died out a long time ago.
A rethinking of model is definitely the solution to ensuring the industry continues to thrive.
More rethink as the default going forward.
Again hopefully the success of Zelda and Mario show that a traditional first player experience can work.
Pedro wrote:I think the issue with the games as service models is that all the publishers are looking at the most successful titles and saying "look at all the money these guys are making" but I think the realisation very quickly is that gamers still only have finite time and there can't be hundreds of different communities in the same gaming space. So you're gonna see some huge bombs that quickly lead to a rethink of this model.
It's funnybthat the multiplayer games that have been a surprising success, PUBG, Friday the 13th, both have really novel mechanics and it's those things that's keeping gamers coming back, not just the fact that it's multiplayer.
Not saying I disagree with you but if huge bombs led to a rethinking of the business model single player games would have died out a long time ago.
A rethinking of model is definitely the solution to ensuring the industry continues to thrive.
More rethink as the default going forward.
Again hopefully the success of Zelda and Mario show that a traditional first player experience can work.
I don't think anything Nintendo does has any affect of the video game industry. They're in their own bubble.
Maybe EA (and presumably soon Activision) marginalizing singleplayer experiences on the PS4 and X1 will lead to users expecting less and less of that kind of experience on their platforms, leading to market shrinkage for singleplayer stories. Meanwhile, they keep thriving on Nintendo systems, so maybe Nintendo will begin to attract developers and publishers who want to put out quality singleplayer stories, which may otherwise have been PS4/X1 fodder, because the sales potential on those systems has decreased, but on Nintendo it has only increased?
Alvin Flummux wrote:Maybe EA (and presumably soon Activision) marginalizing singleplayer experiences on the PS4 and X1 will lead to users expecting less and less of that kind of experience on their platforms, leading to market shrinkage for singleplayer stories. Meanwhile, they keep thriving on Nintendo systems, so maybe Nintendo will begin to attract developers and publishers who want to put out quality singleplayer stories, which may otherwise have been PS4/X1 fodder, because the sales potential on those systems has decreased, but on Nintendo it has only increased?
It's a nice idea but Nintendo will do something to strawberry float it up.
The answer to the question is no. There are still plenty of great single player experiences out there. The doom mongers on here who keep bleating on about the death of games are getting seriously boring now.
Buffalo wrote:The answer to the question is no. There are still plenty of great single player experiences out there. The doom mongers on here who keep bleating on about the death of games are getting seriously boring now.
Yes there are plenty of great single player experiences out there, but the discussion isn't about the industry as a whole or "the death of games". The discussion is about the AAA side of industry and many of its key players seemingly more reluctant to fund engaging, single player experiences as the industry moves forward. Thought that was pretty clear.
Alvin Flummux wrote:Maybe EA (and presumably soon Activision) marginalizing singleplayer experiences on the PS4 and X1 will lead to users expecting less and less of that kind of experience on their platforms, leading to market shrinkage for singleplayer stories. Meanwhile, they keep thriving on Nintendo systems, so maybe Nintendo will begin to attract developers and publishers who want to put out quality singleplayer stories, which may otherwise have been PS4/X1 fodder, because the sales potential on those systems has decreased, but on Nintendo it has only increased?
It's a nice idea but Nintendo will do something to strawberry float it up.
Singleplayer games may only have to sell well on Switch for EA/Activision to change their tune, honestly. Nintendo doesn't need to do anything to strawberry float it up, when sales success itself could be the death knell of this posited third party golden age.
Or maybe EA and Activision would see how well things are going for singleplayer games on Nintendo's platform, and decide that they could support that system with singleplayer games as well, as they'd be a surer bet than on the other two platforms. You may then see a resurrection of several currently-dead IPs on Nintendo systems, starting with remakes/updates of the originals to gauge market interest.
Lotus wrote:In the same way that 'money talks' in terms of the decisions publishers make, money also talks in response, as it's our (the consumer's) best way of showing what we like or dislike.
The problem I have with the "vote with your wallet" argument is that there is no way for that number to be noticed; you cannot register an anti-sale in anything other than an oblique way through buying something second hand (denying the publisher any money whatsoever while still accessing the content) or piracy (playing the game without paying any money at all). The problem also is that you not buying something is the same as lots of people who don't like/don't care about games not buying it either, its not a verifiable number.
