Game Informer - Long Live Single Player

[Silver]

Remember when the death of single player was predicted? Game Informer has an article on trend driven development cycles.

At 2011's European Game Developers Conference, industry veteran Mark Cerny rattled gamers' cages when he told a room full of journalists he believes "the traditional single-player game experience will be gone in three years. Right now you sit in your living room and you're playing a game by yourself - we call it the sp mission or the single-player campaign. In a world with Facebook, I just don't think that's going to last."

Cerny's prediction placed single-player gaming's death at the end of 2014. These comments were said at a time when a good majority of developers were going out of their way to include multiplayer components into games. Even the strongest of the narrative driven adventure series (like BioShock, Singularity, Batman: Arkham, The Chronicles of Riddick, and Uncharted) invested significant development resources into multiplayer integration.

[...]

Not everyone was bearish on single player at the time. Bethesda Softworks largely ignored the industry’s trends and instead focused on making quality single-player experiences like the internally developed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – an adventure players can sink hundreds of hours into – and Arkane Studios’ Dishonored, an exceptional stealth adventure. Both games, which only offered single-player content, were critically acclaimed and sold well.

More information.

 

[henriquejr]

Mr. Cerny dared to say this feature would be gone in three years, and I am very glad his <ahem> 'prediction' wasn't fulfilled. There is room, a large room I'd say, for single-player experience and I'm happily sitting on this room
Three years is a very short span of time to decree the end (or beggining) of something.

 

[azarhal]

One developer, who wishes to remain nameless in this article, says it felt like his team was assimilated by the Borg.

I'm not sure if I want to cry or laugh....

What happens is gamers [say] ‘I’ll rent it, or I’ll buy it used.’ You don’t want gamers to date your game; you want them to marry your game. The more positive reinforcement you can use to do that, the better. Everybody in the industry is trying to figure out what to do to mitigate used game sales.”

Seems to me that the solution is to stop making console games (or move to digital only on all platforms) and, you know, make good games with staying power instead of cash-grab turds. Not put MP everywhere or follow the design of last month most selling game.

 

[Hastar]

Isn't Skyrim one of the best selling games of all time. Maybe the guy making the prediction should have kept his mouth shut until 11-11-11.

 

[crpgnut]

It might be the best selling single-player game of all time. It doesn't come close to Call of Duty and some others I'm not sure what we would consider games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds, but I bet Skyrim doesn't match some of those figures either.

 

[azarhal]

Isn't Skyrim one of the best selling games of all time. Maybe the guy making the prediction should have kept his mouth shut until 11-11-11.

Technically, it released before the deadline set for the death of SP games (Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3 are better examples). Also, the guy who made that comment was probably one of the people crying in Bethesda's forums to add MP to Skyim back in the days…

 

[sakichop]

It might be the best selling single-player game of all time. It doesn't come close to Call of Duty and some others I'm not sure what we would consider games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds, but I bet Skyrim doesn't match some of those figures either.

Nobody plays COD for single player and for the other 2 things you mentioned I think you missed the part where he said the word "games" after single player.

 

[Hyperion]

The trend I've been seeing on Steam is that more and more people want single player. Each time a new game is greenlit on Steam or a new EA release, I see more questions asking if there is single player than any other question. Sure there's enough that want MMO, but I think single player is more in demand lately than ever before. The reason, in my humble opinion is that MMO games are consistently ruined by griefers and cheaters. RUST pretty much cured me of ever wanting to play another MMO. GTA5 was nearly as bad, and after that I was done. I want single player or I'm not interested in the game, no matter how good it looks.

Anyway, we all already live in a giant MMO where we can't always avoid all the griefers and cheaters, so why the desire to reproduce that in a game? To be able to escape from that for a few hours is part of the appeal of gaming for me.

And I always cringe when so called 'experts' start making predictions. It's like the seemingly clueless experts who have predicted the end of the PC for gaming, and now sit around prognosticating about how big screen TVs and PCs are going away because everyone will do everything on their cell phone. Really? The entire family crowded around a 6" screen to enjoy a movie?

 

[screeg]

Shit, I remember idiots folks not so long ago predicting the death of turn-based.

"The only reason we ever had turn-based games is because the technology couldn't keep up with the action!"

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Mr. Cerny dared to say this feature would be gone in three years, and I am very glad his <ahem> 'prediction' wasn't fulfilled.

Was he the one who made LucasArts completely stop developing ANY traditional Adventure games ?

The trend I've been seeing on Steam is that more and more people want single player. Each time a new game is greenlit on Steam or a new EA release, I see more questions asking if there is single player than any other question.

Within the last 10 years, it was the opposite of that.

Nobody plays COD for single player and for the other 2 things you mentioned

Which is why I don't play it.

 

[forgottenlor]

Thank god for Skyrim. Whether you like it or not, it made all these corporate suits realize that there is a big market for single player only games.

 

[Terry]

I don't see the appeal to playing with random strangers of which way too many are pricks and Aholes. As well my friends have way too busy lives to all get together regularly.
So thankfully SP is here to stay.

 

[joxer]

It might be the best selling single-player game of all time.

Sorry but no.
At least on PC, that crown belongs to Sims.

Sure, I wouldn't be more happy if the #1 bestseller was RPG, even a buggy mess, but well.

 

[Hastar]

I use to love Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot. It seems like every MMO I have tried in the last 5+ years is shallow and filled with people that try and ruin your fun. I will also stick with single player and turn based games.

Let me see last few games I have played.
1. The Quest
2. Darkest Dungeon
3. Underrail
4. Wastleland 2
5. Eador Genesis

All great games and played the way where no one ruined my experience. Not even the wife yelling at me to walk the dogs

 

[sakichop]

Sorry but no.
At least on PC, that crown belongs to Sims.

Sure, I wouldn't be more happy if the #1 bestseller was RPG, even a buggy mess, but well.

Maybe Ubisoft will buy it and make sims 5. Apparently everything they make is an rpg.

 

[joxer]

Sims 5 is questionable because Sims 4 was a letdown, contentlacking, repetirive and fans didn't like it. Sims 4 compared to it's predecessor is like DA2 compared to DA:O.
No $, no investment in 5th installment. Oddly enough, EA still didn't close Maxis part responsible for Sims games, just Maxis studio that failed with SimCity.

However Paradox is working on life sim game so while it won't be EA's Sims, it could still become singleplayer bestseller eventually.

Forget Ubi. Their recent PR gem is that their whatchamacallit upcoming game will look the same on consoles and PC because they don't want consolelovers to feel "discriminated" somethng like that.
No it's not Watch Dogs 2 but as they're actually disabling possibilities on PC because consoles can't do stuff, they should put WD2 name on it.
If WB Games didn't screw up with two games last year, Ubi would remain the worst enemy of PC gaming.

 

[Arkadia7]

Same here, like others commented, I'm a single player pc gamer. In fact, if a game has a large multi-player focus or content, that is a huge red flag for me, and my interest disappears...Same with co-op games, which have become popular. If I'm browsing on steam and see terms like "multiplayer", "co-op", or "online game" in a games description, that means I skip by that game.

 

[rjshae]

The gaming industry does seem to get locked into trends, which often end up disaffecting substantial part of the player community. Will they ever learn from the experience?

 

[forgottenlor]

The gaming industry does seem to get locked into trends, which often end up disaffecting substantial part of the player community. Will they ever learn from the experience?

You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

 

[sakichop]

The gaming industry does seem to get locked into trends, which often end up disaffecting substantial part of the player community. Will they ever learn from the experience?

Maybe a substantial part of the Rpgwatch player community. I think it's pretty obvious that multiplayer in some form is the thing now especially for younger gamers.

Steam top ten game by current players right now all have some form of multiplayer and 1/2 are only multiplayer I believe.

The top 2 games are MP only and they have more player than 3-10 combined.

I prefer single player, enjoy dabbling in co-op on occasion but have never found a multiplayer only or MMO that I've cared to play.

The gaming companies have learned exactly what the majority want just not what we at the watch want.

Even though I have more games than I could ever play so I guess it doesn't currently matter.