EA Games President, Frank Gibeau recently spoke to CNET and revealed two essential “jobs” that he believes his label needs to do. The first is keeping quality “talent” like artists and developers at the helm of projects. The second job is for EA Games to “move to an online model as fast as [it] possibly can.” Gibeau elaborates his point by pointing out games like Spore and new business models.
If you look at our customers' behavior patterns, you're seeing them engaging with fully connected experiences. And I think we have IPs and ideas and expertise that can really allow us to do that. I think Spore is a connected experience. I think Battlefield is, and Warhammer. These can be very lucrative for us, and they can be very exciting from a developer standpoint, because you're moving from a fire-and-forget model to more of a service model, where you launch the game but you're thinking 24-7 about when's my first content pack, what's happening with telemetry, how are people playing the game, and how do I make their experiences better?
Making experiences better has not traditionally been EA’s cup of tea. Until the recent acquisition of decent developers like BioWare and Pandemic, the company was notorious for it’s rapid-fire garbage assaulting our store shelves. Gibeau finishes the talk by saying that he is no longer interested in single-player games, and actively looks for a multiplayer component in any game he greenlights. Of course, he’s right. Who plays single-player games anymore?
[via Develop]
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Contest:
9:59 AM on 08.18.2008
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Very rarely do I ever purchase (let alone enjoy) multiplayer-exclusive titles. The only one in recent memory was TF2 for PC, but even that I had already purchased in the Orange Box (on 360) for the rest of that content. I only bought the PC version for the updates. Before that was UT2004, but I skipped UT3. So... yeah. Speaks for itself, really.
Playing online is fun, no doubt about it, but fuck all if there's no single player.
Why are these business people so short-sighted? Do they not understand that there simply isn't enough room for them all to start going multiplayer? There's always been just a few games the majority play, leaving the rest to languish with a couple of servers comprised mostly of tumbleweed.
I think you might see what is talking about manifest in something like "Mass Effect 2" - significant content updates delivered via the intertubes.
With "Dead Space" and "Mirror's Edge" on the horizon I doubt EA is going to completely jump onto the Games as Services© bandwagon.
This shows what can happen when you miss one little word out of a quotation. In the article, what Gibeau actually says is:
"I'm just not interested in single-player-only experiences anymore."
....which means he isn't proposing to throw out single-player at all! He's talking about how to augment the overall gaming experience. And you guys are complaining about that. (Just sayin')
So, I dunno if this is really worthy of our attention, because I'm fairly sure there isn't a single developer in the world right now who is against the idea of using some kind of online component in a console game - it's here to stay. Online can mean new map packs, new missions...it can also mean multiplayer - but the presence of an online element doesn't necessarily mean anything for single player so let's chill out a bit, eh?
Plenty of game developers can look to add multiplayer components to games, but it's only when the games are founded on that aspect that are they any fun. As an afterthought it's just a loss.
I'd look forward even more to those who set out to make a definitive single player experience.