Gamasutra has an interview up with Valve project manager Erik Johnson, and in it, he talks about how single-player experiences aren’t going away so long as people want to play “without the stress” that comes with multiplayer. Nothing new per se, but he did mention something I found interesting.
“I think customers want to find ways to talk about the thing that they are a big fan of with other people, and ideally experience it the same way. That doesn’t mean every game needs to be multiplayer,” he continues. “With single-player games that were completely in a box, and there was no way to experience anything else, I think there are things that customers want that those games don’t take advantage of.”
“That could just mean that you want to be able to chat with other people who are playing through the same part of the game as you, or the fans can write commentary nodes in the game and everyone can experience those to take advantage of the fact that there is a huge community of people that want to interact with each other.”
In my mind, the go-to example for what he’s referring to has to be Demon’s Souls. You would like more of that, yes? Personally, anything that can bridge the gap between on- and offline play is a welcome addition.
Valve: Single-Player Experiences Not Going Away [Gamasutra]
