Amy Hennig talks about the future of singleplayer games and the challenges they face

2San said:

You can't really use exclusives as an example. As 1st parties accept a lower profit margin as it sells the platform as a whole.

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I dunno. I'm positively drowned in single player games year in and year out. Granted I do play on two platforms.

The few GaaS games out there simply get the headlines because they're new and scary. TLOU2 will sell 15 million copies but it won't get headlines for Drake playing it or for setting Twitch records or for non-gamers name-dropping it.

I used to scoff at the notion of game subscription services but if it allows for more traditional single-player games with high production values, I might be down for it. It would be nice to see the big publishers start making AA games again.

Idk if I'm in the minority, but the subscription based model always seems like a bad idea to me. Especially with data caps and how bad internet speeds are in some places.

BradleyLove said:

In addition at lot of pubs have lost focus of why they got into this business to begin with. Way back when it was all about producing the best possible game, and the better the game the better the sales.

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I've been playing videogames for maybe 30 years now and I don't remember a time where (most) game publishers got into the business to make the best possible game, nor was there a time where the best possible game got the most sales. This doesn't seem true for any entertainment industry.

Wagram said:

No ones saying you need to be 8 to 10, but do you need to be 40-90 hours?

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So here's the scenario:
You make a game that takes 25 hours to beat, and it's not a Mass Effect style thing where you could conceivably want to beat it multiple times in different ways. You have two options that I can see for selling it:
1) Up the production value. This is what Sony's first party studios do. Their games are always graphical showcases, they are fully voiced, etc...
2) Cut back. This is the old AA space.

In option one, if you're not a first party studio (where sales are a backdoor to selling the platform and don't necessarily have to be as profitable on their own), you're gonna need some GaaS elements. DLC, cosmetics, expansions, whatever. But you're just not going to sell enough launch copies to cover that increased production budget.

In option two, your budget is more manageable. You could avoid the GaaS stuff. But if your game fails to catch on, it's super toast. You'll have no revenue coming in after a month. To say that's risky is putting it mildly. Also, remember the game you made; in this option, you're trying to sell people an experience they'll be done with in a week, and it won't have the production value that other games have next to it.

This style of game needs a new delivery system. If you're only using brick and mortar, "here's the sticker price, take it or leave it" distribution, you'll have a tough time selling this kind of game.

Part of me wishes AAA game companies didn't go all in on online this, games as a service that.

You can still have single player games with DLC here and there just add drop in and out co-op. Dying Light is a good example of this, you could play the ENTIRE campaign solo, but if you have a friend it's even more fun to explore and loot. You only grind to get better perks and skills, you loot for crafting items to repair weapons and find better ones out in the wild. Destiny 1 came SO CLOSE to being this, but over time it became an online shooter with raids, shallow worlds, and limited reasons to loot unless you really like raiding and pvp.

Honestly, I expected Fallout 76 to adopt this concept, but they too are chasing the online survival train. Anthem is looking promising, but it's EA... I can't even get excited for Destiny 2: Forsaken. Dying Light 2's announcement along with Spiderman made me happy there there's still something to look forward too.

As someone who plays only sp games, i am really looking forward to smaller budget AA games by major publishers. With a frequent dose of Sony AAAs and your usual final fantasy, kingdom hearts and assassins creeds. I think we need to go back to drawing board, make risky and new sp experiences with smaller budget to see what works. Only then we will be able to see innovation coz most of recent sp games are plagued with your usual open world formula. Games like NieR Automata, yakuza 0, persona 5, have been my favourite in last few years coz of that same reason.

litebrite said:

EA is too big to invest in making a bunch of mid tier budgeted titles and catering to niche audiences.

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Square Enix and Ubisoft manage to do it just fine. Heck, even Activision does it by teaming up with From Software and Platinum. EA has EA Access right? All the more reason to expand their portfolio to broaden their offerings. They are going to be in for a rude awakening if legislation is introduced in the EU blocking lootboxes. Bye bye Fifa Ultimate Team money lol

Something that I think is going to be very important for single player games is a publisher recognizing when when they don't have a game on their hands that is going to sell immensely well, and provide a platform for big DLC additions, and then design the scope of the game accordingly. Bethesda has been kinda bad about this. You've got the obvious "this is a revenue stream" games with Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but then there is stuff like Wolfenstein II, Dishonored 2, and Prey which all had a lot of bloated, unnecessary components. Especially in the case of Wolf II, so much of it seems to exist to justify an initial price tag that the game isn't even going to hold (it was $25 three weeks after launch... not sure how a publisher can be that oblivious to Black Friday), and then hope people spend even more money on expansion episodes that nobody really cares about. End result, they took something that should have just been a more focused game, tried to turn it into a revenue stream, and it drastically under performed. Meanwhile Doom seems to have done well by just being what it should have been, and relying on the rune system and top notch combat mechanics for replay value.

Even in some recent games that I hold in very high regard, like God of War which I am currently playing through, some of the stuff seems bolted on and unnecessary. It makes me wonder if it makes it easier for somebody who is about ten years younger and doesn't have the same history with these franchises to think "damn, I don't have time for this stuff, gonna hop back on Fortnite." Giving people reasons to gradually tune out from your game isn't gonna help in the long run.

This reminded me of the recent interview about Deus Ex and turning it into a 3-4 hour experience.

I wish big devs would stop trying to turn single player games into one-and-done movies or GTA clones. There are other ideas to try still.

There's no reason to treat SP different than MP. Both can offer bite-size replayable experiences.

Indies are doing it with things like roguelikes. Hitman did it with episodes and now Hitman is getting a sequel.

Dead Space could be an atmospheric loot-based roguelite, more or less like Dark Souls.
I think Mass Effect could work with X-Com-style objective missions. You're still the 'commander' and can make decisions between scenarios.
Deus Ex is a perfect fit for the Hitman model. Each episode is a new hub world for you talk, stealth, or shoot your way through.

Just those ideas offer way more replayability than what exists and are much easier to GAAS.

When I heard of FF7 RE was sold by chapters, I was disappointed.

We need more games like DQ11/GOW...

Single player games are still in high demand, they're just not wanted by companies like EA because they can't sell Lootboxes or MTX in them. That is reality, and no amount of lying will change that fact.

Really don't like the idea of a subscription service. I want these games to be released and ownable. Instead, improve the tools and development cycle and scale back a bit on the production values of these games. Id rather have late PS3 - launch PS4 looking single player games than none at all.

everyer said:

When I heard of FF7 RE was sold by chapters, I was disappointed.

We need more games like DQ11/GOW...

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It's not "chapters", but multiple full-sized games, probably with two years or so between the games. Basically like the FFXIII or Mass Effect trilogy.

I wish more developers would shoot for the Hellblade type of smaller experience.

I confess to a little confusion re: the stickiness of the ~$60 price point. Why can't games that demand huge investments on the developer side, and therefore huge financial risks, simply be sold for more money? Personally, I would pay significantly more for a long, lavish single-player game, and feel totally fine with it - after all, I'm choosing to pay for something that requires a lot more investment of blood, sweat, and money on the developer's side than did similar games of yesteryear. That sounds a lot more appealing to me than subscribing to an ongoing story that stands a good chance of simply being canceled outright, like a network TV series, if the initial entry underperforms.

Long single-player games would still be pretty damn cheap on a per-hour basis, as compared with other for-pay leisure activities, if they cost $100. And players who can't/won't pay that sum for a game can simply buy "AA" games with lower production values.

I mean, as someone who much prefers single-player narrative games, and preferably long single-player narrative games, I'll take what I can get from the industry, but it's a little frustrating that gamers seem to be so stubborn about the price point when games have become so much more elaborate and expensive to make. A modern AAA RPG bears about as much resemblance to the voiceless top-down RPGs I played as a kid as a Tesla sedan does to a horse, but somehow it's still sold for about the same price (or maybe even less, in terms of effective dollars?).

obeast said:

I confess to a little confusion re: the stickiness of the ~$60 price point. Why can't games that demand huge investments on the developer side, and therefore huge financial risks, simply be sold for more money? Personally, I would pay significantly more for a long, lavish single-player game, and feel totally fine with it - after all, I'm choosing to pay for something that requires a lot more investment of blood, sweat, and money on the developer's side than did similar games of yesteryear. That sounds a lot more appealing to me than subscribing to an ongoing story that stands a good chance of simply being canceled outright, like a network TV series, if the initial entry underperforms.

Long single-player games would still be pretty damn cheap on a per-hour basis, as compared with other for-pay leisure activities, if they cost $100. And players who can't/won't pay that sum for a game can simply buy "AA" games with lower production values.

I mean, as someone who much prefers single-player narrative games, and preferably long single-player narrative games, I'll take what I can get from the industry, but it's a little frustrating that gamers seem to be so stubborn about the price point when games have become so much more elaborate and expensive to make. A modern AAA RPG bears about as much resemblance to the voiceless top-down RPGs I played as a kid as a Tesla sedan does to a horse, but somehow it's still sold for about the same price (or maybe even less, in terms of effective dollars?).

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Because the market wouldn't accept it. Sticker shock is a huge issue for most people, even if they'll willing spend the same or more over a period of time (via DLC, etc). You may be willing to pay $100 for the base of a longer AAA experience, but it'd get eaten alive by the rest of the games on the market. The market is expecting these longer games at the current price point. They don't view longer games as being worth more than $60, they view shorter games as being worth less than that.

Physical retail is really holding this industry back in some unfortunate ways. I can't wait till next gen.

I was actually thinking of making a topic on this very thing a few days ago.

The audience for single-player linear games on average (not just the break-out hits) is about the same as ever, they grow at a slow rate as new people coming into games mainly go into multiplayer titles like Fortnight, PUBG, League, Overwatch, etc. Single-Player grows a lot slower, but the problem is the cost of making these games to an industry standard has escalated in price insanely in the last 10 years. Remedy and a few other studios commented on this previously, making a single-player AAA game now is 2-3x more expensive than it was 10 years ago, and the actual audience and performance for these games haven't increased by a whole lot to make up for the inflated cost of these games, and the actual price these are sold at has remained the same.

Then add to this that most people don't actually complete single player games, the number of people who complete these games are sadly low, like most people who see an ending of a single player game are only about 10-20% of the people who play the game usually, and not just bad single-player games, even the really good ones.

I think her two suggestions are quite good, making shorter single-player games at a cheaper pricepoint is one thing I think these will head towards, both as players right now aren't finishing single-player games and their bloated cost to make, so focusing on shorter experiences frankly is what will probably occur in the near future as the market has spoken, and this is apparently the direction it wants to move in if you aren't some big open world/multiplayer game. Some individual people may not like this at all, but frankly if the previous size of single-player games are getting too expensive to be able to hold its own, and most people aren't actually finishing these games, all signs point towards shorter experiences.

And I do think a game subscription service is on the horizon as well to support these shorter games as well, I think one will happen before the other, but I get the feeling such a service is almost a certainty at this point somewhere in the future. I don't think we're QUITE there yet, some other technologies need to advance for this to be a viable thing, but I am almost certain it'll occur somewhere in the future.

The only reason I don't finish large single player games is because I am falling behind in the bigger multiplayer games.

So that tells me I put more importance on those type of games (Destiny or it's clones Anthem, Division types) over single player games. You want to be on even footing with your friends. When they are raiding and you can't because you're under geared because you went to play a SP game, it's a crappy feeling.

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't given Amy a job. They need first party and she's got the experience.

Parenegade said:

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't given Amy a job. They need first party and she's got the experience.

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I reckon her new indie studio will work with Sony. They are still close and on great terms.

Synth said:

Because the market wouldn't accept it. Sticker shock is a huge issue for most people, even if they'll willing spend the same or more over a period of time (via DLC, etc). You may be willing to pay $100 for the base of a longer AAA experience, but it'd get eaten alive by the rest of the games on the market. The market is expecting these longer games at the current price point. They don't view longer games as being worth more than $60, they view shorter games as being worth less than that.

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You're right, of course - my post was more of a whine than anything else. The market sets the price, and I'm sure if developers could get away with charging more directly (as opposed to indirectly via "packs," DLC, etc.) they'd do so. I just feel like there's got to be a way get the prices drifting in such a way that they start to correlate more with the investment / financial risk assumed by the studios in producing each game. At best, though, it'd have to be a slow process.

Servbot24 said:

I dunno. I'm positively drowned in single player games year in and year out. Granted I do play on two platforms.

The few GaaS games out there simply get the headlines because they're new and scary. TLOU2 will sell 15 million copies but it won't get headlines for Drake playing it or for setting Twitch records or for non-gamers name-dropping it.

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ND games are examples of GaaS.

Crossing Eden said:

ND games are examples of GaaS.

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If you expand the definition to ND games, "GaaS" loses any relevant meaning.

I really hope Xbox Gamepass leads to more things like Hitman 2016. Getting smaller chunks of quality work every few months is a good way for a game to remain fresh from start to finish. Too often with SP games I'm burned out on the gameplay loop before the game is over.

It also allows for smaller groups to focus on a more realistic scale and deliver products with higher production values. I'd love to see MS have four "Game Pass" franchises where maybe 2 of the 4 release something each month (all 4 would get 6 total releases in a year). I was wondering if this was what Compulsion and Ninja Theory were being brought in the fold for....

Subscriptions can change the game for both MP and SP games, and I look forward to seeing what comes of it.

I don't understand this obsession with high risk/high reward single player games. Hellblade is a great example of a compelling single player game made on a lower budget. It can absolutely be done. If studios can't afford to keep raising people's expectations, stop doing it. Go back to the PS2 model: we had our Gods of War, but we also had stuff like Darkwatch and Blood Rayne and Manhunt.

The only reason people buy AAA games over B games is because of the economy: people are buying fewer games. Publishers need to spend less money when creating games, but they also need to save enough that they can sell them for less. People are still thirsty for content, just not at the typical day one prices anymore.

Servbot24 said:

If you expand the definition to ND games, "GaaS" loses any relevant meaning.

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You cannot be serious.....:

Crossing Eden said:

You cannot be serious.....:

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I think when people talk about TLOU it's assumed they're talking about single player, and are largely buying the game for the single player. Personally I've never even opened the multiplayer option in an ND game and forgot it even existed. I don't think the game can be defined as GaaS because a side mode has some hats.

Servbot24 said:

I think when people talk about TLOU it's assumed they're talking about single player, and are largely buying the game for the single player. Personally I've never even opened the multiplayer option in an ND game and forgot it even existed. I don't think the game can be defined as GaaS because a side mode has some hats.

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GaaS means that the title keeps getting supported with the aim of making more revenue, ND's output are the EXACT type of GaaS that gets under the skin of Era whenever a thread title's title includes the phrase Games As A Service. You got lootboxes, an incredibly grindy lvl system designed to encourage you to spend money on shortcuts, multiple currencies, basically everything that results in whales spending a shit ton of money on the game. You can absolutely bet that TLOU2 will likely be just like Uncharted 4 when it comes to the monetization of their MP, so like I said, ND's games are GaaS. That term doesn't just apply to "games I don't like." It's quite a common trend in the industry because it's very very profitable.

Servbot24 said:

I think when people talk about TLOU it's assumed they're talking about single player, and are largely buying the game for the single player. Personally I've never even opened the multiplayer option in an ND game and forgot it even existed. I don't think the game can be defined as GaaS because a side mode has some hats.

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I think this sort of the problem with trying to tie everything under a single umbrella term; everything in those pictures are pretty standard GaaS elements (lootboxes, multiple currencies, multiple multiplayer patches etc.). So just because enthusiasts may feel that it's not the core (make no mistake; multiplayer for UC is still a considerable amount of players bringing a considerable amount of money, even if you apply basic mobile game metrics to the audience, which is most likely under-estimating it) or they haven't used those elements, to me doesn't make it any less of a clear GaaS title, they've just broken off that part of the game separate from the SP experience. Sure, it's not exactly like AC: Origins GaaS, where most of it's in singleplayer only, but the elements are very similar.

I agree with her that the traditional ways aren't suitable anymore, we can't keep increasing the production value of video games and expect to make as much money back. That's just silly. Singleplayer isn't dying, but expensive AAA singleplayer is.

I think more western AAA developers should follow the AA path that the Japanese has been doing for decades, games like Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, NieR:Automata, Yakuza are all great examples.

Do we really need advanced motion capped character model & animation like this to fully enjoy the experience? Sure they are really nice, but are they worth the increased budget and extra development time? (by extra I mean extra YEARS)



Do we really need all this production value? It's great yes but do games really need it? Japanese AA games certainly doesn't look nearly as good as the western AAA ones, but they aren't any worse at gameplay or storytelling, in fact many would argue they are better.




I don't see people saying ''Ah I wish Monster Hunter World looked as good as Horizon Zero Dawn, It would've made the game so much more enjoyable!''

I don't really think production value affects the overall enjoyment all that much, I don't even think it affects the sales or marketing. Both Monster Hunter World and Zelda BOTW sold more than 8 million copies world wide, and these two certainly don't have that western AAA production value and expensive mocapped cutscenes.

Twilight Suzuka said:

If Dark Souls, Nioh and Sekiro are mid-tier, mid-tier really isn't so bad.

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Basically this.

Fuck the ''High-tier'' if that means we have to accept a bunch of predatory practices and subscription shit. Those expensive motion captures and cutting edge graphics aren't worth it.

Mid-tier games still profit even when they bombed, Prey and Dishonored 2 both bombed pretty hard but financially they still did okay. I actually wish we have more western games like this.

Nirolak said:

How do we keep on making games like this when they're getting prohibitively expensive? We don't want to break the single-player experience, but there's pressure to provide more and more at the same price point games have always been.

That isn't sustainable, I believe. I think it breaks the purpose of a single-player game. I was saying to some people here, I play games because I want to finish them. I want to see the story. I like the arc of a story. I don't see the ends of most games. How crazy is it that we say it's about narrative, but we make games where a fraction of the audience sees the end of the game? That's heartbreaking.

I hope that we see more shakeup in the industry. We'll open up the portfolios — maybe with a subscription model — so we can see that there can be story games that are four hours long at an appropriate price point.

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I've been feeling this for years. Most narrative-based games are bloated as hell, and most players don't see the endings as a result.

LucasArts adventure games felt like the perfect length. Never timed my playthroughs, but I would guess they were 5-10 hours on average.

Servbot24 said:

If you expand the definition to ND games, "GaaS" loses any relevant meaning.

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Naughty Dog's recent games are GaaS as hell, their games are very expensive to make and they need to make as much money back as possible via ongoing microtransaction and online multiplayer, that is the very definition of GaaS.

TLoU 2 will feature a multiplayer and will have microtransaction as well, for the exact same reason.

MotionBlue said:

Single player games are still in high demand, they're just not wanted by companies like EA because they can't sell Lootboxes or MTX in them. That is reality, and no amount of lying will change that fact.

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This.

Blade Wolf said:

Naughty Dog's recent games are GaaS as hell, their games are very expensive to make and they need to make as much money back as possible via ongoing microtransaction and online multiplayer, that is the very definition of GaaS.

TLoU 2 will feature a multiplayer and will have microtransaction as well, for the exact same reason.

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I don't think microtransactions = GaaS though. Gran Turismo Sport as an example doesn't even have microtransactions (that I know of) and it's clearly within GaaS.

Synth said:

Even if you look at it like that, you're still effectively playing to finish the game, but swapping narrative motivation for gameplay motivation.

"At least play until you get to the part where..." instead becomes "At least play to that part where your character gets...".

If you quite Super Mario Galaxy part way through, you lose just as much in terms of seeing the mechanics unravel as you would the narrative of a story-driven game. In both cases you're not really playing them to "finish" them in the strictest sense, but finishing it means that you saw all it had to offer of what you were enjoying.

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I understand what you are saying, but my point seems to be not clear.

There are plenty of reasons why people finish or not finish games. Using story as a driver to finish games, when most are subpar, is not the smartest way.

If you are using game mechanics as a driver to finish games, and your game mechanics are subpar, then of course you may not finish the game and try to drive your game with a story instead, or graphics, or music. If you don't finish the game, then no big deal - you have had fun along the way, and the narrative is insequential. The game designer may still like you to finish the game, so that you could appreciate the full gameplay arc as well.

However, Amy's disappointment for not finishing a game was not knowing the complete narrative - not completing the story. These are games. If it was rephrased as a disappointment to not seeing the story arc and gameplay arc, then that would be different. But that dissatisfaction is rare.

Games have existed in video and non-video forms. A player of Chess, for example, does not need to know all game mechanics in order to enjoy the game. Just the pleasure of playing should be enough. The game of chess (2 player) is a naturally replayable game. Multi-player games are also replayable games. There are single-player games that are also replayable.

Sories do not replay well because by their very nature, they are linear. Of course, if you enjoy the story, then you can replay that many times or have a game with multiple story arcs, and reply those. So now you are watching stories. The game is what then?

Servbot24 said:

I don't think microtransactions = GaaS though. Gran Turismo Sport as an example doesn't even have microtransactions (that I know of) and it's clearly within GaaS.

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Again to reiterate, GaaS means ongoing support for a title, different devs have different ways of achieving this, Fortnite has no lootboxes while Uncharted 4 & Overwatch do. But all three are GaaS.

Crossing Eden said:

Again to reiterate, GaaS means ongoing support for a title, different devs have different ways of achieving this, Fortnite has no lootboxes while Uncharted 4 & Overwatch do. But all three are GaaS.

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If that's what it mean then I don't think it's a meaningful term at all. Basically every game that ever comes out gets some kind of post-launch support.

To me there is an understanding with the term GaaS that it means Fortnite, PUBG, Destiny, etc. The core of the game hinges on being an ongoing service rather than a completed work that gets updated once in a while.

BradleyLove said:

But how many multiplayer/service games fail? There simply isn't room for more than a few heavy hitters. I genuinely believe if things continue as is, we'll have another video game crash—there's not enough players to support so many online titles.

In addition at lot of pubs have lost focus of why they got into this business to begin with. Way back when it was all about producing the best possible game, and the better the game the better the sales. So the focus was to make the best game. Nowadays the focus is monetisation—how can we get more and more money from our customers? Good sales (hence making money) was a consequence of quality, yet now money is the single factor.

Yet despite the continual failure of hundreds of service games, pubs are still chasing this model yet are afraid of SP titles.

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This my take on the situation also. They are all chasing the money and the focus is not on quality anymore. It's all about how to minimize cost while maximizing your profits. It's really not the direction i would like the industry to take. However it's also a revenue stream that I recognize as a company they can't ignore. I just don't think there is enough players for all these GAAS games and they will start to canibalize themselves.

Crossing Eden said:

Again to reiterate, GaaS means ongoing support for a title, different devs have different ways of achieving this, Fortnite has no lootboxes while Uncharted 4 & Overwatch do. But all three are GaaS.

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Not sure I would put UC4 in that category. It's a single player game first with mp.

nycgamer4ever said:

Not sure I would put UC4 in that category. It's a single player game first with mp.

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Read above. Uncharted 4 is honestly the most "typical" type of GaaS.

Servbot24 said:

If that's what it mean then I don't think it's a meaningful term at all. Basically every game that ever comes out gets some kind of post-launch support.

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You just typed out the reason why the fear of GaaS taking over gaming is completely irrational. And no, not every release gets post launch support.

To me there is an understanding with the term GaaS that it means Fortnite, PUBG, Destiny, etc. The core of the game hinges on being an ongoing service rather than a completed work that gets updated once in a while.

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Yea no that's not how it works. You basically typed out the fearmongering Youtuber definition of it, not how it's used by devs.

Fuck subscription based single player. Call me old, but I'll never pay for it. Give me all the DLC expansions you want but I'll never pay a monthly fee.