That whole 'singleplayer games are dead' thing by EA in 2017 really was some nonsense huh

[Samiya]

So for those who remember, there was a whole discussion back in 2017 when EA closed down Visceral Studios (RIP) and cancelled the Uncharted Star Wars game and came out and said that singleplayer games were finished and such projects no longer justify the huge development costs of modern game development.

Since that time, their own published title Jedi Fallen Order - a singleplayer game with no multiplayer - is now the second-best selling game in the last 12 months behind Call of Duty. Meanwhile, Last of Us pt. 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake are all in the top 10 of the best selling games this year. And that's not mentioning the hits like God of War, Spiderman, Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil 2 Remake, DMC5, and tons of others that have done well the last couple of years.

And now with the launch of premium next-gen consoles with really expensive games coming out, two of the headliners are primarily singleplayer games (Demon's Souls and Miles Morales) and Ubisoft's AC: Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion are (at the moment) single-player affairs. And this season's highly anticipated (but also problematic) title is a singleplayer game as well (Cyberpunk 2077). That said, there is no doubt that multiplayer games are raking in the big money and GaaS are incredibly profitable if they are lucky enough to become dominating enough. Nevertheless, it should be evident that some of the top-grossing titles, at least in terms of unit sales, are singleplayer games. But funny enough, EA made the same statement back in 2010 so it seems like they don't learn their lesson and I wonder if Jedi Fallen Order's sales will have changed their minds. (I guess they've been greenlighting Bioware's Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, so who knows).

 

[TheGhost]

There will always be room for single player games. But the most played games are multiplayer. It's where the money is beyond a year.

 

[Liam Allen-Miller]

I definitely think that around that time and in the years preceding it, the right person in the right room could make a convincing argument for it, and that's probably exactly what happened. Evidently many tremendously successfully games have I think shown otherwise over time, for sure.

 

[Oregano]

2017 was the year Breath of the Wild, Horizon, Persona 5, Nier Automata, Super Mario Odyssey and many other games came out.

We didn't need to wait to see that statement was stupid.

 

[BarringGaffner]

It's almost as if executives have no fucking clue what they are talking about and aren't ever responsible for a studios success.

 

[Xando]

EAs whole stick is basically running on yearly sports games being bigger and bigger every year.

Outside of Respawn (which falls down in large parts to vince imo) the management of their other studios has been extremely poor. If you look at the kind of output and success someone like Ubisoft has with their SP games EA stinks a whole lot like poor management.

If that ultimate team money ever falls away EA has a massive problem

 

[Raigor]

3 years later and people ARE STILL not reading the actual quote.

They never said ALL SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, they SAID LINEAR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, and it was pretty much true.

The 8-10 linear games we were used to last gen are nowhere to be seen in the "AAA" industry and everything went Open World or Wide-Open with plenty of hours of content.

 

[reclaimerzzzzz]

I'm not entirely sure EA ever actually said that. Also, Visceral games' Star Wars title had a lot of development issues that had nothing to do with EA.

 

[Deleted member 63122]

Something that fell through the cracks as well was, when Phil Spencer said that Single player games weren't as impactful as multiplayer games in that same year as well.

 

[SpottieO]

I can't believe that single EA quote lives rent free in so many of y'all's heads

 

[Necron]

From the perspective of EA they'll always make a lot more money from multiplayer.

But yeah, that statement was always overblown. Their own Jedi Fallen Order proves as much. It's also a nice mix of Souls, Star Wars and Uncharted/Tomb Raider.

 

[Raigor]

The actual quote was specifically referring to linear single player games and the used Visceral Games titles as an example, but nope, EA said that all single-player games are dead.

 

[Deleted member 17207]

The actual quote was specifically referring to linear single player games and the used Visceral Games titles as an example, but nope, EA said that all single-player games are dead.

Click to shrink...

Which is weird considering Fallen Order came out like a year later or whatever.

With Fallen Order in mind, I have to imagine there was more going on with the Visceral game than "we cancelled it because single-player games won't make us money".

 

[Deleted member 2752]

That statement has been misrepresented for years now.

 

[Lord Vatek]

3 years later and people ARE STILL not reading the actual quote.

They never said ALL SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, they SAID LINEAR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, and it was pretty much true.

The 8-10 linear games we were used to last gen are nowhere to be seen in the "AAA" industry and everything went Open World or Wide-Open with plenty of hours of content.

Click to shrink...

One of the most popular games to come out this year was a linear RPG.

It's wrong either way.

 

[Goldenroad]

So for those who remember, there was a whole discussion back in 2017 when EA closed down Visceral Studios (RIP) and cancelled the Uncharted Star Wars game and came out and said that singleplayer games were finished and such projects no longer justify the huge development costs of modern game development.

Since that time, their own published title Jedi Fallen Order - a singleplayer game with no multiplayer - is now the second-best selling game in the last 12 months behind Call of Duty.

Click to shrink...

Two things. In the first article you posted, Andrew Wilson (CEO of EA) says in context: For his part, Wilson said the decision to close Visceral and pivot the studio's Star Wars game wasn't about the game needing to have a live service element. "It wasn't about, 'This was just a single-player game [and it] needed to be a live service.' It was more about, 'How do we get to a point where the overall gameplay experience was right for players,'" he explained earlier this month.


Regarding the second point though, with respects to Jedi FO being the 2nd biggest selling game behind COD...I don't think EA wants to have the 2nd best selling game. I think, due to the size of that company, they want to have the best selling game, and I'm not even sure you can get there without having some kind of multiplayer component.

If you look at the best selling games from 2010 to 2019, only two of them are Single Player only, and neither of them are "linear" single player games.

1. Grand Theft Auto V
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
4. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops III
6. Call Of Duty: Ghosts
7. Red Dead Redemption II
8. Call of Duty: WWII
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII
10. Minecraft
11. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
12. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019
13. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
14. Mario Kart 8
15. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
16. Battlefield 1
17. Battlefield 4
18. Destiny
19. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
20. Star Wars Battlefront 2015

So I can definitely understand the argument that to be THE best selling game of the year, you need to have some multiplayer component. The decade before (2000-2009) kind of tells the same story. (This is US only). Only two of these games, again, are single player only...and again, neither are linear single player games. For the last 20 years, not one linear single player game has made it in the top 20 best selling games.

1. Guitar Hero III Legends Of Rock
2. Wii Fit
3. Rock Band
4. Wii Play W/ Remote
5. Guitar Hero World Tour
6. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
7. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
8. Mario Kart Wii
9. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
10. Call Of Duty: World At War
11. Guitar Hero 2
12. Rock Band 2
13. Madden NFL 07
14. Halo 3
15. Madden NFL 08
16. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
17. Madden NFL 09
18. Halo 2
19. Grand Theft Auto IV
20. Madden NFL 06

There is no doubt that a single player game can break out and be a huge hit, but if you've only got a 10% chance of it being a TOP 20 selling game of the decade...that's still a hell of a gamble for a company the size of EA.

 

[rras1994]

3 years later and people ARE STILL not reading the actual quote.

They never said ALL SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, they SAID LINEAR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, and it was pretty much true.

The 8-10 linear games we were used to last gen are nowhere to be seen in the "AAA" industry and everything went Open World or Wide-Open with plenty of hours of content.

Click to shrink...

Exactly. And there's just less options compared to their used to be, a number of genres are just not as healthy as they used to be and I don't see the value in denying it? People on this forum complain about studio consolidation all the time but how do they think we got in this situation in the first place? The move to HD and higher graphics has led to a cost increase that obliterated AA gaming and has affected many genres. I'm hoping that the move to subscription services gives another financial avenue for these types of games to be more sustainable.

 

[Deleted member 63122]

Phil Spencer says single-player games like Horizon Zero Dawn don't have the same impact as before

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Phil Spencer said that games like Overwatch which recently crossed 30 million players have more of an impact in terms of sales than single-player experiences such as Horizon Zero Dawn which sold a fraction of that. This wasn’t the case a few years ago...

mspoweruser.com

 

[Raigor]

One of the most popular games to come out this year was a linear RPG.

It's wrong either way.

Click to shrink...

RPGs are a completely different affaire and EA always funded RPGs, the quote was referring to Visceral Games type of titles, the linear 8-10 hours single-player adventure games like Dead Space and Dante's Inferno etc...

Mass Effect 5 and Dragon Age 4 are happening and they are going to be SP first.

 

[No_Style]

Nowhere did they say single player games are dead.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson said it wasn't necessarily, but now EA CFO Blake Jorgensen has acknowledged that linear games are fading in popularity in the current market.

"As we kept reviewing the game, it continued to look like a much more linear game [which] people don't like as much today as they did five years ago or 10 years ago," Jorgensen said during the Credit Suisse Technology, Media & Telecom Conference this week (via DualShockers).

Click to shrink...

People need to learn to read. Even if you just read the Gamespot title, it doesn't say EA thought single player games are dead.

They didn't even try to retool Visceral's game to a live service game, it just wasn't working out:

For his part, Wilson said the decision to close Visceral and pivot the studio's Star Wars game wasn't about the game needing to have a live service element. "It wasn't about, 'This was just a single-player game [and it] needed to be a live service.' It was more about, 'How do we get to a point where the overall gameplay experience was right for players,'" he explained earlier this month.

Click to shrink...

 

[Fawz]

I think it was more a belief that the trend was going in the direction of:

• Make games easier to play by different offerings than the flat 60$
  • We see this with F2P, Game Pass and different bundles
• Focus on post-purchase engagement and monitization
  • We see this with Battle Passes, MTX, Game Editions, Premium Currency
• Leverage interaction with other players to boost game exposure and public interest
  • We see this with Cross-promotional content, timed events, streamer friendly, ect...
• Make games more of a service offering than a one-and-done purchase
  • Goes without saying that most big publishers are focused on levaraging stable income from having GAAS instead of sporadic big releases

In that they're not wrong, it's still the trend we're seeing games go towards and publishers push for. I think some things like GamePass have shaken things up and opend up more opportunities, but by and large they weren't wrong. It's just that all that can also be done with a Single Player focused title, it doesn't need to be Co-op or Multiplayer

 

[Mass_Pincup]

THEY SAID LINEAR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES.

How hard is it to read 3 years later?

 

[Deleted member 2752]

One of the most popular games to come out this year was a linear RPG.

It's wrong either way.

Click to shrink...

It's not if you look at the market as a whole. Linear single player games are a small (and shrinking) part of it.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

For everyone still parroting this line, EA clearly talked about linear single-player games. Instead, bad faith commentators like you twist these words, somehow bundle GoW, Zelda and AC into it, and then present a parody of the argument. These posts belong on reddit or youtube comments, where they get upvoted by morons who only want to bash EA regardless of the actual arguments or facts.

No, EA has not said that single-player is dead. EA specifically mentioned the shifting consumers' taste from the linear games where you just go forward to complete the story, to a much more varied games with open-levels/world and many more hours of entertainment than just the 6 hours campaign.

 

[zYuuKwn]

I mean, everyone gets this quote wrong. They specifically said about completelly linear single player games and they weren't wrong.

Of course there's still games launching with a totally linear single player experience. But it's totally not the norm anymore and even games that are in fact pretty linear have some open worldness in them.

 

[Ushojax]

The games that make the most money are multiplayer games, so EA weren't really wrong about that.

Just look at how GTA V is making grotesque money from multiplayer SEVEN years after it came out.

 

[jakomocha]

3 years later and people ARE STILL not reading the actual quote.

They never said ALL SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, they SAID LINEAR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, and it was pretty much true.

The 8-10 linear games we were used to last gen are nowhere to be seen in the "AAA" industry and everything went Open World or Wide-Open with plenty of hours of content.

Click to shrink...

I was gonna disagree with this, but I thought about it and it's not too far off the mark. The only linear (as in, once you leave an area you can't return back other than if you're replaying it) single player AAA games I can think of from this gen are Uncharted 4, Uncharted Lost Legacy, The Last of Us Part 2, Gears of War series, Halo 5, Until Dawn, and Detroit Become Human. Also idk if Crash Bandicoot counts as AAA but that too. I'm probably missing some though.

 

[Raigor]

For everyone still parroting this line, EA clearly talked about linear single-player games. Instead, bad faith commentators like you twist these words, somehow bundle GoW, Zelda and AC into it, and then present a parody of the argument. These posts belong on reddit or youtube comments, where they get upvoted by morons who only want to bash EA regardless of the actual arguments or facts.

No, EA has not said that single-player is dead. EA specifically mentioned the shifting consumers' taste from the linear games where you just go forward to complete the story, to a much more varied games with open-levels/world and many more hours of entertainment than just the 6 hours campaign.

Click to shrink...

Fucking thanks.

 

[MonadL]

I mean Uncharted-style linear AAA games are pretty much dead and buried so they were right on the money?

 

[Raigor]

I mean Uncharted-style linear AAA games are pretty much dead and buried so they were right on the money?

Click to shrink...

Amy Henning literally said that a game like Uncharted without a MP component would never happen in this day and age.



Uncharted 4 was a much bigger game with a MP mode attached, a bit different from Uncharted which was 8-10 hours one and done.

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune Wouldn’t Work Today According To Amy Hennig - Gameranx

Famed video game writer and director explains why game narratives are lacking today.

gameranx.com

I've said that I don't think a game like the first Uncharted, even though it was the foundational footprint for that series, would be a viable pitch today. The idea of a finite eight-ish-hour experience that has no second modes, no online — the only replayability was the fact that you could unlock cheats and stuff like that. No multiplayer, nothing. That doesn't fly anymore. Now you have to have a lot of hours of gameplay. Eight would never cut it. Usually some sort of online mode. And of course you see where things are pushing, toward live services and battle royale and games as a service.


All of those things — I don't know the word I'm looking for, but they play less nicely with story. They're less conducive to traditional storytelling. That has a shape and an arc and a destination, an end. A game that is a live service, that continues, does not.

Click to shrink...

And a lot of titles are proving her point.

 

[Deleted member 2752]

I was gonna disagree with this, but I thought about it and it's not too far off the mark. The only linear (as in, once you leave an area you can't return back other than if you're replaying it) single player AAA games I can think of from this gen are Uncharted 4, Uncharted Lost Legacy, The Last of Us Part 2, Gears of War series, Halo 5, Until Dawn, and Detroit Become Human. Also idk if Crash Bandicoot counts as AAA but that too. I'm definitely missing some though.

Click to shrink...

You can't even count Gears and Halo, a lot of people buy them for their multiplayer.

 

[Garlador]

I mean Uncharted-style linear AAA games are pretty much dead and buried so they were right on the money?

Click to shrink...

Is The Last of Us Part II not a linear AAA game?

 

[Nere]

More like EA games are dead, I can't even remember the last time an EA game interested me, that company really went downhill compared to last gen. Dead space was so fucking good.

 

[Shifty360]

Sony have shown with many games that this is nonsense, and they are making plenty of money.

EA are trash atm anyway, never seen someone ruin a franchise like Battlefield the way they have.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Phil Spencer says single-player games like Horizon Zero Dawn don't have the same impact as before

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Phil Spencer said that games like Overwatch which recently crossed 30 million players have more of an impact in terms of sales than single-player experiences such as Horizon Zero Dawn which sold a fraction of that. This wasn’t the case a few years ago...

mspoweruser.com

Click to shrink...

He's spot on IMO

"The audience for those big story-driven games…I won't say it isn't as large, but they're not as consistent. You'll have things like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Horizon Zero Dawn that'll come out, and they'll do really well, but they don't have the same impact that they used to have because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony's first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they're good at them, but outside of that, it's difficult–they've become more rare…It's a difficult business decision for those teams, you're fighting into more headwind. We've got to understand that if we enjoy those games, the business opportunity has to be there for them. I love story-based games. I just finished Thimbleweed Park…Inside was probably my game of last year. As an industry, I want to make sure both narrative-driven single-player games and service-based games have the opportunity to succeed. I think that's critical for us."

Click to shrink...

 

[Raigor]

Is The Last of Us Part II not a linear AAA game?

Click to shrink...

The Last of Us Part II is a wide linear AAA title with ton of content and a lot of hours of gameplay, it's completely different from the 8-10 hours linear experience.

And EA was talking about the latter.

 

[MonadL]

Is The Last of Us Part II not a linear AAA game?

Click to shrink...

How many of those do you see around these days?

 

[jakomocha]

You can't even count Gears and Halo, a lot of people buy them for their multiplayer.

Click to shrink...

That's very true.

I honestly can't think of any other AAA linear single player games from this gen other than the ones I already listed. Am I missing anything?

EDIT:
Oh the Resident Evil remakes are linear, right? And Doom, Dishonored, + Wolfenstein.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

This is the best thing to happen to the industry tbh

Very few games made good use of that 7-10 hr linear format

 

[Deleted member 63122]

He's spot on IMO

Click to shrink...

I really don´t think so, because now he´s scrambling to get studios that can make those types of experiences.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

I can't believe that single EA quote lives rent free in so many of y'all's heads

Click to shrink...

Yeah I mean it shouldn't surprise you
There are people here who would have a melt down if you mentioned Phil Fish in front of them in 2020

 

[rras1994]

How many of those do you see around these days?

Click to shrink...

And how many do you see funded outside of first party that don't have to pay platform cut? First party make their money by third party games being sold on their system, just because they can make a linear single player game unfortunately does not make it a sustainable genre at large :( maybe things will change with the shakeup of subscription services and streaming though

 

[ToddBonzalez]

3 years later and people ARE STILL not reading the actual quote.

They never said ALL SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, they SAID LINEAR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES are dead, and it was pretty much true.

The 8-10 linear games we were used to last gen are nowhere to be seen in the "AAA" industry and everything went Open World or Wide-Open with plenty of hours of content.

Click to shrink...

Yeah pretty much. The only devs still doing linear campaigns are working on series that have always had linear campaigns (CoD, Gears of War, Naughty Dog's series, etc.) Jedi Fallen Order is the only non-sequel I can think of that is linear-ish.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

Just EA whining that they couldn't manage to put a special one together, I feel.

Hopefully between other publishers' sales numbers and their own success with Jedi Fallen Order, they've learned some lessons and are willing to shift their backing toward studios to actually properly support single player products.

 

[elyetis]

It kind of reminds me of Patrick Bach from Dice saying that modding is dead pretty much as DayZ was exploding in popularity.

It's certainly isn't dead ( again more than proven again by the GTA RP scene for example ) but most studio or publisher sure want to bury it alive.

 

[Mukrab]

For everyone still parroting this line, EA clearly talked about linear single-player games. Instead, bad faith commentators like you twist these words, somehow bundle GoW, Zelda and AC into it, and then present a parody of the argument. These posts belong on reddit or youtube comments, where they get upvoted by morons who only want to bash EA regardless of the actual arguments or facts.

No, EA has not said that single-player is dead. EA specifically mentioned the shifting consumers' taste from the linear games where you just go forward to complete the story, to a much more varied games with open-levels/world and many more hours of entertainment than just the 6 hours campaign.

Click to shrink...

And the sad part is that Era likes to make so much fun of this and when you look at the actual quote its literally something the average era user would say. Every time a traditionally linear single player franchise announces their next game to be open world all I see here is orgasms.

 

[BioDigital Jazzman]

Which is weird considering Fallen Order came out like a year later or whatever.

With Fallen Order in mind, I have to imagine there was more going on with the Visceral game than "we cancelled it because single-player games won't make us money".

Click to shrink...

Fallen order isn't a 6-8 hour game tho. It's very much a lite rpg with Metroidvania and souls aspects

 

[Sheepinator]

EA never said SP games are "dead", nor "finished".

They were also correct in what they did say. Look at this list of the top 20 sellers last year. Jedi Fallen Order is the only SP focused game in the top 15, and that's from a studio best known for making MP focused games.

NPD: The 20 best-selling games of 2019 in the U.S.

it's time to run down the 20 best-selling games of 2019 in the United States, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group.

venturebeat.com

 

[BioDigital Jazzman]

Is The Last of Us Part II not a linear AAA game?

Click to shrink...

How many games came out this year and you have 1 that is successful largely due to the studio who made it

even Sony knows this as the vast majority of their output are open world rpg lite titles

 

[Sargerus]

Which is weird considering Fallen Order came out like a year later or whatever.

With Fallen Order in mind, I have to imagine there was more going on with the Visceral game than "we cancelled it because single-player games won't make us money".

Click to shrink...

Fallen Order is neither linear nor a 6-8 hour game.