Opinion: Why are publishers wrong about single players? (Topic)

As we wrote earlier, EA has buried another potential Star Wars project. In 2017, the publisher closed the Visceral Games studio, which was working on a single-player game in the Star Wars universe. As the studio's CFO Blake Gerginson said: “We continued to watch the development of a project that, in our opinion, looked more and more like a linear game, which gamers today are not as fond of as five or 10 years ago.” EA and everyone who makes such claims - wrong and know about it. Why? Let's figure it out.

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Most major publishers who have been making games for a long time very often [always] make serious statements about the entire industry and gamers under the pretext that they know everything better than others. And very often such statements are purely manipulative.

In this context, we will use the example of the canceled Star Wars. What was this game? According to the creators, it is an action-adventure game in the Star Wars setting as a linear-oriented adventure game. The developers tested the concept on the players and listened to their opinions and desires, and also followed the market trends. The studio understood that in order to give the players that high-quality product with a long history, which they want to get, in order to return to it, they will have to radically change it.

For a publisher, a product to come back to is a monetization platform. The game was not like that and it was canceled.

Let's just say that we have no luck with quality creations in the Lucas universe. Today, this is the second Star Wars game not related to the main storyline of the cinematic universe, which was canceled.

The problem this time around is that the publishers didn't realize that the long game that gamers will keep coming back to is any good game. But for EA, these are only online games that can be monetized. Yes, the player will not play his favorite game all his life, but will replay.

A game with linear storytelling always needs to be completed. Axiom. And if the game is over, you cannot take additional money from the players. If there were loot boxes in it, but the game is over, they will not be able to buy them.

So when EA and the likes of her say that the gaming community is not interested in such games and this is a fact, they are actually saying, “We are not interested in players stopping using microtransactions in our game. We will say that no one needs single players, and repeating this repeatedly we will convince you that this is a fact. ”

Pathological liars

The funny thing is that the same EA, trying to convince us about the uselessness of singleplayer games, contradict themselves. At the time of the release of their co-op offline game A way out, they predicted sales of 200,000 copies for the entire year. And it is not surprising, because the game is a priori cooperative and not every gamer has a friend with whom he will play it.

It sold 1 million copies in a week and became a hit. This is despite the fact that A way out is a highly focused, linear, cooperative game focused on narrative mechanics.

Another hit from last year is God of War. Let me remind you that she became the best last year. The game has hit critics, fans of the series and newfags, and has huge scores on Metarcitic. And this is also a single player.

RDR2, which did not have multiplayer at the time of release, was also bought by millions of players. It was very long and without any donation.

You say it's just a popular platform and AAA projects? Okay, how about Nintendo Siwtch, which surpassed the company's expectations and sold 18 million consoles. Its two exclusives - Mario Odyssey and Zelda Breath of the Wild have sold 10 and 8.5 million copies, that is, almost 60% of players on this console have these games.

All the projects shown in the example are single and with a linear storytelling. And it is important that they are all replayable - you want to return to them.

So, with the tremendous success of singles on different platforms and even more under his nose, his own commercially successful and at the same time very niche project, EA tells us that singles are a failure and are not needed by anyone? When you yourself begin to believe in your lies, this is already a pathology.

What we need

An example of the same God of War and RDR 2 shows how, at the end of the life cycle of current consoles, they release really good single-player games that people can play for hours.

If everyone wanted to play only games and services, wouldn't people stay in them all the time? The fact that high-budget single games are coming out today shows that there is a demand for them, if we talk in the plane of business.

Companies, on the other hand, do not want to spend a lot of time developing a single player, but they know that a network game will attract a person, as he will interact with other people in an unusual network.

Yes, if EA believes that she can earn more by releasing a Star Wars game with a lot of donation, then she is right. Who then needs single players? But if you are not part of the circle of people interested in the enrichment of this publisher, then you know that the saying "no one needs single players" is a lie. And if you are sure that gamers appreciate a large single story that is worked out, has a beginning and an end, roughly speaking, you perceive games as a part of modern art - then this is true from start to finish.

I will never stop arguing that games provide a new life experience, forcing you to look at things differently and live whole stories. And single players do it best. Therefore, EA and others like it are wrong. And they can close good projects as much as they want, throw around dubious facts and release mediocre games, services, the essence will not change.

Yes, Overwatch and Fortnite and many other online projects are great, and there is nothing wrong with that, but they will not replace a single story for me.

The Topic of Article: Opinion: Why are publishers wrong about single players?.
Author: Jake Pinkman