The Death of Single Player Games?
EA shuts down Visceral Studios, Image Source: YouTube
So last week was a bad week for gaming in general and the single player game, in particular. Two of the largest gaming companies, EA and Activision, both had stories hit the media that showed that they are not necessarily committed to the development of strong gaming experiences for their player base (especially players of single player games–like myself), but may be using the games a “vehicles” to increase their own war chests with anti-consumer practices.
To be brief, EA shuttered a well known & respected gaming development studio that was making a Star Wars single player game. They moved the game over to another division in order to (paraphrasing) open it up to better reflect their players’ wants in a game. Activision, on the other hand, had a patent discovered by players, that could be used to match players together, not based on skill, but on the purchase of extra content and could match players with “premium” content with those who had not yet purchased the content in order to create an unfair skill gap between the players and incentivize the non-purchasing player to go out and buy the “premium” content to stay on a level playing field.
So why does this matter? Players were incensed last week with these revelations and decried the death of the single player video game. The problem is that this situation was made BY THE PLAYERS years ago.
“Knack is Kack”
I still remember this statement made by staff member of the Official UK Playstation Magazine on their podcast when the Playstation 4 was announced at Sony’s reveal way back in 2013. Knack was a platform game that was developed to show off the potential of the hardware. It was a good game, not great, but it was widely and roundly criticized in the media and online as being “old game design” and “antiquated.” Now I personally liked it so much that I earned the Platinum Trophy for the game (do all of the in-game “requirements”) which shows how much I enjoyed it. But if I had listened to the critics and the online community, I wouldn’t have given the game a second look as they considered it a waste of development time. This attitude continued and now (in 2017) there are a dearth of good, triple A platforming games–their all either shooters or open world games.
The Order 1886
Here is another example of the market deselecting a type of game. The Order 1886 was an alternate history game that full of promise and hype when it was announced. However, that hype turned to bitterness and vitriol online when it was discovered that it was a short (5-8 hour) gaming experience and that there was no multiplayer involved when it was released in 2015. What once was a darling of the press for its unique setting became an also-ran and a dog for its short campaign in regards to its price tag. And based on the pricing models of games in 2016/2017 that are the same length (Ratchet and Clank remake and HellBlade) which are in the 29.99 price range instead of the 59.99 price range of The Order 1886, perhaps the price of The Order was too high, but the critical reception for both of those games (as well as the online reputation) is completely different that it was for The Order and that response to The Order was noticed by game development companies and (more importantly) game publishers.
Yes, last week was a bad week for gamers who like to play offline, single player games, but we have to remember that it is our choices as gamers that ultimately drive the market. By being so dismissive to the single player experiences in 2013 and 2015, we gamers shouldn’t be surprised that publishers no longer want to fund or make these types of games in 2017. Much like real life, if we say that we want diversity in our experiences, we actually have to show that we value that diversity.
