EA Exec Won't Green Light Any Single Player-Only Games [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

An anonymous reader sends this quote from Geek.com:"Frank Gibeau, the president of EA Labels, has shown that business truly does come before gameplay with comments he made as part of a preview document for the CloudGamingUSA event happening on September 11-12 in San Francisco. Gibeau is very proud of the fact he has never green lit a single project that consisted solely of a single-player experience. He insists that every game EA publishes has an online component to it. His reason for doing this? Apparently EA has 'evolved with consumers (PDF)' suggesting he thinks this is what consumers want in every game. ... Forcing online into every game makes little sense. While it works for a Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Fifa or Need for Speed title, there's just as many games that don't need it to succeed, or even work for online play. A good example of this would be the forthcoming SimCity, which has upset fans of the series because it will require an constant Internet connection to play. That isn't a DRM measure, it's due to the tight integration of multiplayer and how all players impact each others games."

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[Leo_A]

Been quite sometime since I green lit purchasing one of their games.

So if they're okay with it, I guess I can't complain. Plenty of publishers out there that do want my money.

[The 1 2 P]

The article is actually worded wrong. What he meant is that he won't green light any games that only have a single player campaign. So basically he's saying that going forward even the single player games need some kind of multiplayer component since their latest initiative is using games as a service as opposed to stand alone one-time use products.

[kupomogli]

As long as it's a good game, I couldn't care less. Unless they make the game have a required online connection, etc.

Army of Two the 40th Day was a great co op game, offline and online, but take that it online to competitive multiplayer and it was a big pile of shit. Does the online multiplayer being there make the single player suck? No, and as long as it stays that way for future titles, I don't care.

[kedawa]

As much as I'd like to be outraged at how obtuse and short-sighted this policy is, I'll be damned if I can think of a single EA series that I care about that would be single-player in the first place.

[kupomogli]

As much as I'd like to be outraged at how obtuse and short-sighted this policy is, I'll be damned if I can think of a single EA series that I care about that would be single-player in the first place.

You don't like Mirror's Edge? Although, like The 1 2 P said, the online portion of Mirror's Edge, posting your speed runs, etc, might be what they mean by not including only single player.

[BlastProcessing402]

Splitting effort like this is a big part of why the formerly single player only Mass Effect really suffered on the single player side in the third game.

EA can eat a bag of

[kupomogli]

Splitting effort like this is a big part of why the formerly single player only Mass Effect really suffered on the single player side in the third game.

EA can eat a bag of

Opinion only, but Mass Effect hasn't ever been good. The gameplay is terrible and the third game has terrible gameplay with better graphics. These opinions are also based on a little bit of time playing the first Mass Effect and the demos of Mass Effect 2 and 3. From Mass Effect fans, I've heard that the game was great except for the ending which they blow all out of proportion and is what made the game suck. If an ending is going to ruin the game for you, that must tell you the game was never very good to begin with.

If I wanted to play a game with crappy gameplay and slightly better than sub par story, I'd go watch a movie or I'd play a game with better gameplay but worse story.

[kedawa]

You don't like Mirror's Edge? Although, like The 1 2 P said, the online portion of Mirror's Edge, posting your speed runs, etc, might be what they mean by not including only single player.

I actually haven't played it. My PC isn't really up to the task, and I don't play first-person anything with a controller these days.
The last single player EA game that I really loved was Deluxe Paint III.

[Robocop2]

Eh as long as I get my Dead Space 3 they can tack multiplayer onto whatever they want really. Nearly every developer/publisher out there these days tries to find a way to tack on MP to every game anyways.

EA does some odd things but like GamesStop I think they get an undue amount of hate.

[ownerizer]

The last EA game I bought new was Battlefield 3. Of course, I want to upgrade to Battlefield Premium, but I can't stomach buying the game again. And last night I realized that EA put in purchasable "shortcuts", meaning you could purchase all the weapons and upgrades, instead of unlocking them through the game as you progressed. Lame as hell.

[The 1 2 P]

Nearly every developer/publisher out there these days tries to find a way to tack on MP to every game anyways.

True but theres a right way and theres a wrong way. Alan Wake is a story driven single player game with no need for multiplayer. So for the spin-off sequel they added leader boards for the Fight Till Dawn mode, their version of Horde mode. That is the correct way to add a social/multiplayer aspect to a single player game. Now if they had just added a deathmatch multiplayer mode where everyone was running around shooting at each other that would have been the wrong way, as it wouldn't have made sense in the context of the narrative or game itself.