{"id":34,"date":"2021-01-26T03:35:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T03:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/?p=34"},"modified":"2021-01-26T03:36:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T03:36:11","slug":"the-end-is-nigh-because-of-the-death-of-single-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/26\/the-end-is-nigh-because-of-the-death-of-single-player\/","title":{"rendered":"The End is Nigh … because of the Death of Single Player"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This article originally ran under a different banner\/website in May of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ladies and Gentlemen!!!  Thank you for coming out today. We are all gathered here today to lament the passing of single-player games.  I am sure many of you remember the first time you met a single-player game.  For me, it was the first time I played Bioshock<\/em>, a game that took to me on a miraculous journey through a beautiful breathing world filled with ironic characters and landmarks.  I knew single-player games and I would have a friendship that would last a lifetime.  The friendship unfortunately came to an end.  Numerous publishers, including Electronic Arts <\/em>and Activision<\/em>, have cried the death of single-player games.  Only multiplayer games like Fortnite <\/em>and Call of Duty <\/em>exist, but now is not the time for grudges.  We are here to mourn the single-player experience.  You will truly be missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I can see many of you look up from your PS4 and point to God of War<\/em> with confused looks.  God of War <\/em>has been extremely successful, how can single player be dead?  Even throughout the past few years, the amount of single-player games has not waned.   For me, Evil Within 2,<\/em> Cuphead, Wolfenstein 2, Prey, Resident Evil 7, <\/em>and Hellblade: Senua\u2019s Sacrifice<\/em> have all been single-player experiences that I have played or have been burning to fit in between a busy schedule of heralding and napping on park benches.  My list obviously doesn\u2019t include amazing single players on consoles including The Last of Us, Bloodborne, <\/em>and Horizon Zero Dawn<\/em>.  Who could also forget Nintendo, the king of single-player experience, held their own comeback tour starring both Zelda: Breath of the Wild<\/em> and Super Mario Odyssey.<\/em>  Even as I speak, Dark Souls Remastered <\/em>and Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy<\/em> release loom on the horizon.  So it would appear single player is alive and well, despite my eulogy.  So where does this narrative of the single player\u2019s demise come from?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, for one, do not believe single-player games are going the way of the dodo.  I believe in playing a healthy balance of single and multiplayer games.  Many higher-ups of publishers have gone on record saying the opposite.  Merely, a year after Bioshock\u2019s<\/em> success, former Vice President of Microsoft, Phil Harrison, stated he didn\u2019t believe gamers wanted games that didn\u2019t have some sort of network connectivity or didn\u2019t have downloadable content available.  In the wake of the closing Visceral studio (known for the Dead Space <\/em>series), EA Vice President, Patrick S\u00f6derlund, announced EA was looking to \u201cpivot the design\u201d of the single-player Star Wars <\/em>game Visceral had been crafting.  Almost seems like EA doesn\u2019t have faith in a single-player Star Wars<\/em> game, despite some of the fan-favorite Star Wars <\/em>games being single-player games including the Knights of the Old Republic<\/em> and Jedi Knight<\/em> series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if the heart monitor of single-player games is still going, why do these companies claim the single-player is dead.  I believe major publishers are looking to go all-in on their multiplayer live service games such as Ubisoft\u2019s Rainbow Six Siege <\/em>and Ghost Recon Wildlands<\/em>.  After the disastrous launch of Star Wars: Battlefront II<\/em>, EA posted earnings that showcased a 39 percent increase in microtransactions sales, thanks to their sports titles Ultimate Team mode.  This mode has players build teams with athletes available to them through a pack unlocking system, quite similar to Star Wars: Battlefront II<\/em>\u2019s perk system.  One could easily imply EA was hoping to cash in on Star Wars<\/em> fans in the same way they cashed in on a sports fan.  Due to the competitive atmosphere of multiplayer games, they seem to be more suitable for publishers to add in pay-to-win mechanics.  Even multiplayer games, without predatory microtransactions, have success selling skins as it is enjoyable to show off cosmetics to other players since NPC\u2019s aren\u2019t usually coded to appreciate them.  Microtransactions, in general, don\u2019t seem to find success in single-player games and can lead to them selling poorly.  EA deemed Dead Space 3 <\/em>a failure after attempting to ham fist the ability to purchase ammo into it.  Warner Brother<\/em>\u2019s expressed disappointment in Shadow of War <\/em>and even decided to close the game\u2019s store that contained the loot chest of random orcs.  It is almost as if, it is too tempting to balance the solo experience around enticing players into partaking in these microtransactions, but I am sure the games industry would stand up and cry that I am Jon Snow and I know nothing about game balancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I am sure many of you have written me off as a single-player fanatic who wants multiplayer to disappear.  While I firmly pitch my tent in the single-player camp, I do have times when I want to go online and brawl with the kids.  I still enjoy playing MOBAs like League of Legends <\/em>and Heroes of the Storm<\/em> with fellow doomsayers.  The fire of competition still burns in this old tired doomsayer\u2019s veins.  After a long day of reminding people that the game\u2019s industry is marching to its end, I like to unwind and experience a well crafted and paced story.  That\u2019s just personally what I like; while, others relax with a few rounds of Fortnite<\/em>.  Everyone has different tastes and I just hope publishers keep that in mind when developing games.  There is room in the market for both Fortnite <\/em>and God of War<\/em>, despite what EA thinks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally ran under a different banner\/website in May of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy. Ladies and Gentlemen!!!  Thank you for coming out today. We are all gathered here today to lament the passing of single-player games.  I am sure many of you remember… Continue reading The End is Nigh … because of the Death of Single Player<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}