EA Turns Its Back on Single-Player Games

[Taunta]

Dear EA,

Fuck that shit.

Sincerely,
Someone who plays The Sims 3.

They tried that with the expansion pack before last, in which you HAVE to use the simport feature (Read: Send your sims to other people's games, receive other people's sims in your game, receive their sketchy custom content at the same time, game broken forever) to advance in the new shiny careers.

 

[Mortamus]

In reply to alot of this, I think Jim Sterling stressed some huge points on this in regards to EA's (and some others) horrible beliefs on how the industry is working.

Relevant Captcha: hush puppies

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5014-How-Skyrim-Proves-The-Industry-Wrong

 

[Ruley]

So i guess EA doesn't want our money anymore?


"I know! People just want to play with other people, right? thats why things like Facebook are so popular! So why dont we just make games that let people socialize rather than delivering a sculpted, engaging single player story!"

"But sir, what about all the well crafted story Bioware did before we strong armed them into making more streamlined games with needless multiplayer addons for what was primarily a single player experience - didn't we make a lot of money from that?"

"No you idiot! thats why i'm running this company and not you!!"


And my faith in humanity drops another notch :l


My joking aside, this is just a blunder for the industry and proof that EA needs to leave, right the hell now. I can't think of a single multiplayer game from EA that i've played as religiously as i have Halo 3, Assassins Creed, GTA 4, etc... All of EA's multiplayer efforts i've played feel like needless tag ons that provided a 5 minute distraction before i turned the game off and shoved in a better multiplayer game. They have only ever been good at story to some degree - by that i mean i remember the story of their games more than the multiplayer components.

 

[ShadowTrooper-A-E]

In gamer news today ubisoft gets rid of its horrid DRM for PC gamer's! Capcom unfortunately believes making game's with shorter development time is a good idea. While in less surprising new's Electronic Arts solidifies (possibly permanently) their hold on the number one spot for most hated publisher/company by abandoning single player gaming and making nothing but tacked on shitastic multiplayer on games that don't need it....years later...In no way shocking news electronic arts owned subsidiary companies bioware visceral and dice and soon all of them find a loophole in there stranglehold contract and jump ship as it burns!what's this Gamer's all around of all stripes Microsoft PC, Sony, and Nintendo come together and rejoice knowing a new age of gaming will come.


on topic seriously EA just tapped the dirt on their grave unless they make the Greatest mp ever which i highly doubt and even then if their killing sp which will kill bioware and visceral i will refuse to buy their game's.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Yeah, evolved with your players? Considering so many of them are b****ing about your practises, one would have thought you might learn something. The majority of us don't want facebook shit in our games. We want a focused, polished single-player experience, without the compromises of designing it for others. Compromises in gameplay, in difficulty and in story which have to allow for more than one "protagonist".

This isn't the right direction EA, you're only fuelling the bonfire of what I will *very* politely call "indifference" to you.

Among the best games of the last year, FYI were Deus Ex: Human Revolution and TES: Skyrim. Wanna know what they have in common? ME3 was a PoS compared with ME1. Want to guess at one of the major differences was? All this will do is mean even more EA games will be compromised than they already are.

Thus we end up with things like Dead Space 3, which has evolved from a solo horror experience to a co-op shooter

Guess which of the two I enjoyed playing, and guess which I won't be buying? 5 million copies for a diluted co-op shooter with all of the fans dissillusioned and alienated? Good luck with that.

Message for the EA shareholders: Your current leadership has been and is continuing to run your company's tattered reputation further into the ground. They are alienating fans, ruining gaming as a whole and individual franchises like Mass Effect and Dead Space in particular. Stop them while there is still something to save.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I don´t really think i own anything from EA other than Shadows of The Damned, a game that managed to stay awesome without any tacked on multiplayer component. Incidentally it´s probably also the last game i´ll buy from them, they just don´t seem to release anything that holds my interests, and doesn´t seem like they plan on changing that anytime soon.

 

[elilupe]

"We are very proud of the way EA evolved with consumers," Gibeau said. "I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365.

The way he said this...with such glee...It's like a small child throwing your favorite mug out the window of a moving car window and then smiling proudly at you, thinking he just did a great thing for you. Except, in this example, you just have to sadly sigh and move on past that because it's a baby, whereas with EA, you go and fire a rocket launcher at Gibeau's house.

 

[Mortamus]

This site is a hopeless EA-hate-circle jerk. If Valve came out and said the very same thing, everyone here would just happily rake it in. EA pretty much already does this... All of their games have some sort of online feature, and not necessarily multiplayer. Christ, everyone is treating this as if EA just ruined gaming forever.

Isn't your avatar a picture from one the episodes of the Jimquisition? A show known for it's unseething hatred of EA? As well, on the subject, the very same show has touched on why we all hate EA. It's not that they started it or the only ones doing. It's that they are the ones doing it ALL and actually PROUD of it.

 

[Rad Party God]

Can EA just die already? Please?

You can't kill what's already dead.

Seriously EA... WTF?.

 

[Buleet]

Ok, They just officially flipped their shit and went to ego-town for a long-ass vacation, and they left brain-puppy tied up on a tree by the road.

 

[MrBaskerville]

This site is a hopeless EA-hate-circle jerk. If Valve came out and said the very same thing, everyone here would just happily rake it in. EA pretty much already does this... All of their games have some sort of online feature, and not necessarily multiplayer. Christ, everyone is treating this as if EA just ruined gaming forever.

Nah. Personally i have a distaste for every big AAA company because they all try to streamline games in such a high degree that everything plays the same. Once upon a time different games felt different from each other, nowadays we have a small selection of genres where every game feels the same. Play one -Insert Genre- and you´ve played them all, you can practically look at a game and you know exactly what it would be like to play it. Probably why i´m not looking forward to Tomb Raider, Hitman, Dead Space 3 or any other of the big upcoming games.

Or maybe i´m just getting old... i´m probably just getting old.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

There goes the last remaining hope I had for Dragon Age 3 and Bioware.

 

[Mortamus]

Hmmm..

The name EA in the title? Check.
People basically not even reading the article and jumping to hate filled conclusions? Check.
Me not being surprised? Check.

I really have no issue with this as long as the connected content is thoughtful and well done. While I don't feel that the changes made to Dead Space are good, the always connected nature of a sports title or FPS is great, the multiplayer in ME3 was very fun (though tied into single player in a bizarre way), and having a facebook connected experience to supplement DA1/2 was kind of cool.

Except that this is not ok. If those things were optional, that's all fine and dandy. They aren't. You HAVE to do it.

I have decent internet but I don't want to link a bunch of crap to my facebook, or have to be online in order to play my game. Seriously. I should not have to deal with lag or server issues in a SINGLE PLAYER game. There is no justifiable excuse for it.

 

[WanderingFool]

Allow me to place something that, I feel, everyone will agree with...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So what they're trying to say is "we will sacrifice the quality of the game in order to implement a shitty unnecessary multiplayer mode like the one you saw in Mass Effect 3. Oh and, we will do something similar to Dragon Age 3 and other franchises you might have liked once".

 

[PiotrTheGreat]

Okay, forget killing EA, cause they have provided us with some quality games in the past...

But can we at least stage a coup? Put someone competent on the board of directors, and as CEO?

 

[redisforever]

Look, EA. There are three games with multiplayer I enjoy. Three. Minecraft, Resistance 3 (for various reasons), and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. That's it. This means I'm done buying your games, if you take away focus from Singleplayer, to focus on the unneeded multiplayer. Sure, I can see why you would for Battlefield, or Madden, that makes sense, but not for EVERYTHING!!

 

[Tumedus]

Funny, I have a shelf full of video games, easily 70% of which are single player. Of recent titles, some of the games I liked the least were games that tried to shoe-horn in or force multiplayer into a single player series.

The sad thing is, when this tact starts to affect their bottom line and games by developers like BioWare start to decline in popularity, EA is going to come out and claim this just shows that only shooters are worth making because people don't like other genres.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Yer thats good EA, stop making single player games, COS YOUR MMO IS GOING SO WELL.

 

[Entitled]

I rarely play the multiplayer part of EA's games anyways, though that's because I mostly play the versions that don't log in online.