Poll: EA boss proudly refuses to publish single player games

[GAunderrated]

I never understood why in pretty much every friking poll an arbitriary option such as (What is SP?) or (I just hate EA) are included. Those just plain mess with the other serious responses.


Anyways, its pretty obvious than it is going to affect Single Player games, but only for EA. I dont think all the companies are going to follow this.

Besides this is really kind of irrelevant, I mean most games already are pretty much single player with some kind of Multiplayer on it anyways...

Well I added it since some people really don't take this topic seriously. I tried to have poll options that tried to reflect what people would want to say. Considering that 38% of people voted what you call arbitrary options, I believe that it was beneficial. Hope that helps.

 

[Terminate421]

Here is what I heard:

"remember the single player game known as Dead Space? That's over with, so fuck you and give me money for more online games!"

We're EA, and we can do nothing wrong.

Remember all those great singleplayer Bioware RPG titles that still fly off the shelves today because they were highly polished deep stories? We stopped their publishers making them to focus on a single Multiplayer online game.

Remember the Command and Conquer series that were loved for their wacky storylines, great characters, and interesting campaign situations? We're removing the storyline and campaign, and the balance to make it Free2Play. (we already removed the basebuilding mechanics, but that turned out to be the stupidest idea since Eve decided that talking snake looked trustworthy, so it's back in. Our new ideas to completely redesign the series are totally boss though.)

Remember that great World War 2 shooter series Medal of Honor that pretty much remained as the last WW2 FPS when everyone else moved onto a modern Middle Eastern setting with short campaigns and levelling based multiplayer? We gave it a modern middle eastern setting, a short campaign and level based multiplayer.

Hold on, why are our share prices continuing to drop, why isn't anyone buying our games? It must be the consumer's fault. They just don't like change.

You forgot the:

"Remember how in Dead Space the entire game was meant to "feel" like the player was stranded on some ship/station using in-game mechanics that seem legitimate and tied to the universe? Well, lets add universal ammo, actual iron sight icons that don't come out of the gun in a cool way but are more "heads up display", this way we can get ALL OF THE PEOPLE who play call of duty to play it!"

 

[Hero in a half shell]

As for your point about everthing EA doing having a negative effect on gaming culture, I respectfully disagree. Without EA, I wouldn't have several of my favourite games lately. They published Mirrors Edge, Dead Space, Brütal Legend and the new Syndicate (yes, I liked it, no, I never played the original, a good game is a good game). Sure, some of the stuff they do is incredibly retarded (Dante's Inferno and Dead Space 2 marketing says hi!), but overall, I'm actually rather neutral to EA. As long as they make things I find worth buying, I'll buy it. And that last sentence is probably gonna get me ostracised on The Escapist...

Don't get me wrong, EA do make some great games, but their corporate decisions are atrocious.

If you look at the games they release, it's generally the new IPs that are the best, or a newly aquired IP from a freshly aquired company. Then after the first or second golden egg, EA's corporate division stick their fingers up the golden gooses' ass and decide they can wring out a few extra nuggets by fiddling around and changing it's innards to resemble the more successful competition. Note that it's not the developers, but the suits and shareholders that do this. It's not the people passionate about making good games, it's the people passionate about making good money that tell them how to do their job, and they don't bother to understand why a certain game is selling, they just know that it is, and decide that if they copy it's selling point they can sell more games too.

Multiplayer sells well, lets put multiplayer in every game!
Steam is doing well, let's make our own version, and we can harvest user data for marketing!
COD is selling well, let's give all our games more First Person Shooter elements!
Real Time Strategy competition gaming made Starcraft 2 successful, let's turn our RTS series into an e-sports contender by focusing solely on the multiplayer!

It's not long before most series crash and burn because of this, and back in about 2009 EA admitted they were treating their newly acquired companies all wrong, and said they'd change, then they went out and bought Pandemic and Bioware...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

What a complete and utter moron. I think Bethesda would like to have a word with that prick.
He unknowingly admitted that he's more than willing to sacrifice the quality of the game by adding unnecessary online component to it.

So this is why Mass Effect 3 is filled with bugs and has a shitty ending. They forced Bioware to implement a shitty multiplayer. Fuck you EA. I said it before and now I'm definitely sure that I will never buy another EA game.

This also means that Dragon Age 3 will have a multiplayer mode. Another reason to enforce my decision.

 

[natster43]

I feel this is probably a really bad thing. Not every game needs both a single player and multiplayer, and forcing multiplayer for the sake of multiplayer into a game that's main focus is single player can only hurt the game. Same can go for a multiplayer focused game getting a subpar single player just for the point of having a single player mode.

 

[Bad Jim]

The result I'm hoping for in 5-10 years.

CEO: make a single player game!
Dev: Yes sir!
CEO: Add a retarded multiplayer component!
Dev: Umm no. Remember EA? Remember their "no singleplayer games" speech?
CEO: Yes
Dev: Well they went bust. We should not try to emulate EA.
CEO: Oh, actually you're right there. We'll just focus on the product that our customers want. God I feel dirty saying that.

It's an argument that even CEOs and shareholders can understand.

 

[Terminate421]

and Dead Space 2 marketing says hi!

Is it wrong to say I actually LIKED that marketing.

YES it was immature
Yes it was immature
YES it was immature
YES it wasn't perfect

BUT it was pretty funny. If I were to describe it, I would call it a jackass stunt. But like the movies its not meant to be mature as in sophisticated. I mean mature as in immature maturity. (Childishly Savage-like)

Sin it to win it? No. Your mom hates this? HA! Actually funny.

 

[Maeshone]

Don't get me wrong, EA do make some great games, but their corporate decisions are atrocious.

If you look at the games they release, it's generally the new IPs that are the best, or a newly aquired IP from a freshly aquired company. Then after the first or second golden egg, EA's corporate division stick their fingers up the golden gooses' ass and decide they can wring out a few extra nuggets by fiddling around and changing it's innards to resemble the more successful competition. Note that it's not the developers, but the suits and shareholders that do this. It's not the people passionate about making good games, it's the people passionate about making good money that tell them how to do their job, and they don't bother to understand why a certain game is selling, they just know that it is, and decide that if they copy it's selling point they can sell more games too.

Multiplayer sells well, lets put multiplayer in every game!
Steam is doing well, let's make our own version, and we can harvest user data for marketing!
COD is selling well, let's give all our games more First Person Shooter elements!
Real Time Strategy competition gaming made Starcraft 2 successful, let's turn our RTS series into an e-sports contender by focusing solely on the multiplayer!

It's not long before most series crash and burn because of this, and back in about 2009 EA admitted they were treating their newly acquired companies all wrong, and said they'd change, then they went out and bought Pandemic and Bioware...

The thing I'm not convinced about is that all these ideas come from the suits/executives. Multiplayer for instance. For Dead Space 2, yeah, maybe the EA executives had a hand in that one (that was an incredibly shitty multiplayer), but for ME3 for example? Just before ME3 EA released Kingdoms of Amalur, a game that didn't have any multiplayer at all, so obviously the ME3 team could have gone with simply putting an online pass on their game, yet they didn't. I honestly think that was because they wanted to make a multiplayer component, and according to an interview somewhere, they had wanted to incorporate multiplayer since ME2, but couldn't get it right.

Bear in mind, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying that, in my opinion, I tend to take anything said about EA very lightly, since everywhere I go I seem to run into a very vocal group of people that keep shouting that anything that changes in a game is all the fault of *insert publisher here, most commonly EA*, and it's making me feel like the complainers are kind of like the boy who cried wolf.

and Dead Space 2 marketing says hi!

Is it wrong to say I actually LIKED that marketing.

YES it was immature
Yes it was immature
YES it was immature
YES it wasn't perfect

BUT it was pretty funny. If I were to describe it, I would call it a jackass stunt. But like the movies its not meant to be mature as in sophisticated. I mean mature as in immature maturity. (Childishly Savage-like)

Sin it to win it? No. Your mom hates this? HA! Actually funny.

Not at all. I found it rather amusing too, but it was obviously aimed at an age group that should not be playing a game rated 18 and above which is what makes it very stupid when the gaming community has been fighting a battle against people like Jack Thompson about games with adult themes and images aren't meant for kids. EA kind of shot the entire gaming community in the foot with that one.

 

[Mr Companion]

I love how EA thinks everybody loves them, I guess its because you keep GIVING THEM MONEY which rewards them for not caring about your customer satisfaction for Christ sake.
When I saw people saying "Aww why does ME3 have to be on Origin only with DRM online activation and day one DLC oh well ill buy it anyway because I have no self control" it made me laugh again. Laugh, laugh with me! AHAHAHAA

 

[lacktheknack]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9556-Show-Me-Your-Journo-Face

The day that Ubisoft starts taking my money before you do is the day that something went horrible, HORRIBLY wrong.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Sure EA, do what you want. We won't miss you.

But seriously, whoever is driving this crazy train should be in the back car instead.

So what does this mean for Bioware then? Does this mean there flat out will be no more single-player focused Bioware games ever again? If so, why the fuck did EA buy Bioware in the first place then?

Hm... they could always make a co-op RPG instead. I got no problem with that.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Get out of the way, we got accountants at the wheel!

I will save my marshmallows to roast them over their burning wreckage and charred corpses.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

EA is piratically the Uwe Boll of gaming. Whenever it does it's little song and dance I just give it a passing glance and move on.

 

[aguspal]

I never understood why in pretty much every friking poll an arbitriary option such as (What is SP?) or (I just hate EA) are included. Those just plain mess with the other serious responses.


Anyways, its pretty obvious than it is going to affect Single Player games, but only for EA. I dont think all the companies are going to follow this.

Besides this is really kind of irrelevant, I mean most games already are pretty much single player with some kind of Multiplayer on it anyways...

Well I added it since some people really don't take this topic seriously. I tried to have poll options that tried to reflect what people would want to say. Considering that 38% of people voted what you call arbitrary options, I believe that it was beneficial. Hope that helps.

Yes, I understand what you are trying to say. But What I meant is that, the people who voted for those options may have voted on those for the sake of it without thinking about the other options (particulary the hate on EA one. I bet more than a few just saw the poll and voted on that randombly because "hey, lets hate EA!", instead of actually trying to think about the thread´s subject) and thus, therefore some of those people may have voted on one of the other options, so it isnt really reflecting what the people in general wants to say...



Oh well, either wat its just a little detail, I didnt meant to come off as a jerk, sorry.

 

[omega 616]

I see what they did thar!

It's usually free2play but play4free is better 'cos 4 is bigger than 2!

Seriously, I can kind of see where they are coming from. With COD being THE game at the moment due to the multi player, it kind of makes sense (in a twisted way) to make multi player games.

To completely remove all single player though is stupid, I guess you can still play the co-op games alone (borderlands style) but to force co-op into every game is derpy.

 

[Krantos]

Any game that has a arbitrary "online" or "connected" component to it will suffer.

Why?

Because it diverts time and money away from the important parts of a game. The folks at Extra Credits once said they've never seen a game released exactly like the developers wanted it. They always have to cut things. This will mean cutting more.

Will it mean the end of singleplayer games? No, but it certainly isn't helping the situation either.

 

[Ljs1121]

Guys, I get it.

I finally get it.

For quite some time now, I've been desperately trying to figure out why so many people utterly despise EA. I couldn't come up with anything. And now, it's finally clicked. Stuff like this makes them typically be thought of as scum of the Earth.

Does every game really need multiplayer? I can think of numerous games that I've had amazing fun on and they didn't have multiplayer modes.

 

[Laser Priest]

In other news, EA has yet to discover that the customer response they are basing their decisions off of is coming from the Bizarro world of gaming,