/Rant is back purely because i want to blast some rage in EA's direction over statements that the single player game is dead to the games industry.
It's been a while since i published a rant, and i honestly didn't expect to be doing any more of them, but i read an article a couple of days ago that kinda annoyed me. The basic back story is that Frank Gibeau, EA Games President, made a statement saying he believes single player only games are dead as far as the games industry is concerned... Anyone who knows me can probably already see the rage building. It's no secret I'm not the biggest fan of online multiplayer or most forms of multiplayer in general, but i do play multiplayer games on occasion and i do enjoy them. That doesn't mean i want absolutely everything in every game made to be tailored for multiplayer, which is the direction EA seems to be looking to head in. Speaking about the EA department heads and how they all feel the same way, Gibeau said "They’re very comfortable moving the discussion towards how we make connected gameplay – be it co-operative or multiplayer or online services – as opposed to fire-and-forget, packaged goods only, single-player, 25-hours-and you’re out. I think that model is finished." Personally i couldn't disagree more with this. While admittedly many games can be more enjoyable in multiplayer or even co-op, it's still entirely possible for games to be single player only without being "25 hours and you're out". Many of the greatest console games of all time have been single player experiences and not every game is something you'd want to play with others. From the looks of the statement and the inclusion of multiplayer in Dead Space 2, you can look forward to multiplayer aspects being included in all EA games, including Dragon Age and Mass Effect. My final gripe with EA's multiplayer dependency is something that while not aimed at EA alone, has been proven to be an issue for EA specifically... Servers. People play from all parts of the world, from all different connections and have all types of personalities. You cannot have a game with online multiplayer without lag, connection issues and bad players (the annoying type of bad, not the cant play this game to save their life bad). Sometimes you just want to play a game without anyone else's input, without any effort trying to set things up and without anything going wrong halfway through, and that's something that you just cant guarantee in multiplayer environments. So i guess to wrap this rant up, multiplayer = good, single player = good, but you really shouldn't have one without the other.
P.S. If you exclude Bioware games, when was the last time EA made a game with a 25 hour single player component anyway?
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