WoW designer: Single player games are dying
 

Just read the article first. Link-http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article…ends-rob-pardo

Now I'm going to try and be rational here please bare with me. The thing Pardo here is missing is that this sentiment of his isn't new. Forecasting the imminent death of single-player games has been going on now for literally a decade.

And yet it never seems to quite happen, does it?

The reality is that single-player games will never go away. Yes, they make less money. Yes, they will (and already have) dwindle in number compared to mutliplayer-focused games.

But to call them an 'endangered species' is simply stupid. It's apparent Pardo is a DESIGNER and nothing more, because anyone with basic business acumen will tell you that as long as there is a demand — even a SLIGHT demand — there will be a market for that demand. And demand for SP games will never go 'extinct', and game-developers with a story to tell in their games that are willing to make profits a secondary concern to artistic-integrity will always be around, if not in great numbers.

Put it this way, if freaking adventure-games can make a comeback right now via developers like Telltale, then single-player games in general are obviously going to be juuuust fine.

The bottom line here is that Pardo is a designer that just wants to justify his studio's profit-focused agenda to himself by imagining they have no choice. This is, of course, a self-serving delusion; a deliberately convenient world-view. It's easier for Pardo to tell himself this lie, rather than man up to the reality that he and Blizzard have voluntarily chosen to be more 'merchant' than 'artist'.

There my daily rant agaisnt the way the industry is now is over.>:(

There you go, you have said it correctly. What did you expect from someone who designs online games and works for a developer/publisher that thrives on mass online market? He is just glorifying a business model where the time constant of the price decrease of a single, online/multiplayer game is much longer than a single player game. This way, they make more money for less effort of developing new and exciting games, to feed the trigger happy mass market.

Forgot to summarise, what Pardo is saying is rubbish!

I think he's talking about AAA singleplayer games - and not singleplayer games in general.

I think he's somewhat shortsighted, like most people.

Traditional "AAA" games are likely moving primarily to multiplayer, that's true. But there will always be a significant market for singleplayer games - and I have no doubt that there's room for big budget versions. AAA is not the only way to make a "big-budget" game - and there's a middle ground.

Pardo actually WANTS singleplayer games to die.
Hell, stupid buyers spent millions last year on crap like TW2, DX:HR and TES:S and that's rediculous! Everyone should pay him and play WoW, how can one dare to buy singleplayer games!
Even worse, instead of buying the most spectacular ever invention and game industry breaking addon nobel prize candidate - the horse armor - those evil buyers opted to back some idiotic singleplayer project called Eternity! Wasted a couple of millions on it, millions that should go to Pardo's pocket. OMG, the judgment day is coming!

I never liked the story started with WoW: monthly subscription. And now, after seeing this wishful thinking Pardo made an article about, I like it even less.
It's not the first time I'm seeing MP developers "predict" the death of SP games. Perhaps there is an airborne plague that makes MP devs delusional.

You're being paranoid and silly, but that's nothing new :)

It's just like when they say "PC games are dying" (for the last 20 years).

Yes it is all the apple columns and tech insiders say it is.:)

Better with kinect.

Kickstarter has pretty much proven it's not dying;what has been shown is companies are not listening to their customers regarding the RPG market.

Perhaps he was given a quest to kill 6 SP games and return to Blizzard when he's through and this is just his attempt to fulfull the requirement so he can get some slightly better pants.

I've enjoyed playing EQ1 and EQ2 for the past 15 yrs, but I'll never give up the single player rpg's, ever. If the big companies stop making them, at least I know that indies and now Kickstarter projects never will stop.


-Carn

What I fear is what's called a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Like … someone says, singleplayer games are dying. And thus doesn't produce them anymore. And, because they aren't produced anymore, they are indeed dying … Especially if "the industry" follows what they consider "a leader" like sheep …

Let us not forget what Pardo actually stated, versus what people might be reading into…

……………

While I share your optimism, I wouldn't go that far… Getting a game funded via kickstarter is one thing, delivering a finished product is another and finally whether or not said product is a commercial success is something else entirely.

The Tree of gaming needs to be refreshed with the blood of kickstarter/indie and AAA games. It is it's natural manure.

Let me just preface the following by stating that I feel cRPGs have a good chance of experiencing a renaissance. That said, I believe AAA games have encountered and exceeded(especially games outside of the scope of sports, sims, shooter and MP) what the market will bear in terms of total cost of production, marketing and distribution vs units sold and/or unit price. The kickstarter paradigm may die/lose appeal, but perhaps it will give rise to investors(IE private investors, venture capitalist, ect) who see the potential in small or midsize budget PC games. Then again self-publishing after testing the waters via kickstarter might be an option too…

Alrik, there can be no life without death… Let them kill off the bloated, inefficient, drm ridden AAA beast(s) they've created. If kickstarter has shown us anything it is that market forces -regardless of niche status- will always find a way to satisfy demand when/where it exists. It's no different from mainstream news/media dying off. Let them die and something will fill the void, after a few iterations it will invariably be better too.

SP games are going to be phased out.

SP gaming has been setting distant goals to reach from the beginning. The question: can developpers reach those destinations?

When looking at the history of SP games, one can easily see niggling problems that programmers over the time have not yet managed to solve.

Hence a return to certain old forms of SP games that are disatisfying compared to the earlier goals but have the benefit to be cost amortized and clear destinations coming with the how to reach them booklet.

Not so much for the missing money but simply because programmers have reached a bottleneck in terms of progression that could mean that more money invested wont mean progression and moving closer to the goal.

This. The market isn't rational. It's not based on need or what people want but the beliefs of people that have the power to get their opinions heard, yet these individuals have as whimsy and subjective relation to reality as the rest.

Although it's impossible for them to kill the need of singleplayer games since it's against human nature. The sentiment that games is a social interaction and the sentiment that games are for individual challenge or recreational purpose will continue to exist for as long as there are human beings on the planet.

A large quantity of gamers are introverts who prefer a rich inner experience to a continuous exposition of other people. Other people simply interfere with or disturbs this experience and become stressful distractions. Introverts in psychology are considered to have a low excitement threshold which lead them to be easily overwhelmed by stimuli. Without peaceful silence or the choice to be for yourself once in awhile they are victims of continuous stress and a continuous peak of excitement that becomes "too much".

A large quantity of business people are extroverts who prefer a continuous interaction with other people. Without access to other people they will not feel as intrigued as they could have been as there isn't much point for them to do something on your own. Extravert's in psychology are considered to have a high excitement threshold. They require stronger stimuli to get excited and shut down if they are in a too silent environment or aren't able to interact with other people. Social interactions is a very important source for excitement.

So you argue - in the essence - that extroverts are trying to dictate introverts what and how to play ?

Interesting.

And a clash of cultures of its own.

Vice versa. That multiplayer will simply not enjoy a singleplayer game as much and people who do simply have to accept that this is the case, holding it against them will only widen the rift, deepen the conflict and increase the losses, including their own if they lose. It's better to enforce the idea that people are different with different demands and that a developer shouldn't use their own needs as a ruler, than to argue that someone elses demands are crude, less sophisticated.

The same conflict is present in many social situations.
Think about who in a class of children wish to (and benefit) from studying on their own and in silence. Think about who in a class of children wish to (and benefit) from studying in groups or while listening to music. A teacher unaware of the difference will assume that their own preference is the preferred to everyone, crippling the children who aren't like the teacher. A teacher unaware of this will be a factor in destroying those children's lives, those children's interest for knowledge, those children's future. A politician who design schools or education in a 1-way formula will do the same. What group will benefit from and what group will be sacrificed in the current trends?

That could be interesting if MU games were based on heavy social interactions, which are not.

Many players play MMORPGs (for example) as if they were SP games, interacting to the minimum with other players.

MU games do not include cooperative/collaborative mechanics that would enable team play without players creating that dimension from scratch and by themselves etc

Current crisis is more a technological thing. That is developpers fail to deliver on what gaming hinted at a couple of decades ago and they are now doing the best to hide that fact, keeping selling games whose progression is based mostly on the graphics department (be it candy eyed graphics or larger maps)

I agree in both cases. The Saturday a week ago there was a small event held by the Mensa club for people who are intellectually gifted, or how it is worded in English language.

One of the speeches was exactly about this point : That intellectually gifted people often suffer because their numbers are so small and everyone assumes that environments should be like what they consider to be "normal".

This is especially true regarding highly sensitive people (HSPs), whereas seemingly in very often cases both overlap. I mean intellectual giftedness + high sensitivity. And fact seems to be that the majority of our society tries to build the society, the working envoronments, well, in short : everything ! so that it fits their needs, and what they propose to be "normal" - And thus kind of shutting out more sensitive people, for example.

Shutting out people who are more giftzed and perhaps even more sensitive at the same time is like crippling a firm's potential work-force consciously. Because … if working in a fitting environment, highly gifted people are capable of extraordinary work ! - but people seemingly don't want that : They seem to rather prefer "normal" work, which is far more easy to achieve. Nothing extraordinary, please.