Ubisoft had its NFTs, Activision had its... well, everything-scandal,
and EA? EA must have been feeling left out, so they contributed to a
Twitter thread dunking on single-player games.

Now, the initial tweet was fairly mild; it was part of a meme-thread
where people posted "Person is a 10/10, but...(reason to be wary)".
EA's post was "They're a 10 but they only like playing single-player
games", but it is indicative of the attitude at the corporation. This
hasn't been the first time EA has suggested that single-player games
are dead (ten years ago they proudly announced "single player games
are finished!"), and I doubt it will be the last either. Pay-once
products just aren't as profitable as "live service" games, so -
regardless of whether or not it makes a game better - it is to EA's
benefit if everyone sees single-player games as uncool.

Which isn't to suggest that live-service games are meritless either;
there are many games which benefit from continual updates... but too
often live-services are shoehorned into products that don't need them.
Many games benefit from having a finite length, with well-paced story
and gameplay. EA's suggestion that single-player have no place in the
market is as ridiculous as saying that there's no place for music when
we have video; they can both coexist.

EA's tweet met with the backlash you'd expect, and - to give EA credit
- after several hours the marketing department that made the tweet
pulled their head out of their ass and accepted the majority view with
good grace. But I doubt that the lesson has really set in; EA will
remain as relentlessly determined to push as much of the market toward
lucrative live-services and would pull the plug on pay-once
single-player today if they could.

But hey, watching a gaming corporation inadvertently piss off a
significant chunk of its player base always amuses me. In these
troubled times, take what laughs I can get.

Am 02.07.22 um 00:47 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
> EA's tweet met with the backlash you'd expect, and - to give EA credit
> - after several hours the marketing department that made the tweet
> pulled their head out of their ass and accepted the majority view with
> good grace. But I doubt that the lesson has really set in; EA will
> remain as relentlessly determined to push as much of the market toward
> lucrative live-services and would pull the plug on pay-once
> single-player today if they could.
Yeah they did not get it, one of their most of not their most successful
title last year was a pure single player game where they even only gave
the studio a little bit of money to wrap it up.
They have their heads up so much in their backside regarding after sales
revenue that they do not get it...
I could not care about EA anymore and probably will not, every few years
a good game comes out from them which is worth buying the rest can be
ignored. There are so many good games from other publishers and smaller
studios that I could not care least about the output from EA.

On Sat, 2 Jul 2022 11:54:34 +0200, "Werner P." <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
>Am 02.07.22 um 00:47 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
>> EA's tweet met with the backlash you'd expect, and - to give EA credit
>> - after several hours the marketing department that made the tweet
>> pulled their head out of their ass and accepted the majority view with
>> good grace. But I doubt that the lesson has really set in; EA will
>> remain as relentlessly determined to push as much of the market toward
>> lucrative live-services and would pull the plug on pay-once
>> single-player today if they could.

>Yeah they did not get it, one of their most of not their most successful
>title last year was a pure single player game where they even only gave
>the studio a little bit of money to wrap it up.

>They have their heads up so much in their backside regarding after sales
>revenue that they do not get it...

>I could not care about EA anymore and probably will not, every few years
>a good game comes out from them which is worth buying the rest can be
>ignored. There are so many good games from other publishers and smaller
>studios that I could not care least about the output from EA.

Given that, reportedly, profits from the FIFA microtransactions
accounts for about a third of EA's revenue, I think they DO get it.
That's where the money is.

And they've got the marketing clout to make things go their way.
Gamers are a fickle lot, and easily swayed by marketing. They run
towards the new shiny thing regardless of how many times they've been
burned before. EA could likely kill all single-player tomorrow and not
only survive the transition (thanks to their immense war chest and
never-ending revenue from existing live service games) but probably
convince a huge percentage of gamers that they've made the right move.
Sure, there will always be some curmudgeons lurking in the darker
corners of the Internet who grumble about it, but the bulk of the
people will blindly follow EA to this new nirvana... especially if you
promise them a free hat.

So maybe single-player /is/ dead. Who am I to say different; why
should anyone listen to me? I don't have $500 million marketing budget
to say otherwise, after all.

On Saturday, July 2, 2022 at 8:12:57 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jul 2022 11:54:34 +0200, "Werner P." <we...@gmx.at> wrote:

> So maybe single-player /is/ dead. Who am I to say different; why
> should anyone listen to me? I don't have $500 million marketing budget
> to say otherwise, after all.

While it is playable either multi or single player, I'd say the $6B+
made off of Elden Ring says it's alive and kicking. Without
microtransactions too.

- Justisaur