Got a "be careful what you wish for" moment...

xynerial · Nov 20, 2015

Just read an article: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/11/19/opinion-fps-campaigns-are-dying-and-thats-awful

Then I realize back in 2011...people and news site completely MURDERED the Battlefield 3 campaign story mode in term of criticsm...IDK if you remember this...but the reviews for the campaign was scathing.

...fast forward, they realized it takes a lot of resources in term of head count, time, and resources to produce a campaign when the risk of meeting scathing reviews is high due to the "taste is subjective" factor... So I agree with FPS game decision to forego the single player campaign completely. If you spend less resource on single player you have more time to develop the multiplayer, which according to the article say most players spend anyways, and can make it even more gorgeous.

I mean why risk spending so much resource, at least a year, to develop a campaign if the chances of getting scathing reviews are so high right? which further more effect buyer's decision when they read the review.

Yep, just leave pure single player game like, Tomb Raider, to focus on the cinematic story telling.

bolosfura · Nov 20, 2015

are you saying that is best to have a bad singleplayer experience than to have none of it?
Battlefield don't need a singleplayer like tomb raider don't need a multiplayer. just focus in what's best.

getochkn · Nov 20, 2015

Have to agree. Fallout 4 is a single player game, go nuts there. I finally got BF4 in a humble bundle deal a while ago and played the SP, and not having played a FPS or the BF series in a number of years, thought it might be fun, and still cleared it in under a day. Granted, I could back and play the exact same scripted thing again at a higher level, but meh.

Of course I'm not a fan of the "pay to play" idea either. Booster packs, shortcuts, all that crap just make it harder and since my last reinstall, I'm not even sure I reinstall the game yet or not. Sucks to I have to play 500 hours to get to a level high enough to unlock a gun when some kid with daddies credit card spent $10 and unlocked it day one. Then it makes it that much harder for me to level up when everyone around me has weapons 10x better than mine. Games are like $70 when they come out, then $10 here, $20 here, ohh, expansion pack, $30, and if you dont' get it, you can't join half the servers because as soon as a pack comes out, they all go 24/7 expansion pack only mode.

No Man's sky. That's what I want to play. lol. Just drift in space for a while.

xynerial · Nov 20, 2015

bolosfura :

Well no, I mean...the recent movie Terminator Genisys came out in the summer. I watched it, and I really liked it! it was an entertaining movie. I was entertained. However, the reviews for that movie by critics was scathing! in fact it was SOO baddd, check Rotten Tomatoes, it got like a 26%...as a result it made only 27 million dollars on the opening weekend and missed the 100 million domestic gross by like 10 million dollar. I think it ended the domestic run with 89 million dollar. This against a 155 million dollar budget was BAD. Movies like this was expected to make anywhere between 70+ millions dollar and more on the opening weekend alone. Look at Iron Man or Jurassic World.

Opening Week:
Jurassic World = 208 Million
Iron Man = 98 million

With a budget like 155 million. You expect to make 27 million on Friday alone, but Terminator Genysis gross that much in ALL THREE DAYS... and the expectation for opening weekend for block buster movies is supposed to be HUGE, i.e 70+ million...cause that's when like they make all their money. So the review influenced the flop of TG much.

I mean...I enjoyed the movie a lot, but the people in position to reach a big audience hated it so they were able to influence the audience. It's the same for the game critics of game news site. Pplz read their subjective views and as a result the single player campaign of Battlefield 3 was perceived to be VERY bad... when someone else, a non journalist/review person with tie to media site, would have been entertained by it.

Honestly I enjoyed the Battlefield 3 campaign. It was entertaining.

chimera201 · Nov 20, 2015

Well I did play BF3's single player campaign and it was indeed boring as the critics said. I liked Bad Company 2's SP though. It really depends on your interests and how many similar games you played in the past. For example, a critic who has played the last 5 Call of Duty games isn't going to like this year's CoD because it has no innovation but a guy who has never played a CoD game before will say that this game[CoD 2015] is awesome.

Maarsch · Nov 20, 2015

If you're a AAA title and you bring forth a single player campaign we expect a well-written, properly fleshed out story line with bonus points for well-rounded characters and interesting locations.
If you are making a game very much focussed on multiplayer and budget is limited you may very well wish to limit your scope because if you repurpose some of your mutliplayer maps, put in some random encouters and call it a single player open world extravaganza we'll be upset. And vocally so.

This is now, and has been for some time, a developed industry. You can't just throw stuff together anymore. Not as a AAA publisher.

If you have a good idea/writer and allocate the resources for it though, you can make a good product and there's no reason you can't bundle the two.

Now, from an economic perspective it would be nice if these could ask for more money than a single player or multi player only game could.
Which, of course, makes it iffy if you have zero interest in one part of it. There are sc2 pros out there that have never played the campaign. I understand assassin's creed and Crysis has a multiplayer mode, but I've never touched either.

jaguarskx · Nov 20, 2015

I do not play the BF series and I do not play MMO games other than Star Trek Online which primarily focused on single player missions with has some multiplayer mission (5 players) known as STFs (Special Task Force) missions.

I would say that if a developer cannot devote time and resources necessary to create a good single player campaign in a game that also has multiplayer, then they should not bother with the single player campaign at all. It seems the core players of BF3 and BF4 focuses on playing multiplayer missions. Bad reviews of single player campaigns will dissuade gamers who are primarily interested in only that aspect of the game will mean those individuals will not buy the game unless they are interested enough to try multiplayer.

Sure, completely axing single player will have an impact on sales, but it also means lower development costs as well which could benefit the developer. As long as the metrics show that the vast majority of the people buying previous games in a series are playing for the multiplayer aspect, then it is generally safe to cut the single player campaign.

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Got a "be careful what you wish for" moment...

xynerial

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bolosfura

Reputable

getochkn

Polypheme

xynerial

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chimera201

Splendid

Maarsch

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jaguarskx

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