Titanfall dev: "Hardly anybody bothers with single-player"

Plague_Injected

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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-18-zampella-titanfall-not-gunning-for-call-of-duty

"We make these single-player missions that take up all the focus of the studio, that take a huge team six months to make, and players run through it in 8 minutes," Zampella said. "And how many people finish the single-player game? It's a small percentage. It's like, everyone plays through the first level, but 5 percent of people finish the game. Really, you split the team. They're two different games. They're balanced differently, they're scoped differently. But people spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus 'as little time as possible rushing to the end' [in single-player]."

Tell that to Bioware, Rocksteady, Ubisoft, Bethesda...
 
They spend 6 months making 8 minutes of game play and blame the players.
Umm.
 
I don't really agree with you PI. vastly different audiences. I'm sorta trapped inbetween. a friend bought me HL2 back in 2004. I accidentally installed CSS and didn't get around to playing HL2 for 6 years.

What I will say is some of this is WZ's probably. They really just don't know how to craft a compelling single player experience. MW1 is supposed to be the bomb. I found profoundly dull with few exciting moments. Mostly due to never having any control. W+M1. 8 hour campaign. As I've mentioned many times on here I've found some terribly flawed Ukrainian games to be far more interesting.
 
Yes, context dependent.

CoD SP sucks balls, so it's to be expected. There are plenty of other excellent SP experiences out there in different games developed by different studios.

There will always be a SP audience.
 
Honestly, I think this is the right approach when it comes to games that are MP specific. I think a lot of BF players have argued this over the past 2 releases (BC2 & BF3), as the SP campaigns are usually lackluster,
tend to detract from other elements of the game and don't allow the developer to focus as much on MP aspects as there should be. I think it goes without saying that we would all rather pay $10-$15 less for "excellent"
MP only as opposed to a "good" MP with mediocre SP campaign tacked on with additional costs due to extra development time.
 
"And how many people finish the single-player game? It's a small percentage. It's like, everyone plays through the first level, but 5 percent of people finish the game.

looking at Steam achievements for completing Bioshock Infinite on Easy difficulty or above shows 59.4%

his 5% is an exaggeration but he is right in his thinking that a lot of people do not ever completely finish single player

I'd rather a dev be completely focused on single player or multi player than try to spend resources on both which often times ends up being insufficient
 
Honestly, I think this is the right approach when it comes to games that are MP specific. I think a lot of BF players have argued this over the past 2 releases (BC2 & BF3), as the SP campaigns are usually lackluster,
tend to detract from other elements of the game and don't allow the developer to focus as much on MP aspects as there should be. I think it goes without saying that we would all rather pay $10-$15 less for "excellent"
MP only as opposed to a "good" MP with mediocre SP campaign tacked on with additional costs due to extra development time.

+1.
 
I have no problem with them saying that. And really, they should be focusing only on MP if that's the game they want to make. The older Battlefield games didn't bother with SP and were better for it. Similarly, singleplayer focused games should not have tacked on MP. Most of the time it dies out after a month or two. It's a waste of development time and effort.

Very few games can pull off the complete package. Valve were smart in putting CS:S with HL2, because they created two different experiences that were both compelling and packaged them together.
 
what does the fact that a lot of people don't finish single player games have to do with multiplayer?...the 2 are unrelated...where are the stats showing how well multiplayer only or MP focused games do?...it's probably the same amount of hours that people put into both...it's gaming as a whole and has nothing to do with multiplayer being better or worthy of more gaming hours
 
Anytime I hear a developer or publisher state this I just /facepalm

There will be room for narrative ALWAYS in single player form. Saying people don't play single player games anymore is like saying people don't read books anymore without groups of people.

Fucking dumb statement.
 
Anytime I hear a developer or publisher state this I just /facepalm

There will be room for narrative ALWAYS in single player form. Saying people don't play single player games anymore is like saying people don't read books anymore without groups of people.

Fucking dumb statement.

Read between the lines, the industry is pushing towards "this is a MP game", "this is a SP game". You might think at first "Great, I won't be paying extra for the SP campaign i don't want", but nope, you'll still pay that $60 for just the MP game, or just the 10hr SP game.

Look at Walking Dead, Tomb Raider, and the Last of Us. Thats your SP future. BF4/CoD your MP future (with annual updates or heavy DLC plans).
 
If some developers would really make a decent single player game that'd be a different story :( I still enjoy a nice lengthy involved single player story but at the same time I enjoy multiplayer action. The new Wolfenstein game is the complete opposite of titanfall, they're doing single player only. Which I'm looking forward to. Mainly since the last Wolfenstein multiplayer was a disappointment compared to RTCW & Enemy Territory. Some multiplayer looks like it was just tacked in to cover a quota of features the game "should" have.
 
How about just creating bots for those who want to play by themselves, or to fill out a multiplayer game with insufficient players? That worked for the older versions of Unreal and Battlefield.
 
Obviously,this guy never played games like STALKER or Fallout 3. The problem is the market has been infected by the console mentality that quantity beats quality. They crank out short,hastily produced games that are thinly veiled Halo or CoD clones,with little effort devoted to originality or length of game play. Multiplayer games are quicker and easier to produce,since the players themselves are essentially making up the game as they play. They're kind of like the gaming equivalent of "reality" TV.
 
As long as games like Witcher 2, Deus Ex, and Alan Wake exist, I'll keep playing single player.
 
What a bunch of dolts. Now I'm glad that these guys are not coming to Playstation, I don't want them to sully my brand.
 
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looking at Steam achievements for completing Bioshock Infinite on Easy difficulty or above shows 59.4%

his 5% is an exaggeration but he is right in his thinking that a lot of people do not ever completely finish single player

I'd rather a dev be completely focused on single player or multi player than try to spend resources on both which often times ends up being insufficient

This. While there are exceptions, for the most part games that I like for either typically cannot fill the other role quite as well and I'm fine with that. So many games use mechanics in singleplayer that would be hard to translate to multiplayer. Multiplayer tends to be balanced differently than single player. It's just the nature of the beast.
 
For all that talk, I hope he has some incredible bots programmed.

One thing that annoyed me about BF adding singleplayer, they removed bots. It was the best way to learn to fly/etc. without disrupting a pub server (waiting for a vehicle) and with targets to actually practice on.
 
SP is a bridge to MP. That is very important. Most games that were known for MP started kicked people off with SP. Now it all depends on your status. But there is a ton, of console gamers these days who do not do MP, they mostly do SP, and for them you will need a SP to sell. Some of them will get bored one day and say what is this MP, let me try it. How ever if you are a game with well known devs and you have a significant amount of hype behind your game you might not need the SP to do well. You also have to understand that for a lot of people SP is just like a movie, they will even go watch a bad one, they just need something to do. This is why BF has a SP.

Do I personally care? Nope I almost only play MP.

Also for new games a lot of times its hard to get people into you game if there isn't a story to make it make sense or at least try to explain things.

I will go as far as to say that I think more devs should think about giving the SP away, if your primary focus is on MP why not give everyone SP for free to try to hook them on MP, then give them like 2 weeks of MP for free.
 
I will go as far as to say that I think more devs should think about giving the SP away

Technically, it's been this way for a while. If you get a copy of most FPS's from your cousin Juarez, you can play SP but will need a key to play online.
 
Bad Company 1 might be the best FPS single player this generation.

and the reason is, it really tries to form its own identity. or rather, to keep the battlefield identity. By taking aspects from the multiplayer that make sense and adapting a sandbox type mission structure around it. It also forgoes a super serious attitude and instead, embraces a fun, rebellious feel scored with jazz, 60's rock, and surf rock.

Bad Company 2's single player completely jumps shark to try and be like Call of Duty. Which, you know, it was fine. But the overall experience is something you can get in a number of other games. It at least brought over and made decent use of the destruction aspect. But gone are the semi open playgrounds with multiple approaches and optional vehicles. Gone is the surf rock. there's little bit of comedy carried over, but it no longer defines the game's tone.
 
nver finsihed, Bc2 single, nor Bf3 and sicne the multiplayer pretty much sucks with Bf3 there havent been a single player game I finished so a good move to remove it from a multi player game anyhow.

Dice and such does it to impress the media.
 
Never touched any BF single player. I do enjoy single player games though. It has to be a truly worthwhile story, and that is very rare. Games like Skyrim and Dragon Age never appealed to me because they felt like single player MMOs, very lame.

I can think of a few games that had great single player and multiplayer sides:

The foremost being StarCraft. Homeworld and Sacrifice also come to mind. Funny how these are all RTS games.

Can't think of any others.
 
I actually agree with the developer completely. Computer AI is awful in every single game I've ever played. Terrific games like the Civilization series are repeatedly let down by laughable AI and the multiplayer support is so poor that it kills the replay value.

I've never finished a single player FPS game due to boredom. If multiplayer gaming (The internet) were to disappear, I'd quit being a gamer. I play games for the competitive challenge, everything else is secondary. If I want compelling narratives, I'll read a J.L. Bourne novel.

From my perspective: "Single player gaming is dead"
 
I usually only play SP & will keep buying SP. So I kindly disagree with anyone that believes SP is dead.
 
I pretty much only play single player unless it's a fighting game or driving game. I don't want my enjoyment to be reliant on other people...especially not the typical crowd on XBL.
 
Give me both. I normally don't touch the multiplayer portion of a game until I get fairly far into the singleplayer portion.
 
I hate MP in games. To me it's just a race to the king cheater... server hacks etc..

I love COOP tought..
 
I really hope for your sake that you're not a grown adult.
Your attempt at an insult has misfired. Many people prefer one brand over another and quiet frankly why would you want developers who are ignorant of the industry developing games for your product? These guys are idiots and need to go out of business ASAP. Maybe you think Titanfall is the next leet shit or are a 360 fanboi, I don't know, but your comment was uncalled for.
 
It's true. Colladoody is a good example of SP being a waste of time and resources. Trying to do both SP and MP ends in failure, or at least mediocrity almost all the time. If your goal is a good MP experience, you should not be wasting time throwing in a token single player campaign for the 5% of your customers who play all the way through.
 
People play MP in MP games? This news has ruined the study on the same subject I was conducting with government grants.
 
People play MP in MP games? This news has ruined the study on the same subject I was conducting with government grants.
Well you should probably proceed with your study because it seems like this news is a shock to some people in this very thread.

I don't know how anyone can look at the quote in the context of their type of games and not agree with it. And I say that as a SP only gamer these days. But I don't stick my head in the sand and deny reality.
 
Your attempt at an insult has misfired. Many people prefer one brand over another and quiet frankly why would you want developers who are ignorant of the industry developing games for your product? These guys are idiots and need to go out of business ASAP. Maybe you think Titanfall is the next leet shit or are a 360 fanboi, I don't know, but your comment was uncalled for.

Fanboism is for children and the emotionally stunted.

The fact that you think I'm a Titanfall and/or 360 fanboy because I called you out on being an overgrown child for being a fan of a corporation ("my brand", *cringe*) that doesn't give a fuck about you is really telling, man.
 
I usually prefer to play "single player" games though I love playing "single player" type games in a co-op setup, but that rarely happens.

With that being said, games that have the most time with are games that are played via single player and/or co-op campaign.
 
And which of those companies had really good multiplayer...? Or multiplayer at all?

What's your point? Has nothing to do with the fact that this company is saying single player is not worth developing.

I guess the real lesson is, you should either focus on really good single player or really good multiplayer, otherwise you can end up with both being mediocre. "Hardly anyone bothers with SP" is a stupid statement.
 
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