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Blizzard's Pardo Calls Single-Player Games "Endangered Species"
Uros "Vader" Pavlovic
07:43 am EDT @ October 04th, 2012
Blizzard Entertainment's Rob Pardo (lead designer of World of Warcraft) feels
that single-player games are fast becoming a dying breed. In fact, he refers
to single-player games as an "endangered species" of AAA single-player games.
"I don't see there being a great business model for it these days. It's really sad, there's just a lot of elements out there that conspire to make those games difficult to make now," he said. "Between pirating or the ability for people to rent games, it's hard for publishers to pour millions and millions of dollars into a game and not necessarily see the return they need to make those budgets realistic."
Um, I think I can understand his point of view. And yet, somehow, the word "Skyrim" does come to mind.
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His language is actually damning as to what's wrong with a number of the big dev's currently. He's saying that SP games are a dying breed not for artistic or gameplay reasons but for business reasons. If SP games are becoming less commercially viable it's because they're not developing games which offer the customer value for money. MP is fine and all, but there are plenty of people who still enjoy a single player game.
And if there is an issue with the amount of money they're investing into creating games, have they ever considered spending a little less? Quality vs cost in indie and small development teams must be far more efficient than in the bloated mega devs.
*Goes back to playing TOR* ;)
WOW - played on private server , Diablo 3- didnt even touched , too mad after all waiting and suprises I didnt like . . Torchlight 2 - purchased after demo try , playing on single mode .
Take that :)
after few years (ok, not few) of MMOs , I dont want to see any online game now
Smaller companies like CDProject Red, Valve, they are doing just fine selling 2 milions.
id which was bought by Zenimax is fucked.
Activision is fucked.
Global economy is fucked.
In general, we're fucked.
Blizzard. A very meh company after outgrowing WoW.
I like a multiplayer option, but the majority of my gaming is single player since all my friends have lives and kids...
On the other hand we have this statement coming from Blizzard, a company that thinks pandas, rainbows and unicorns are what people want.
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'.