this is weird lol. i made a comment about this not an hour ago! did it inspire this article? and, yes, it is largely true. it's one of the biggest cons of this industry at the moment. those that like single player are getting cut down versions of games because the industry (reviewers and those with invested interests) are promoting it heavily.

i don't want to shoot, be shot, respawn, rinse and repeat, i want to be absorbed in a world that takes me away from the this world. look at Castlevania... 20 hours!!! of pure escapism. more please.

games that have longer and more involved singlepayer have a longer shelf life because servers die or get closed down and if you are only left with a 3 hour game, you are not going to sell it in a years time (not without garnering resentment)

not necessarily but its almost become the standard now as we are seeing fewer and fewer single player incentives and unlockables in favor of multiplayer. i dont really play any multiplayer games to be honest. im usually just stictly a single player kinda gamer and most of the single player re-playability is given to us in the form of dlc. this doesnt apply to all single player games but its a common occurrence.

Not for me - Online has never been a consideration. I've played DEAD SPACE more than just about any other title recently and it has no online, at all. I played through the COD: MW campaign and never touched the online component, and I've been driving my way through GT5 every single day since launch and haven't been online (to play, that is), once.

But I guess there'll be someone saying the exact opposite, which proves there's no such thing as 'standard' in gaming...

Many online games are basically doing the same thing over and over , ad nauseum with very little variations .

I dont believe a single second that a cod offer more variety online than the sheer array of possibilities of a Hitman ... only more hours of the same (wich i personally wont call replayability) .

A few genre offer variety online due to their inherent nature ,like fighting games (a roster of completely different from each other characters , and its chess strategy nature , plus the skills of the player and opponent as an actual factor make for a few unique experience each match) but imo they arent that numerous .

for certain players it is trophies & achievements...

Online play is pretty much repetitive so that is not really replay value imo. Games like Fallout, Oblivion, Infamous, Mass Effect etc... are what I call replayable you can go through the entire game again, and different things happen. I am sure most gamers count that as replayability when it has online play, but for me it has never factored into if a game is replayable or not.

I'd like to think replayability is subjective first of all, and it certainly does not solely rest on multiplayer, even though many new age gamers will say otherwise. A good game is a good game, a bad one is bad. Online play isn't going to make me like a bad game any more than what I already do.

Replayability doesn't hinge on a game having multiplayer in my view. I think all a game needs is to capture your attention and delight your pallet with what it brings to the table. Then there's other methods like harder difficulties, game collectibles, challenge rooms, alternative choices, continuing to play with your stats maxed out and much more. I just think that now a days it's easier to say "if I don't like the single player that much maybe I can get some enjoyment out of killing other people who also brought this otherwise mediocre title".

It didnt use to be, but now with teams putting major focus on Online, of course, I would like to see more co op myself as I find that better than online.

HALO 4 Life for Online, off - line, Uncharted 2 any day for replay.

Single Player games suck, online is the where its at.

You play an "Epic" single player, you beat it and your bored with it, you replay it and you know exactly whats gonna happen. "Oh no drake might off off the train, wait no he wont i beat the game already".

It should be based on both single player and multiplayer.

No. I still play the HL2 games all the time. Probably the most replayed games in my collection.

Crysis was really fun to replay too cus you get a lot of different options each time..

For me it's a definite YES! because I'm a huge online gamer... Though, I always finish a campaign if a game has that...

Super Smash Bros Brawl.

I have replayed Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Tactics and Civilization II more than any other games in my life. All of them single-player.

(Yes, I do own COD4, Killzone 2, etc.)

No.

This is the dumbest title I've read in 2011 (so far)

The path of least resistant, that's what it seems like to me.

In other words, "Hmmm, how can we make our game last longer? OOH LETS GIVE IT MULTIPLAYER!"

Dumb resolution, to a non-problem.

Make your game re-playable in other ways.
Not every game needs multiplayer.

Anyway, I'll "LOL" this thread and move on.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau