Crytek: 'The notion of single-player has to go away'

[Gamerforlife]

Journey is another example of a single player experience being enhanced by multi-player in a unique and innovative way. I don't mind that so much. In fact, I love that you could just start up a single player mode in that game and other players would just naturally come into your game. There was no multi-player mode per say. It was just a single player game taking place in a world where many players were playing in it at the same time as you. It was like different people's single player adventure merging with someone else's. You get to level 5 and you run into another player who is about to finish it and maybe he decides to stick around and help you or he just doesn't give a shit about you and decides to forge ahead and finish his game.

You had ownership of your experience. You could ignore other players if you wanted to and just have your solo experience, but most people didn't because it would make you feel like a dick LOL. Journey may be the best example I have ever seen of interactive peer pressure. In a game where every player's identity is kept anonymous, the fact that so many players I ran into still chose to help me when they didn't really have to is a testament to how altruistic many gamers can be, and I often found myself doing the same.

One thing that also gives that game bonus points for me is that it's a PS3 game which means free online. Journey would be so horrible as a 360 game, where half of the experience would be closed off behind a wall with a price tag on it.

That's another reason I hate the emphasis on multi-player in the industry now. It's just a cash cow for Microsoft. You look at a game's achievement list and see multi-player achievements and you're basically looking at a game that you have to pay Microsoft your hard earned cash to get 100% on. That's why The Darkness had a multi-player mode that no one cared about and no one played. Microsoft wants those players buying those gold accounts. In retrospect it almost seems like that's why they created achievements in the first place, just to push the multi-player/Gold account agenda and get more money.

[MrPopo]

It was just a single player game taking place in a world where many players were playing in it at the same time as you. It was like different people's single player adventure merging with someone else's. You get to level 5 and you run into another player who is about to finish it and maybe he decides to stick around and help you or he just doesn't give a shit about you and decides to forge ahead and finish his game.

I actually had a similar experience with The Old Republic, albiet the existance of other players was more apparent. The way things were balanced you could easily solo your way all the way to 50 and the story had as much investment as the single player KOTOR games did. And they used instanced areas all over the place so you don't have the old MMO staple of a bunch of people sitting around waiting for unique mob X to spawn for the quest.

[GSZX1337]

More like the notion of Crytek has to go away

Quoted For Truth. Seems that every time I hear about Crytek, it's because someone there said something stupid. The comment about demos being superfluous still pisses me off.

[Erik_Twice]

That's exactly, EXACTLY what they DON'T want. They don't want you sitting there modding Starcraft and happily playing it with your friends. That game came out 14 (soon to be 15) years ago! Where's the MONEY in that for them?

That's a fair thought but there's alot of money to be made with Blizzard's model, much more than it seems at first glance.

You can buy Starcraft at Gamestop, fifteen years later. That's amazing! It's beyond amazing. How long does a game last on the shelf nowadays? Weeks. The industry moves closer to a model where the product either explodes or inmediately crashes and completely forfeits the profits of a long tail. For all they mirror Hollywood they haven't learned much from the problems of the bussiness or the benefits of it.

Blizzard games sell as much initially as any other game yet they keep selling. They are kept around and new players try it. They have an audience ten years down the line while REALISTIC SHOOTER 2 won't sell a dime a year after it's released.

It's a different market and a different model. And, as you say, there's plenty of uncultured costumers ready to throw their money at the latest blockuster or pop music hit. This difference in models is more noticiable than usual because of the move towards a bigger, less knowledable audience compared to twenty years ago and the growing market allowing an usual amount of blockbusters.

[Xeogred]

Has Crytek ever made a good game?

*laughs*

[GSZX1337]

Has Crytek ever made a good game?

*laughs*

The original Far Cry was pretty good.

[Xeogred]

I've played and beaten all the Far Cry games and both Crysis'... they're all doable, but definitely games I don't think I'll ever care to revisit and had tons of annoying game design at times. The monsters in Far Cry 1 were incredibly annoying, same with the aliens in the Crysis games, etc, yeah.

Just kind of joking I guess, but yeah they're just all subpar games in my book.

[BurningDoom]

Has Crytek ever made a good game?

*laughs*

The original Far Cry was pretty good.

Which is a single-player experience, lol.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I always thought the Crysis games looked like shit. Try too hard to look "realistic" and you end up with this weak ass uncanny valley garbage.

Anyway this is dumb. And I mostly enjoy playing games by myself.

[MrEco]

Also, anyone else find it funny that he calls it the "notion" of single player games? As if a single player mode is some new experience shoe-horned in to games that had to fall back on a gimmick to make up for poor design.


Darn these kids nowadays and their single player only games. I remember back in my day we played a new Call of Duty every year and liked it...