EA: No more single player-only games on PlayStation 4, Xbox 720

EA talks up its future as a purveyor of free-to-play games played across all platforms. The casualty of this strategy? Single player games.


EA Labels president Frank Gibeau has been particularly vocal about the future of EA lately. The executive is adamant that the company’s new focus doesn’t mean EA will abandon the game console market in favor of mobile and PC. It’s all the same ecosystem after all.

“For all the investments we’ve made in mobile and social, we never abandoned consoles,” says Gibeau in a brochure distributed at the Cloud Gaming USA Conference and Exhibition, “We are working closely with the console manufacturers and we are VERY excited about the Gen4 consoles that will be launched in the months and years ahead.”

“Gen4” consoles are Microsoft’s Xbox 720 and Sony’s PlayStation 4 respectively, and possibly machines from other competitors as well, like Boxer8’s Ouya and Valve’s rumored Steam Box.

Fans of Electronic Arts single player games of the past five years don’t have much to look forward to on those platforms though. If anyone is waiting for the return of creative visions like the original Dead Space, DICE’s Mirror’s Edge, or classic BioWare efforts like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, Gibeau’s got bad news: EA is done with single player-focused games.

“I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365.”

That’s not to say that EA’s games will be devoid of single-player campaigns, only that they will all be augmented with multiplayer and social modes. Mass Effect 3 is a perfect example. The game can be played and enjoyed alone, but to get the complete story experience you have to buy additional DLC as well as play online with others.

In the wake of E3 2012, Electronic Arts’ executives have been preaching a new gospel. You’ve heard the goods news! The future is a place where we all play together, on every device simultaneously, and pay what we want for the privilege, forever and ever amen. EA’s future is free-to-play. It’s cross-platform play. It’s day one DLC for triple-A releases like Mass Effect. Is the pattern emerging for you? Do you see EA’s path forward?

Comedic drama aside, yes, Electronic Arts is aggressively redefining its entire business to accommodate for the new gaming market, a place where people expect to be able to play a game of Sim City on their mobile phone, then continue it on PC, and even on their living room console and each base level version of it is free. Grand! Shareholders should have faith in the new model.

EA is sacrificing a vital element of its business, though, in its mad dash to make every game appeal to every potential customer. Single player games still thrive when done right. Look at Bethesda’s Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, Mr. Gibeau. Something to keep in mind as you force studios like BioWare that specialize in single player games to change

- Digitaltrends

75 dollar games + DLC is the future

Fuxking idiot

[pic] this is the last gen (current) I'm staying with, after this I'm giving up on games.

Stop lying.

You will buy one of the next consoles. Just stop lying to yourself.

thats the stupidest !! i have ever heard...there isnt one game i own or have ever owned that i bought for an online experience or multiplayer...the only thing i play is single player....well looks like ill be sticking with the current generation games

if thats the case then keep your[..] in mobile games

dont think people realize that its only EA that wont be making single player only games
EA is trash anyways

Gen4 = $69.99 a game at least.


I don't even really buy games like I used to because they simply aren't worth $60 anymore to me. At this point they should be $49.99 by now, 7 years into the consoles life...

If they are still $60 now, what will they start at on launch? $69.99? $74.99?


Golden Age, he aint lyin [pic]

I said a while ago on here that they would probably be $69.99 - $79.99 to start off with and was practically laughed at and called an idiot...

Whoa!! Just in time too, Thx Madden!!

Anybody that thinks the games will start at $59.99 when our games currently are $59.99 is a !!ing moron.

I'm guessing $69.99, anything higher is asinine. With tax that will be $75 a game [pic]

Games getting too damn expensive

yep...I would definately a movement where games come out at say $39.99 brand new, and then they microtransaction you...as long as the initial game is complete (meaning all levels of the main story mode) and even if they charge you say $5 for DLC with the Multiplayer part to have if you use i'd support that...buit this $59.99 - $69.99 !! is pure !!ery...AND then the games aren't even complete

2 years ago I said that ea would be done with sp games so they could make more money off online pass bull!! they put out and Im surprised it took this long.

as dude said above and Soraci can back me up on having said this a while ago. This is my last gen (I dont care who believes me, I know Soraci didnt at first and still might not) You can keep your pretty little ps4 and 720 or whatever they choose to call them but Im done supporting this industry by paying for half finished games (bethesda) and !!ty so called "campaigns" (ea, dice, infinity ward etc) that they spend no time at all developing and only end up being 4-6 hours long because their main focus is to make money off the MP.

They have forgotten that not everyone wants to play online. I will take a well developed well written single player game that suspends me from start to finish over some same !! MP that everyone puts out just to try and make a buck.

[pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]

I'm not homie, I've given up on tv and now games are next. Thinking about my future and I can't keep this !! up if I want to retire some day (my folks and grandfolks can't ever retire, they !!ed up) [pic]

Dont deprive yourself of simple pleasures only to set up a retirement that may never happen bruh. Cant live everyday for the future when no future is guaranteed.

Should be called Gen 6 at the very least