Why Singleplayer Games Have Short Product Life? One Reason: Project-based Development

[squirrel]

There is no true continuous commitment to singleplayer games. Their developments are mostly ad-hoc project based: once a game is out, job done and its publisher usually sits back and wait for revenue to turn, and, more often immediately move on to another project without looking back. I start to consider the bugs are not necessarily bad thing. They force developers to stay on supporting a published game. Occasionally expansions would be released, only if a game is exceptionally popular, and are never enough to really extend the longevity of a game.

I see that EA is often critized by many here, including me, for its rather "aggressive" business practice. However, I also admire its strategy of DLC development for Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, and Sims. I am so amazed how a singleplayer game can enjoy strong community support for a rather long period.

Borderland by Gears of Box is another good example, but that doesn't seem to be how Gears of Box usually do business, at least not for the Brothers in Arms franchise.

And I am sure that developing expansions for a released game requires less input than development of a new IP / new installment for a franchise. Of course, there is always exception, like the COD, for which Activision shamefully recycling same formula over and over again and always charges for inflated price.

[khaz]

I'm somewhat confused here. Are you complaining that singleplayer games don't have dlc support like multiplayer ones do (For obvious reasons)? Or something else?

[agentorange]

DLC is NOT community support. Community support are things like mods and fan patches.

[Althea]

"Gears of Box"?! I assume you mean Gearbox?

Single player focused games have such a short shelf-life because they're released so frequently and tend to be replay-unfriendly, thusly people move on to the next game and the cycle repeats.

It's why a lot of online multiplayer communities surge for a month or two and then fade - people move on to something else or just stop playing.

Edit: You also seem to believe Borderlands is a single player game, when in fact it appears to be built and balanced around online/co-op gameplay.

[squirrel]

Sorry for my poor English.

I am saying that once a singleplayer game is out, there is usually no new content for it. No matter how great the replay value is, gamers will be bored after probably 2-3 walkthroughs. Developers are too damn quick to move on another completely new project without looking back.

And no I dont mean DLC is community support, but it can draw community support.

And yeah I mean Gearbox, dont know why I type it wrong.

[Althea]

Sorry for my poor English.

I am saying that once a singleplayer game is out, there is usually no new content for it. No matter how great the replay value is, gamers will be bored after probably 2-3 walkthroughs. Developers are too damn quick to move on another completely new project without looking back.

And gamers don't do that? How many of us here finish a game, uninstall it and/or forget about it? I'm sure all of us do that to some degree.

If there's more content for it, it's because it's been profitable and/or they've had it in development. If there isn't any content, it's generally due to bad sales or no DLC plans.

[squirrel]

And gamers don't do that? How many of us here finish a game, uninstall it and/or forget about it? I'm sure all of us do that to some degree.

Yeah, I understand that, but that so much depends on how great the replay value for a game is. I spent insane amount of time (didn't keep record, but definitely over 300 hours within a year) on Stalker SOC without mod. It's about one and a half year later that I start looking for mods on it.

But I must say I am deeply disappointed by Clear Sky. I paid full price for a game which basically recycled more than half of the contents from its predecessor. Clear Sky is only qualified as expansion for SOC, not a standalone game.

[Ernesto]

I am saying that once a singleplayer game is out, there is usually no new content for it. No matter how great the replay value is, gamers will be bored after probably 2-3 walkthroughs. Developers are too damn quick to move on another completely new project without looking back.

Why would any developer of a singleplayer game want to add any new content? Why is there this obsession with continuations? A bunch of people created a game, then you play it to the end, maybe two or more times. And then you are done with it. Simple as that.
After you read a book you don't demand more chapters from the author, do you?!
Patches and technical support is a different story.

[Althea]

That's why it was billed as an expandalone, I think. But I was never under any impression it was a full sequel.

[Kadayi]

I totally want to play 'Gears of Box' now.

[Althea]

I totally want to play 'Gears of Box' now.

It's what happens if Gears of War and Minecraft have really weird sex and produce offspring.

And you have to build your own chest-high walls.

[Hypernetic]

Uh... pretty much every popular single player game released since Oblivion has had a plethora of DLC released for it. I'm really not sure what the OP is talking about.

[torgen]

The last Brothers in Arms did very poorly, after everyone on the team poured their hearts into it, so the franchise was ended.

[SanguineAngel]

That was a shame about Brothers in arms. I actually really liked a lot of it but it controlled like a moose and they seemed to make a lot of compromise to fit in with popular trends that didn't entirely gel.

The squad command system was well received wasn't it? I can't say I liked it. It was just a bit tooo simplistic to be feel meaningful.

[soldant]

The squad command system was well received wasn't it? I can't say I liked it. It was just a bit tooo simplistic to be feel meaningful.

It did the job though. By comparison ARMA2's AI squad command interface is a mess.



To go off on a slight tangent, it seems that modding in recent times is starting to diminish in importance in mainstream games. Back around the Half Life and Doom eras, mods were plentiful. Maps were plentiful too. Since then though mods seem to be declining, with the exception being Skyrim/Oblivion where they remain extremely important. But a lot of games come out these days with bugger all mod support, or they fail to develop the massive modding communities that existed in previous generations. I wonder if the barrier to entry is too high these days, particularly when authorware packages like Unity (with a visual scripting system like PlayMaker) reduce the barrier to starting your own game without having your art assets compared to the original.

[zookeeper]

The last Brothers in Arms did very poorly, after everyone on the team poured their hearts into it, so the franchise was ended.

I think the last Brothers in Arms did poorly because it was complete shit.

[Doesn'tmeananything]

It happens because virtually all singleplayer games are content-oriented. Just a shallow set of mind-numbing mechanics wrapped in window-dressing, yet the latter is usually perceived as a game, whilst the former is overlooked or considered innocuous enough to justify going through the content.

What you should advocate is not the post-release stuffing of games with yet more content, but the initial striving for mechanics-oriented approach. That way games will last more and require much less development resources. Plus, of course, they will be decidedly more interesting to play.

[b0rsuk]

I think single player games have short product life because they are designed to have short product life. Planned obsolescence. It helps if a game is story-based, because such games typically have little replay value. Randomly generated levels and open ended design would make a game last longer, but publishers don't profit from games that last longer. They profit from you having to buy games more often.

I bet many publishers see modding as harmful. Why allow to mod a game and create content for free (with all the hard work like creating an engine done for you) if you could lock things down and try to sell DLC ? Also, with multiple games appearing in short timespan players like to jump from one game to a newer game. If players are not faithful to a game, there's smaller audience for a mod. Years ago when something like Quake, DooM, C&C, Dungeon Keeper was made, it would typically overshadow all competition for a while. And there was much more variety in game genres. Now you have hordes of games in few categories. MMOs, multiplayer semi-realistic FPS, action RPGs and not much more. Games are largely interchangeable.

[archonsod]

It's a somewhat stupid generalisation. FPS games have always had short campaigns, the same would be true of any game based around a single mechanic - you can only do the same thing for so long before it gets boring. On the other hand you have things like X3 which theoretically could be played forever. There's not really been any change in that regard for about the past twenty years.

[victory]

I totally want to play 'Gears of Box' now.

It is obviously Frozenbyte's unannounced Trine offshoot. The wizard Amadeus, whose signature ability in the Trine games is to conjure boxes of gears out of thin air, runs around blasting skeletons with said boxes in a third person shooter with the most breathtaking gearbox graphics ever seen in a videogame.
In the DLC "Gears of Box: Epic!", which will follow shortly after the launch, the franchise will truly establish itself as the definitive box-and-gears experience by taking gearboxing to the max extreme.