Stop faking the death of single-player

EDIT: I know by putting this ahead of the article itself, I'm jumping the gun, but this happened. Despite not selling well in either entry, DarkSiders 3 is in the making and has people excited, because SINGLE-PLAYER is still desired, wanted, and people are making it. I'd say it almost hurts being this right, but when you're dealing with such bullshit stupid lies and myths being made-up, it's really not hard. Of course, I'm getting ahead of the point so now for the main article:

I'm often quite surprised at how often the game industry conspires against itself in a few ways. Very similar to how Square Enix thought that the kind of game that made them popular (JRPG), wasn't popular, but they never made any to actually see it, until they did and it was actually *gasp* popular. Now they're remaking FF7, because it's a classic, who would have thought it'd be so well received? If only there was that magic oracle, like a vocal audience, or a demand on the market, to predict such things! Same thing happened to the horror series, and 3D platformers, which never necessarily sold fantastic, but still does well and has an audience and will certainly sell better than some really bad spin-off ideas. Meanwhile the industry props up it's own stupid myths. Ideas like new IPs can't lead to sales, even though all their old IPs obviously came from that at some point, and freak incidents like Assassins Creed 1, Destiny, and others exist. Heck Dishonored was proof of a new IP selling well, even doing better than it's sequel. Oh and Gears of War's numbers are plummeting to. So do sequels suddenly not sell? No, that's stupid, but I'm shocked they aren't making that shit up because of some single example or failing. It's exactly what I'm talking about, they make up their own myths, and believe it for the longest time. Look at how many believed the only good way to make an FPS, was to copy COD exactly, and how many shooters didn't come even remotely close or outright failed. Oh, and remember that self-made myth that female characters don't sell? Yeah, glad we're over that stupid claim (well most, you're never going to please the SJW side that has cropped up and feeds off the myth).

Now the popular one for quite a while, has been this idea that Single-player doesn't sell. Many articles, and different spins, come out to try and tell us the same thing. Phil Spencer was caught recently saying the single-player audience isn't "consistent"... whatever that actually means. He was looking at Zelda and Horizon, like he knew actual living and awesome examples were proving the narrative wrong, and he just had to try and correct the facts with vague stupidity that sounded doubtful of others following their path. Now I'm not painting him as a necessary bad guy, as he says those games are important, but still the very fact he decides he somehow needs to make an example of how "weird" they supposedly are, or downplay their audience, is a pathetic and useless move he didn't have to do, and made no sense in doing. Pay Day 2 devs hit more at home, saying they can't go back to single-player because there were less easy ways to turn it into a constant cash flow. We'll come back to that later, because it's probably the most honest statement coming from appropriately some of the biggest scumbags of mid-tier development. But this is just the latest of a longer-standing trend to dismiss, or tamper with, the single-player market... in a time where we're seeing quite the influx of even more variety and interest from both multiplayer AND single-player markets.

apparently, not a big deal

Now, I'm going to give you a list of some successful single-player focused, and loved, games. I'm not reaching for everything that allows it, such as Borderlands (which people play more for co-op), but I'm also spinning that the other way and going to mention those that may have a lesser multiplayer component. The key focus is that these are successful, or seemingly successful, games or franchises that are sold primarily due to their awesome single-player components. Most of these are games that released fairly recently as well, or at least somewhere within the last four years, or have a really strong impact with people somewhere.

• Witcher 3
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite (I think? Correct me if this is a bad franchise somehow making 4 entries)
• Fallout
• Doom 4
• Metro
• Dishonored (2 did less well, but still sold well over a million)
• Horizon: Zero Dawn
• Zelda
• Everything else Nintendo does that isn't Splatoon or Mario Party
• Dark Souls (has a multiplayer twist, but let's not pretend that's it's the selling feature)
• Wolfenstien
• Shovel Knight
• Dead Space (got more negative attention the more they tried to steer it away from SP)
• Ratchet & Clank
• Shadow of Mordor
• Shadow Warrior
• Far Cry 3 and 4
• Uncharted
• Last of Us
• Assassins Creed
• Both Tomb Raiders, even if Square was a bit dense about it
• Metal Gear Solid
• Mass Effect
• GTAV sold over 1 billion before they even got their online up
• Hotline Miami
• Resident Evil's main franchise
• A good influx of attention is hitting Nier, Nioh, and Persona 5. Not sure about sales and it's a bit soon to call, but they sure as hell seem relatively positive.

A wealth of adventure worth exploring

But... you know, they don't exist, 'cus "single player is dead". Numbers, facts, and an absurd list of games don't matter when they can use any excuse to make a more shallow designed game, stick it on a server, and hold things back or add them in a socially pressured atmosphere for monetary exploits. That's what Payday 2's dev was alluding towards, funnily enough the exact same guys who failed to support their console versions, and who lied about selling people bad microtransactions. These are your role-model people, cheering on the notion that single-player is bad to make for struggling teams. Nevermind the fact Awesomenauts had to go free to play to help with their consistently low player-base despite constant updates and DLC. Nevermind that Battleborn and evolve weren't making much precious DLC money when they fell flatlined after their launch week. Nevermind Titanfall 2 launched multi-platform only to bomb harder than they did as an exclusive. Nevermind that Drawn To Death released dead the very first day, even FREE.

Meanwhile people were out running towards even those poor-selling Bayonetta and Bulletstorm re-releases, because those made more fuckin' money off the back of their quality launch (that also made some money, even if a flop), than a game like Drawn to Death ever had a chance to. ...but you don't hear anyone crying from the top of the mountains that multiplayer is dead, do you? Because of course it's not. They can rip people off with loot crates, crash their own servers to shove you off to the next one, and catch you in a lame skinnerbox mixed with social pressure. All of that without needing to blow their budgets up on a single-player full of voice actors, scripts, actual creativity and artistry, and a generally cheaper budget. They aren't going to let that possibility slip them by. They don't want to consider things like how Arkane sold us on a mini-sequel with Dishonored DLC, they can charge you the same price for four maps, or some cosmetic skins you'll want to show to your friends. That's why they want to pretend single-player is dead, or that it's sooooo hard. They can't figure out other ways to save money, it's all about the best way to take things from it's own audience, which is why they so easily show a contempt for them as to say such vague and silly nonsense as "they're inconsistent" as if that was the important message of the day.

Meanwhile here's one thing I will tell you so clearly that I am consistent on: I do not support forced online bullshit like For Honor, Battleborn, or Destiny, and will not ever buy those games after Garden Warfare 2 lies in regret. I'm not doing it. There are too many better things coming up in the single-player world for me to care about that poorly designed game style that doesn't respect my time. Oh, but doesn't that contradict what they're saying? Well yes, because it turns out single-player is NOT  DEAD. Not even close. Prey, Crash, the continued influx of open world single-player, the sequel to shadow of mordor, countless indie games ranging from Strafe, and Skylar & Plux, to DLC for Shovel knight (don't tell payday 2 that there's a way to make money off of quality single-player without lying to fans). Also Spider-man at some point. Oh and Battlefront 2 is getting a single-player because it turns out the whole "dead" mode of single-player is actually considered an improvement and worthy investment to a multiplayer game. That comes after a year full of single-player releases that are being well received.

Even in space, we can hear your lies

Single-player is well and okay. It's just that there's a trend to get up on some pedastal, and pretend they're dead, hoping that at some point they might be believed. Thankfully though unlike most coordinated self-attacks on the industry, people aren't buying into their own bullshit. EA can't seem to stamp out single-player as they try and pretend only multiplayer is necessary. People like Bethesda are just too good at making single-player to stop and think of doing a big MP release that actually works. Even Sony, who profits off of artificially forced multiplayer payments with PS+, has tendancy to let awesome single-player games like Horizon and Bloodborne slip through, because their console profits off of actually making good single-player games. They know people would run out to go buy a PS4 for bloodborne, and they did. They believe their PS pro will sell once people see how beautiful Horizon is on it, and people are talking about that. They have every ability and right to point to The Order as proof that they can't sell single-player games, but they're not that stupid, and so they continue to make Uncharted focused and sold around how incredible Naughty Dog is at single-player. Now they've even got a deal with Activision, to bring back the old ND single-player awesome experience that is Crash. Single-player is well and alive, or in fact maybe even more of a booming industry than it was the last generation. It's well and alive, and good for the ones still working hard out there to produce good content.