Bioware's Anthem did so badly that EA has reconsidered making Bioware's Dragon Age 4 a multiplayer game and have it return to its singleplayer roots:
Yong reports at minute 4:02:
"....The reason I'm telling you all this is because well there might be hope yet for Dragon Age 4, who seem as though EA has decided to walk back that mandate and will be allowing Bioware to make the next Dragon Age game a fully singleplayer experience after recent developments. The following information was also relayed by investigative reporter, Jason Shrier, who released the following article titled 'Electronic Arts Removes Multiplayer Mode from Dragon Age in Big Pivot'* in the fact that it says right here that EA is allowing the developers to remove all planned multiplayer components means that those multiplayer elements were forced in by the executives, and that the developers probably, if it was up to them, they wouldn't have added this multiplayer component because they probably know it doesn't belong and that that's not what Dragon Age was all about."
"....Dragon Age 4 was previously, after that reboot, been designed with a heavy multiplayer component. But fortunately after EA was stung with a recent multiplayer flop, *cough - Anthem!*, they came to the realization that maybe not every game needs multiplayer shoved in there, that multiplayer can potentially ruin an experience if you force it in there for the sake of monetization, and that singleplayer games can thrive just as much, if not more, than multiplayer titles.
*-
He goes on to report that there were two factors that changed the executives' minds:
"So what exactly changed the minds of Andrew Wilson and other EA executives? Well, apparently two recent games that EA launched that disproved their own notions. One of those games was Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a singleplayer game that completely disproved EA's own claims that singleplayer games are no longer profitable, that it's not the kind of game people want to play anymore. Well, when they released that title, it ended up outperforming EA's sales expectations, reaching more than 10 million players in its first four months.
And then the other game that influenced EA executives decision to let Dragon Age just be a singleplayer RPG experience was Bioware's Anthem, the type of multiplayer live service, recurrent monetizable experience that EA claimed was the way of the future, because nobody's interested in singleplayer games anymore. Well the singleplayer game ended up thriving because it was just a well-made game, while the multiplayer live service game ended up flopping, because it was a shittily-released title."
So maybe there is hope that The Sims 5 will remain a singleplayer game? Let's hope so. If it's done well as a singleplayer game the way The Sims 1, The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 were done, The Sims 5 will DEFINITELY outperform The Sims 4 for sure!
PS - Read the replies to Jason Shreiers's tweet about the article. Lots of relieved fans! I really envy them right now!
Comments
Multiplayer never made sense for the first three games in the Dragon Age series, because it didn't fit the story. Forcing it on DA4 probably didn't make any sense either, but abandoning it is surprising progress for EA. Surprising to me, anyway.
Anthem made a lot of sense as a multiplayer game. I don't think MP is what killed it (maybe I'm wrong). It's downfall was just plain bad design that was fun for a while, but became repetitive and boring pretty quickly, and unrewarding end game play. I enjoyed it though, and am sorry but not surprised to see it's reboot not happen.
I'm not sure that EA is convinced yet that MP won't work for The Sims series. They played around with it for TS3, and apparently TS4 was originally supposed to be extensively MP, and then rewritten at the last minute as single player. EA seems desperate to come up with some sort of MP formula for The Sims. They're also going to need to do something to separate themselves from whatever Paradox is developing. So, I think it's probably good news for TS5, but with EA I never quite know.
Isn't that the Sims 4 fiasco all over again?
I'm actually more excited about whatever Paradox is developing than what EA/Maxis is doing with The Sims 5 at this point to be honest. Because at least I know that it won't be multiplayer at all. And it will be jam-packed with working and meaningful gameplay - the base game as well as its myriad of DLCs.
So I really hope that EA would be more willing to listen to what Maxis want with the sims 5 and not force them to implement online features that will reduce features that the fans want.
I know EA, you are still a company that wants to make money but I think we have proven already with the huge success of the sims 4 that the sims 5 does not need multiplayer to be successful.
Now imagine if the sims5 will have so much more of what the fans wanted at release and then you can make packs for that. You will please both the players and your shareholders.
We're stuck in a time loop 😭😭😭
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Depends how far they have gotten into development...I think they are still in the prototyping stage.
I do think they should focus on gameplay and design first, and keep in the back of their minds how things may be adjusted/work for multiplayer. As opposed to going 'we are making a multiplayer game' how do we implement that. If they focus on gameplay etc first then if required they can decide at a later date to drop multiplayer or release it later when they are under less pressure to release a game. There are a number of people who would like to play Sims with their friends, but there are also a number who don't.
Agree 100%. Also, almost unlimited potential for mods.