EA walks back choice to make new Dragon Age have online, "allows" BioWare to keep it single-player

I think publishers are slowly getting the idea that games-as-a-service are a very risky gamble. The potential is great, but the market has a big cap on it. People will only ever want to use a handful of services at a time, they don't want to be on too many ecosystems simultaneously. When you make a game that's supposed to perpetuate itself in a never-ending multiplayer-focused content drip, you can end up with a Fortnite and you're golden until the end of time, or an Anthem and you're in the hole - big time. The market is saturated now - even objectively excellent games like Apex Legends are having trouble fighting for supremacy with the big boys because, simply put, people are already invested elsewhere. You *really* have to innovate to come out on top in this market, and you have to do everything just right the first time - you don't get a second chance. Games like this have a few weeks, at most few months to build that initial subscriber base that will do all your marketing for you - if your game comes out as a flop right out of the gate, the word is out and there's no fixing it. In a single player title you have an easier time getting everything just right - things are more predictable and more easily orchestrated without that mass multiplayer human element that constantly needs to be fed new batches of content.

 

No joke, I know a couple people who have four-digits play time in Destiny and Destiny 2 (hi @BORTZ!), once you pick your poison you tend to stick to it. You might try something new, but there's always that moment when you think "this is great, but I'll need to invest hundreds of hours into this before I'm a boss", and that's always disheartening. I was like that about Rainbow Six Siege - I fell behind on a couple of seasons and by the time I came back there were so many new operators and so many new strats that my experience wasn't worth much anymore, it was a whole new game. That's great on one hand, everything feels fresh, but on the other you're effectively starting from scratch.

 

It certainly makes gaming feel like work. You have to do your dailies or you'll fall behind, and God forbid, you don't want to fall behind or you're effectively a nooblet again and may as well put it down. That content tap needs to be open full blast to keep the youngsters throwing mommy's money at it, otherwise the whole thing falls apart. Huge undertaking, which is probably why Epic dropped Unreal Tournament 4 - too busy with Fortnite. Bungie is only concerned with Destiny, no new games from that company anytime soon. You have to throw everything and the kitchen sink at it or it doesn't work.

 

What?!?!?!?! If I can not buy Dragon Age Ultimate Team card packs to beat poor people online I will be cancelling my £100 Deluxe Gold Edition pre-order!