One way to try to ruin a game...

Your link is broken, but this is something I'm sure a lot of games fall prey to. Multiplayer is considered a necessity nowadays. meetroid8

If single player games want multiplayer, they should look at implementing it in new ways like what's seen in Demon/Dark Souls. Simply wacking on a half baked multiplayer brings the game down regardless of how good the single player turns out to be.

The TC didn't actually read the interview. The designer clearly stated that at Take 2's insistence, a different team designed the multiplayer.

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/28/3269504/her-full-story-behind-spec-ops-the-line-williams-davis-pearsey-2kgames

Against Davis' wishes, development on the multiplayer component proceeded and was farmed out to multiple studios before ending up at Darkside Studios. The result, according to Davis, was a "low-quality Call of Duty clone in third-person," which "tossed out the creative pillars of the product." "It sheds a negative light on all of the meaningful things we did in the single-player experience," Davis said. "The multiplayer game's tone is entirely different, the game mechanics were raped to make it happen, and it was a waste of money. No one is playing it, and I don't even feel like it's part of the overall package

Gamers on the internet whine about the multiplayer trend, but selling a short or medium length single player only shooter is damn near impossible in a world where the likes of CoD, Halo, Gears and Uncharted boast 3 modes (campaign, online co-op and competitive online). And even if a shooter does everything right it might not be a sales success (Spec Ops failed commercially, but so did Max Payne 3, which checked all the boxes). Despite the genre's popularity, the cost of making shooters is so high and the chance of success so low eventually game designers will wake up and explore other avenues.

Most publishers pay far more attention to their marketing departments than they do to their developers or customers. It dehumanizes the industry and leaves it directionless, as marketing departments are utterly devoid of the imagination that's required to move things forward.

The TC didn't actually read the interview. The designer clearly stated that at Take 2's insistence, a different team designed the multiplayer.

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/28/3269504/her-full-story-behind-spec-ops-the-line-williams-davis-pearsey-2kgames

Against Davis' wishes, development on the multiplayer component proceeded and was farmed out to multiple studios before ending up at Darkside Studios. The result, according to Davis, was a "low-quality Call of Duty clone in third-person," which "tossed out the creative pillars of the product." "It sheds a negative light on all of the meaningful things we did in the single-player experience," Davis said. "The multiplayer game's tone is entirely different, the game mechanics were raped to make it happen, and it was a waste of money. No one is playing it, and I don't even feel like it's part of the overall package

Gamers on the internet whine about the multiplayer trend, but selling a short or medium length single player only shooter is damn near impossible in a world where the likes of CoD, Halo, Gears and Uncharted boast 3 modes (campaign, online co-op and competitive online). And even if a shooter does everything right it might not be a sales success (Spec Ops failed commercially, but so did Max Payne 3, which checked all the boxes). Despite the genre's popularity, the cost of making shooters is so high and the chance of success so low eventually game designers will wake up and explore other avenues.

CarnageHeart

Most publishers pay far more attention to their marketing departments than they do to their developers or customers. It dehumanizes the industry and leaves it directionless, as marketing departments are utterly devoid of the imagination that's required to move things forward.

Jackc8

I disagree. I think sales are what is most important for most publishers. I don't damn them for that. Gaming isn't a charity and a publisher that declared 'We won't worry about making a profit but we also won't pay our developers' would never publish because no one would work for them.

However I do think that aping what is popular (often an expensive proposition) isn't as sure a route to success as many of them seem to think (CoD fans will more likely than not just stick with CoD and its vast community rather than jump into a CoDish game which very well might never develop a community). A game in a less popular genre or even in a new genre has just as much chance of success as clone #2.304.

That being said, there is no denying the disproportionate importance of franchises in the industry. A lot of consumers are indifferent to developers but fixate on franchises. When Miyamoto makes a game other than Mario, people who piss their pants when a new Mario game is unveiled yawn and say 'Yeah, that's nice, but where's Mario?' (on a related note, its damn sad that Kojima does nothing but make Metal Gears nowadays). If consumers fixated less on franchises and more on developers then there would be more innovation in the industry. When Stephen King writes a book, he doesn't have to worry that people will ignore it because it isn't a sequel. So some of the fault lies with consumers.