Warner Bros. Announcement Highlights The Sad Truth About Offline Single Player Games
Are you tired of having to constantly pay for more offline single-player content? Are you hopeful that one day, video games will once again offer complete campaigns out of the box without a commitment to investing more than what's printed on the price tag? If that's the case, you might be waiting a long time for that day to come.
Recently, a job listing was posted on the Warner Bros. website that draws attention to where the gaming industry is at concerning single-player games. Details for this intern position reflect the company's direction with a statement that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will be focusing its development practices on live services.
IGN's Joe Skrebels defines live services as "the process of continually updating a game after release to keep players invested, adding new features, items, storylines and more." Skrebels went on to explain how this method of game development has proven to be quite lucrative — so much so that WBIE was spared from the chopping block when parent company AT&T realized the gaming publisher was an invaluable asset. The article also listed a few more infamous recent industry examples, including the failure that was Anthem and Square Enix's Avengers, which bombed in sales.
As it stands, there are a some major projects in the works for WBIE. Gamers are in high anticipation over Hogwarts Legacy, which was recently delayed. Back 4 Blood is yet another game that fans cannot wait to play. Will titles like these, which consumers are hungry to buy, arrive with piecemeal single-player elements?
Gamers have seen such a business practice from the company before. Mortal Kombat 11 originally released with a cinematic story mode and a solid roster, offering plenty of incentive to purchase the game. It wasn't long before a new set of characters were teased, and then later, the Aftermath expansion arrived. While it can be exciting to see your favorite guest characters enter the arena, this one fighting game has seen quite a lot of action from your wallet. With seemingly endless updates, fans have to wonder if they will ever see a Mortal Kombat 12.
This very well could be the future of gaming. With a business practice that's this successful and profitable, what incentive would video game companies have to stop? Instead of cranking out sequels, developers can continue to push out new story missions, new characters, new assets, and more while the money keeps rolling in.