FIFA 16

[Day]

Given the token SP modes in CoD games these days, compared with the e-sports side of those same games you could argue that this is pretty much what Activision have done with CoD. CoD is now garbage. 

EA wouldn't dispense with offline. Wouldn't surprise me if they split it out and sold it as a second game though. 

COD isn't garbage, just that we don't like all the wall running super jumping over buildings. People moaned they wasn't bringing anything new to the series, same old reskined maps and guns etc. As soon they do bring new movement to the game the older players kick off, but you can't please them, we all want a fixed COD 4 or MW2 but it won't happen and to be fair they should be concentrating on the next generation of players, not us lot that get arthritis after 2 games!

Player numbers are still high and the "COD Killer" Destiny is online only isn't it? That's not doing to bad either and the most popular game in the world League of Legends is online only. 

Older players can't be pleased no matter what game developers produce, we don't like change but then moan it's the same game. All the big games will go online only soon, it's where the money is at and as long as they don't take the easy route and sit back, relax, add a few in game purchases it should be good for gaming.

[Day]

Video games are for children.

So is trolling forums...

[Albert]

COD isn't garbage, just that we don't like all the wall running super jumping over buildings. People moaned they wasn't bringing anything new to the series, same old reskined maps and guns etc. As soon they do bring new movement to the game the older players kick off, but you can't please them, we all want a fixed COD 4 or MW2 but it won't happen and to be fair they should be concentrating on the next generation of players, not us lot that get arthritis after 2 games!

Player numbers are still high and the "COD Killer" Destiny is online only isn't it? That's not doing to bad either and the most popular game in the world League of Legends is online only. 

Older players can't be pleased no matter what game developers produce, we don't like change but then moan it's the same game. All the big games will go online only soon, it's where the money is at and as long as they don't take the easy route and sit back, relax, add a few in game purchases it should be good for gaming.

Destiny was rubbish as well. 

You're using a circular argument with League of Legends as well. It's the most popular esport game in the world to watch, that isn't the most popular game. It would be like saying that "we found football is the most popular sport, following a poll conducted at the iPro Stadium at gameday". 

Again, "always online" was a failed experiment that's already past. There are games which now target online, and target offline, but it's pretty telling that the best selling games this year were actually pretty much all mostly offline. The likes of Batman Arkham Knight, Witcher 3, GTA V and so on, what do they all have in common?  

This idea of forcing everything to be an online game was a dead duck from the start, and the companies that tried it have run screaming from the scene of the disaster. The likes of Diablo 3, Sim City, and so forth that attempted to shoehorn in the online components and it was received poorly for a reason. 

There exists genres where the main component is the online play, but shoehorning things which aren't and have never been focused on such is a poor idea. It's like the MMORPG fad that ended up with wave after wave of failed games littering the internet with their corpses. 

There exist entire, massive genres of games for which being "online only" neither makes sense nor is even feasible which are doing very well for themselves. Just because your favourite games and modes are online doesn't mean that's how the whole industry is. There is a place for both in the industry in the modern world. 

[Day]

It's hard to read your posts Albert when your first sentence is absolute rubbish. Literally can't read the rest.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-wins-bafta-best-game-award/1100-6425891/

Agree to disagree, our opinions are miles apart just like England and Austrailia.

[Albert]

It's hard to read your posts Albert when your first sentence is absolute rubbish. Literally can't read the rest.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-wins-bafta-best-game-award/1100-6425891/

Agree to disagree, our opinions are as miles apart just like England and Austrailia.

Hahaha... citing the BAFTAs when talking about the global games market. Magnificent stuff. Personally though I'd read the rest of the critical reviews first and carefully note that the game was overall not received that well. 

Nice deflection though. When you've got no argument, it's much easier to just leg it eh? 

[Day]

You mean read the reviews of people's opinions ok, here's Metacritic. Majority are positive reviews, not bad for a rubbish game?

You don't like Destiny fair enough, doesn't make it a rubbish game. I don't like PES, doesn't make it a rubbish game.

You will dismiss everything I put to you, no doubt Metacritic will be a rubbish source aswell because if Albert doesn't like something then it's rubbish. End of. You believe that if it makes you happy.

[Albert]

You mean read the reviews of people's opinions ok, here's Metacritic. Majority are positive reviews, not bad for a rubbish game?

You don't like Destiny fair enough, doesn't make it a rubbish game. I don't like PES, doesn't make it a rubbish game.

You will dismiss everything I put to you, no doubt Metacritic will be a rubbish source aswell because if Albert doesn't like something then it's rubbish. End of. You believe that if it makes you happy.

76 on metacritic isn't exactly great you realise. That's someone between mediocre and good, and flies in the face of the whole "game of the year" angle you were trying to present there. Rubbish might be an overstatement, but it certainly failed to live up to the hype it generated. The user score is also pretty telling. 

I also don't get the whole passive aggressive tone you're putting out. If I attack a source, I give a reason. If you don't like my reasoning, then go at that, not just attack me directly. Maybe you can't form an argument on this one, but at least try if you're going to attempt. 

[Mr. P]

I go by User Score on Metacritic. Some magazine reviews are terrible and clearly just up the back sides of developers. 

[Day]

You didn't give a reason tho, go back and read your post. 

You do also realise that review sites are all clicky with developers right? And user scores are also trolled heavily. FIFA 16 is currently on 4.4

[Albert]

You didn't give a reason tho, go back and read your post. 

You do also realise that review sites are all clicky with developers right? And user scores are also trolled heavily. FIFA 16 is currently on 4.4

I'm sure Bungie wasn't in the good books with the reviewers eh? 

User scores tend to be on average less than the review scores (most reviewers treat 5 or less as an outright disaster, users tend to 1 for a game they vaguely didn't like, 10 for a game they vaguely liked), but the point remains that it scored considerably less than it's competitors in both types of score on metacritic. The professional reviews are mainly what you should listen to (being the entire concept of the site and all), but the point remains as, 76 is far from being "game of the year" material as you were trying to argue. 

Again, I'd concede calling it rubbish is a bit much, but it certainly isn't a game that deserved the hype it was getting, and by the standards it set for itself it was poor. 

Anyhow, going back and reading my post:

Hahaha... citing the BAFTAs when talking about the global games market. Magnificent stuff. Personally though I'd read the rest of the critical reviews first and carefully note that the game was overall not received that well. 

Nice deflection though. When you've got no argument, it's much easier to just leg it eh? 

You'll carefully note that whilst it wasn't a detailed reason, there was a reason there. The BAFTAs aren't a global award for gaming, and aren't even a highly thought of one in gaming to my knowledge. 

I get that we're not going to agree on this one, but I'd think that the fact that "online only" style games are only a chunk of the market, and one that isn't even that successful (overall, check out the highest rated games on metacritic) would speak volumes of the point that it couldn't simply replace the entire current market, particularly with the style of game being completely incompatible with entire genres of gaming. 

[Day]

I was talking about FIFA being online only, not the entire current market.

GTA and Assassins Creed great offline, not so great online. 

FIFA career mode is dated, Ultimate team online is the most played so they should focus on what's popular with the game, Career mode always seems like an after thought. Drop it and concentrate on what they do best which is online.

Disagree? Fine, but the reason PES won't overtake FIFA is because of online gameplay, they can't compete with Ultimate Team, simple as that. Gameplay doesn't matter, all about the online.

[Albert]

I was talking about FIFA being online only, not the entire current market.

GTA and Assassins Creed great offline, not so great online. 

FIFA career mode is dated, Ultimate team online is the most played so they should focus on what's popular with the game, Career mode always seems like an after thought. Drop it and concentrate on what they do best which is online.

Disagree? Fine, but the reason PES won't overtake FIFA is because of online gameplay, they can't compete with Ultimate Team, simple as that. Gameplay doesn't matter, all about the online.

Ultimate team's offline components are surprisingly popular. It's the Pokémon cards with footballers that's popular, not the online part in particular. 

Career mode still stands as one of their most popular modes, and EA have no reason to cut it out. A recurring theme in sports games is that the manager mode is always a popular mode, even if it hasn't always been the most popular. To completely drop offline components because their biggest money spinner at the moment is a card game (which can be played on and offline) would, again, be like reducing standards for the water supply because most of it is used for bathing and watering the garden. 

Plenty of people play both a career mode and maintain an Ultimate Team side as well. The offline components still definitely have their place, and are ultimately the bread and butter of the game. Ultimate Team may well start to fall apart in the coming years. 

I'd argue as well that EA seem to have put a lot of focus into online for a number of years now, and don't see how copy-pasting their career mode and such from version to version with minor updates exactly changes that. If anything, the lack of focus on the offline components seems to have hurt the series, as the gameplay standards have dropped in recent years. Even completely dropping their offline components is needless, as the biggest issue, the AI, is needed regardless as it's how the whole team is governed when playing, not just when the AI is in full control. 

As for PES, who knows what'll happen with that. They somehow keep producing great games, but ultimately screw everything else up. They won't even have the squad update for the offline modes like Master League until the 29th of October. I'd say their biggest issue right now is consumer trust more than anything. I've actually heard that their online connections aren't doing too bad this year though. That said, they had issues with the keepers online at release, and the balance of MyClub is bizarre to say the least. 

[Day]

What are your sources for all this? I've found an official FIFA 14 infographic and 64% play Ultimate Team, now that doesn't breakdown into online/offline, nor does it suggest that they don't play Career mode as well. 

UT is their baby, the heart of the game and it's the big money maker which is always handy.

If you look across forums, even the official one. Currently just over 100 topics in Career mode board compared to thousands in Ultimate Team. Not a great source granted but it shows just how much it's being talked about.

Less talked about = less popular to me, if you can find me any sources to suggest Career Mode is popular I would love to be proven wrong.

If you focus on one job it will always turn out better than spreading it over several jobs. 

[Albert]

What are your sources for all this? I've found an official FIFA 14 infographic and 64% play Ultimate Team, now that doesn't breakdown into online/offline, nor does it suggest that they don't play Career mode as well. 

UT is their baby, the heart of the game and it's the big money maker which is always handy.

If you look across forums, even the official one. Currently just over 100 topics in Career mode board compared to thousands in Ultimate Team. Not a great source granted but it shows just how much it's being talked about.

Less talked about = less popular to me, if you can find me any sources to suggest Career Mode is popular I would love to be proven wrong.

If you focus on one job it will always turn out better than spreading it over several jobs. 

I recall a tweet saying second most popular. Their promotion material from last year says "one of FIFA's most popular modes" Here. I'll give it a better look later and see if I can find actual statistics.  

I'm honestly surprised the Ultimate Team number isn't higher. 

[StaffsRam]

COD isn't garbage, just that we don't like all the wall running super jumping over buildings. People moaned they wasn't bringing anything new to the series, same old reskined maps and guns etc. As soon they do bring new movement to the game the older players kick off, but you can't please them, we all want a fixed COD 4 or MW2 but it won't happen and to be fair they should be concentrating on the next generation of players, not us lot that get arthritis after 2 games!

Player numbers are still high and the "COD Killer" Destiny is online only isn't it? That's not doing to bad either and the most popular game in the world League of Legends is online only. 

Older players can't be pleased no matter what game developers produce, we don't like change but then moan it's the same game. All the big games will go online only soon, it's where the money is at and as long as they don't take the easy route and sit back, relax, add a few in game purchases it should be good for gaming.

Yes, I should perhaps have qualified that by saying its garbage to me. Honestly, if I wanted wall running then I'd play Titanfall's, which does it better. If I wanted jet packs and/or stealth suits then I'd play Halo, which does it better. These changes, and moving the franchise into the future just smack of a blatant market share grab, which is fine, but moves the games away from what made them great. CoD4 for example was a step change away from what had come before, but at its heart it was still fairly simple. Maps were symmetrical, everyone had the same kill streaks and perks and attachments were limited. Now, there's too much. Far too much. They've also gone too far in trying to balance the games out which severely limits how well you can do. That coupled with the slant towards team-based games. Trying to play lone wolf now is almost impossible. Again, great when you have mates online, but when you just fancy jumping on for a few quick games you're at a detriment.

Perhaps it is just that things have naturally moved on, and yes I'd love remasters of the earlier games, which won't happen, but thankfully, you CAN still find games on MW1 and MW2. The odd hacked lobby obviously and pretty much TDM only at this point, but still, playable.

Destiny, I don't really know how to describe that one - SP, MP, Co-op....I enjoyed it for a while but it's pretty repetitive. I wouldn't say that it's direct competition for CoD, it plays more like Halo mixed in with Red Dead Redemption's MP/Co-op modes. 

[May Contain Nuts]

The focus on online-only game modes is one of my biggest turn-offs

I enjoyed Destiny up until the point where you have to form a 'raid group' and it couldn't simply be done with matchmaking, rather you have to either know 5 other people who like games and play them online, on the same system and with matching timeslots available (...I only have one friend who actually plays computer games!) or use a specific forum to find a group to join which, for me, introduces a whole new brand of anxiety.

It's holding back all it has to offer because I'm not computer-game-sociable, "Come & have a go if you think you're nerd enough".

The whole idea of playing Ultimate Team online in Fifa seems awful to me, it's a game mode that looks like it's designed for 12 year old children and youtube vloggers talking excitedly over the top of a trading screen like getting an 86 rated Walcott is the greatest thing that's ever happened to them.

[Day]

If I was a game developer that's exactly the age group I would be aiming to cater for. bringing Call of Duty back into it for a second they have gone down the same route with emblem creators so you can have ***** on your guns, crazy multi coloured camos.

You can't concentrate on the core group that made your game popular, at some point those games consoles are put away in cupboards or sold to fund a nursery. 

All those that say X game is dying, it isn't, you're just getting to old for it. Happens to us all. 

The YouTube thing makes me laugh but come on you can't blame them, the ******* are absolutely loaded now, most of which would have ended up in dead end jobs otherwise. Play video games all day, pretend to get excited, watch the money roll in. If I had the personality to do that I'd be on it tomorrow, just I would struggle to make my scream arrrgggh creeper run sound convincing. 

[Albert]

If I was a game developer that's exactly the age group I would be aiming to cater for. bringing Call of Duty back into it for a second they have gone down the same route with emblem creators so you can have ***** on your guns, crazy multi coloured camos.

You can't concentrate on the core group that made your game popular, at some point those games consoles are put away in cupboards or sold to fund a nursery. 

All those that say X game is dying, it isn't, you're just getting to old for it. Happens to us all. 

The YouTube thing makes me laugh but come on you can't blame them, the ******* are absolutely loaded now, most of which would have ended up in dead end jobs otherwise. Play video games all day, pretend to get excited, watch the money roll in. If I had the personality to do that I'd be on it tomorrow, just I would struggle to make my scream arrrgggh creeper run sound convincing. 

However, the games market isn't how you describe. Older players don't just stop playing games and disappear from the market. The average age of the modern gamer is 30 years old, and that is increasing with time. The market of people who have the disposable income to be the most valuable are also those older games. Younger gamers tend to be more vocal, but that doesn't mean they're the whole market. Just as people in the age group that grew up with TV didn't suddenly stop watching as they got older, the group that have grown up with games aren't likely to either, and that's becoming apparent. 

That's not to say we don't get hardened to new things as we age. We most definitely do. If you listen to to the radio these days and hate everything, having previously liked the same stations, you're probably just getting older. The thing is, that doesn't mean there suddenly isn't a market there, it means that there's a stable market with nostalgia factors to profit from, and you'll see in the coming decades companies really start to profit off it (Nintendo are leading the way on that already). 

As for the youtubers, it's the next generation of TV, though whether or not it'll last for them is anyone's guess. They've done briliantly for themselves, and it's funny to say this about them having seen of their content, but they are a kind of pioneer. Those who were a generation older than most of such things would feel the same though. 

As for "what's the most popular mode", it's really quite hard to get a handle on the numbers. EA don't seem to release much in the way of official figures from what I can find. It's hard to find many public polls on it either. Reddit had one which reported career mode as the most popular mode oddly enough, but I wouldn't really take that as evidence one way or another. 

[Thierry Ennui]

Has anyone worked out what Daveo is arguing for? I can't work it out.

FIFA has Online Seasons, Online Doubles Seasons, Online Ultimate Team and Clubs for up to 11 players and with a league format (including private matches and catering for organised 10v10). Each mode has a progressive structure with endless hours of gameplay.

Just because it has some single player modes in there doesn't mean it isn't focussed on online play. The argument to make it online-only is baffling and alienates a significant portion of the audience. It might not be the majority but that doesn't matter. FIFA is a monster and they are looking to cover every angle. The time investment is easily worth it on their part.

[Day]

Has anyone worked out what Daveo is arguing for? I can't work it out.

FIFA has Online Seasons, Online Doubles Seasons, Online Ultimate Team and Clubs for up to 11 players and with a league format (including private matches and catering for organised 10v10). Each mode has a progressive structure with endless hours of gameplay.

Just because it has some single player modes in there doesn't mean it isn't focussed on online play. The argument to make it online-only is baffling and alienates a significant portion of the audience. It might not be the majority but that doesn't matter. FIFA is a monster and they are looking to cover every angle. The time investment is easily worth it on their part.

My thoughts are that FIFA should go online only now rather than later, it will happen eventually and for a lot of people the game has gone stale. 

Focus on what you do best, which also happens to be where the money is. Online. 

Some wont agree, will never get 100% support no matter what game developers do.

In a nutshell that's it.