Developers from within the company and formerly at Electronic Arts’ studios have laughed at the publisher’s stupid display.

Electronic Arts (let’s shorten it to EA from now on!) wrote on Twitter that “They’re a 10, but they only like playing single-player games.” It means that even the most attractive-looking person loses her seductive good looks if she only skins single-player games. We are not exaggerating when we say that many people were just shaking their heads at this dumb tweet…

Vince Zampella (head of EA’s Respawn and responsible for the future of Battlefield) just facepalmed, but people who used to work for the publisher took it more seriously. David Gaider (Dragon Age writer) said, “As usual, EA jumps on a trend, misses the point, punches itself in the face“, while former Dragon Age designer Mike Laidlaw said the publisher’s comment “tone deaf“. Aaryn Flynn (former BioWare general manager, now working on Nightingale) was almost speechless (“You… you make single-player games…”), but Zach Mumbach, producer of the shuttered Visceral Games, took a much harsher line: “This is the company that shut down my studio and laid off ~100 great developers because we were making a single-player game. Also, if you break game rating scores down to a 10-point scale, most EA games are a solid 6 or 7. Not because the developers are bad, but because EA, the corporation, forces them to rush games out. EA corporate leadership wouldn’t know what a ’10’ looks like in video games.”

At the time of Visceral’s closure, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said it was not the result of a single-player vs multiplayer debate. They had already rushed down the live service route in 2013 when SimCity was unplayable due to server crashes. BioWare failed with Anthem, and the earlier concept of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf had a live service component, which was then removed. And in 2019, EA CFO Blake Jörgensen said they’re doubling down on the live service model. Still, a new studio in Seattle is “expanding the narrative, storytelling, and character development opportunities in the Battlefield series”, which sounds like a single-player project. A new Skate is in the works, and while multiplayer is possible, there’s no way that would be emphasized. Several single-player titles have been under EA Originals (2021: Lost in Random. 2019: Sea of Solitude, 2018: Fe).

Sea of Thieves’ Twitter took it poignantly, “They’re a 10, but they anchor to stop the ship”, and Electronic Arts finally took the hint, as they later wrote, “Roast well deserved. We’ll take this L cause playing single-player games makes them an 11.” But now it’s too late.

Source: PCGamer