I hope Gears 2 and CoD5 have longer campaigns.

[boycop]

Bodhesatva said:

 

Again, I'm not saying your preferences are bad, or wrong, I'm just saying they're no longer very popular. Emphasis on single player has been decreasing for decades, and within 5-10 years I expect the entire concept of single player to be fairly niche.

 

I do agree that single player games seem to be a niche these days, but I could see that this trend has come to an end, or at least it won't be stronger in the future than it currently is.

I base my opinion on the fact that I have bought or played quite a few multiplayer games and in the future I won't do that, unless I am sure I will like the games' multiplayer features. Current multiplayer games are usually designed for hard-core-players. If you just have time to play games for a few hours a week they are mostly not very entertaining. This gaming trend is growing as well. The short version of this is: "I did it in the past, but won't do it in the future and there are others like me, especially with the growth of casual gamers".

So if games designers want bigger sales for the ever increasing development costs, they must also look more closely at the casual gamers, and perhaps less at the hard-core gamers. Hence, current trend of satifiying hard-core gamers taste for multiplayer games, and especially the way multiplayer games currently work, might change.