Valve defend the future of single player games

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Valve employee and Portal 2 developer Erik Johnson has spoken out in defence of single player games, saying that instead of worrying about piracy, publishers should concentrate on responding to what players want.

In an interview with Gamasutra , Johnson responded to an assertion single player games were dwindling by saying "I still think the analysis that every product needs to be a competitor in multiplayer, or an MMO, is incorrect; there are a lot of people who want an experience without the stress, so I don't see that changing."

Responding to the idea that piracy was a reason behind publishers' reluctance to make more single player games, Johnson said "I think is a pretty crazy analysis on an issue like that. That's making a decision for your customers about the types of products you are going to build without, by definition, including your customers in that at all."

He added: "You're saying that because of these pirates, you get no single player experiences, which makes no sense to me. If there are as much players that want single player experiences, you should go build that. I think there are plenty of people that still want to have single player experiences."

What do you think, are single player games dying out? Would you like to see more of them, or are you happier gaming with others online?

[via Eurogamer ]

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Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.