Take-Two CEO Says Single-Player Games aren't Dead

When people talk about the future of video games, pretty much breathed in the same sentence as “games as a service” is also “the death of single-player”: doomsayers who predict that since single-player games are simply less profitable than multiplayer games, triple-A games you can enjoy by yourself are going straight out the door. I don’t think it’s an unwarranted fear the way EA and Ubisoft have been going about things, but if you were to ask Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, he says that gamers have nothing to fear, as single-player games will be with us for a long, long time. 

"There are people saying that a game won't work if it's not a free-to-play battle royale. People really are saying that, and not even tongue-in-cheek. I don't buy that. Single-player, in my opinion, is not dead, not even close. Companies that feel like they'll just avoid the hard work of building a story and characters and go right to where the money is in multiplayer, I don’t think that's going to work. I'd be surprised."

It might be weird to hear him saying that, considering the long-standing success of GTA V is largely pinned on GTA Online, the free multiplayer add-on where people can do all the tomfoolery they want, but he was quick to point out that people still largely wanted GTA V for the single-player story mode, so it proves his point as well as it combats it.

Now, one thing is for sure: single-player is certainly going to stick around as long as there are indie games. I’m not 100% sold on the idea that developers will ever give single-player games the attention and focus they once had, but one thing is undeniable: it would be fantastic if we could get less Battle Royale games.

I’m sorry I’m just so done with that mess.