Marketing research and feedback showed EA that the games were too scary for people even if they enjoyed the "thriller" aspect of it, so, according to EA's marketing boss Laura Miele, they incorporated co-op to somewhat eliminate the fear factor.

EA Games marketing boss Laura Miele told MCV that the single player nature of the titles was largely responsible for the fright factor, hence the publisher's decision to introduce co-op gameplay in Dead Space 3.

But she insisted fans of the series shouldn't be worried that the third game will drop its predecessors' scare tactics in favour of an all-out action approach.

"We were hearing feedback that they love the thriller game, but it was pretty scary, and the obvious next step was that they wanted to play with someone. So we introduced co-op into the game," Miele said.

"The horror of Dead Space is still all there. It's still true to its roots and no less scary, but people felt far more comfortable playing it with someone else than they did doing it on their own.

"Personally, I would rather go to scary movie with my husband rather than sit at home with the lights out watching one on my own. We're looking for that to reach out to consumers that perhaps were not open to Dead Space 1 and 2."

Source

Personally, I think this is really stupid. They're essentially ignoring what I'm presuming made Dead Space 1 (and maybe to a lesser extent Dead Space 2) so compelling for most people who played it. This is the "dumbing down for a mass audience appeal" that we've been seeing happen a lot, and I don't believe that the single player aspect of the game won't suffer because of it.

Isn't that the whole point? That's like saying water is too wet. =/

That was the draw of the game in the first place.

It's FEAR all over again. I'm staying optimistic for now, but EA isn't making it easy for me to do so.

...wait what? This is like saying "There are so many exciting scenes in our game...so we added co-op so you can talk about it with your friend".

I never played them but wasn't it the "alone in abandoned space station" kinda the whole point of the game?

@Darkstalker said:

I never played them but wasn't it the "alone in abandoned space station" kinda the whole point of the game?

You're sadly mistaken. The whole point of the game is evidently money.

Oh, at first I was going to say "Are you fucking kidding me? Boooo!" now that I read it though, it changes nothing. It's basically saying, OK, you can play it on your own and it'll be like the originals (like you sitting in your room on your own watching a scary movie), or you can bring in a friend or sibling and experience it that way (by making it less scary in a way, but still entertaining). It changes absolutely nothing I think.

That's just going off what they say, and not my opinion of what I believe the actual finished product will be. I think if you take this negatively you're being kind of dumb. You have to correlate it with either experiencing a horror film with a friend, or not, and that's what they're trying to say. They're not saying "Alright, so people got scared from the earlier Dead Space games, we need to tone that down for the whole experience so people don't have a heart attack."

Also, people that keep saying "This is ruining the game" are ignorant. It ruins nothing. If you want to be scared, play the campaign, if you want to enjoy it with a friend although potentially making it slightly less scary, play it on co-op. This thread is bringing about negative opinions that are unnecessary since it seems to me the comments aren't correctly associated with what they were saying.

What the point of the game is to scare you into crapping your pants. I don't mind the co op but this is a dumb reason.

This is not good news. Why would they think that toning down the tension and scare factor (which is the point of the series) is a good idea?

I already didn't buy DS2 because it looked way too action heavy and blockbuster-like to me. Well, this saves me money and time... thanks at least for that, EA.

@mandude said:

@Darkstalker said:

I never played them but wasn't it the "alone in abandoned space station" kinda the whole point of the game?

You're sadly mistaken. The whole point of the game is evidently money.

touche good sir

One of the horsemen of the inevitable game industry crash apocalypse, EA.

@mandude said:

@Darkstalker said:

I never played them but wasn't it the "alone in abandoned space station" kinda the whole point of the game?

You're sadly mistaken. The whole point of the game is evidently money.

any game you mean

@Demoskinos said:

Isn't that the whole point? That's like saying water is too wet. =/

I haven't that saying in a long time.

They're essentially ignoring what I'm presuming made Dead Space 1 (and maybe to a lesser extent Dead Space 2) so compelling for most people who played it.

@Bell_End said:

@mandude said:

@Darkstalker said:

I never played them but wasn't it the "alone in abandoned space station" kinda the whole point of the game?

You're sadly mistaken. The whole point of the game is evidently money.

any game you mean

I wouldn't say so. Money will almost always be a factor, but if money was the only reason people ever got into making games, I think the industry would be much smaller.

@Darkstalker: And that's still the point of the game if you play it on your own.

@CptBedlam: Dead Space 2 was fantastic, and I think DS3 will be good too.

@golguin: Play campaign. They're not referring to the entire Dead Space 3 experience, just co-op. I don't think - opposite of what the OP said - that this'll effect the campaign.

Yea, I have to agree with you guys. Why remove the scary parts of a game meant to be scary?

@Darkstalker: And that's still the point of the game if you play it on your own.

@CptBedlam: Dead Space 2 was fantastic, and I think DS3 will be good too.

@golguin: Play campaign. They're not referring to the entire Dead Space 3 experience, just co-op. I don't think - opposite of what the OP said - that this'll effect the campaign.

@Jrinswand said:

What do you mean, "presuming?" Why are you making reactionary threads about games you haven't even played?

This isn't a reactionary thread, this is just a thread about a recent statement one of EA's staff members made. The rest is my opinion on it and I'm "presuming" because I don't know what the majority of people enjoyed most from Dead Space (whether it was the UI, the gameplay or whatever).

And... uh, I've played Dead Space. I don't know how you got that from that comment, but you probably misread.

@Demoskinos said:

Isn't that the whole point? That's like saying water is too wet. =/

It is. That's what towels are for.

I get the sense that everything people are worried about is exclusive to co-op. If they're telling the truth(which I have no reason to believe they aren't), then the single player will be roughly the same as it was in the first two games. If people want to play it co-op, and as a result have it be less scary, I don't see the harm.

DS2 was not scary. At all. This is coming out of a man who can't get past the first bump in Amnesia without crapping his pants.

@Jrinswand said:

What do you mean, "presuming?" Why are you making reactionary threads about games you haven't even played?

This isn't a reactionary thread, this is just a thread about a recent statement one of EA's staff members made. The rest is my opinion on it and I'm "presuming" because I don't know what the majority of people enjoyed most from Dead Space (whether it was the UI, the gameplay or whatever).

And... uh, I've played Dead Space. I don't know how you got that from that comment, but you probably misread.

I play just about every scary game with either my roommate or my girlfriend (or both) watching, because otherwise I wouldn't tolerate their controls and quit. Silent Hill is always a performance piece. I remember Tycho saying that he and Gabe played through every Resident Evil together, and that only made it better. And actually, I probably wouldn't have yelled "Oh CHRIST" nearly as much playing Silent Hill if I was by myself. I would stay quiet and get annoyed that Harry is unresponsive. I would still probably cackle when I run him into walls though.

I think she's pretty much right in that most people don't go to horror films by themselves. Even horror films they want to see.

Maybe my roommate is not the norm though; because he finished Dead Space three times but can't get through Dead Space 2.

Anyone mind if I bring some numbers in here? No? Good.

Caveat: These are just Giant Bomb Achievement (and Trophy) Tracker numbers, so they are focused on a self selected subset of a subset of a subset. Also DS has been out for a long time, has been discounted, passed around, available digitally, etc., etc. However, they could indicate how things are in the wider world. So, with that...

Dead Space: # of Players: XBOX 360: 17,335 -- PS3: 1,857

Dead Space 2: # of Players: XBOX 360: 7,199 -- PS3: 1,472

What does this mean (other than that the GB attach rate for the sequel on PS3 amongst GB users is remarkably hight)? Well it would concern me about the ability to drop a large amount of coin into the next game and still come out ahead (I realize that it's completely evil that anyone who makes games would want to make money off of them, but that's the way the world works). So I would try to expand/extend/tweak things so that I could get it into more homes.

Also, I know at least one person who doesn't like the series because it disturbs them too much. And they are not (by any other measure of the term) a wimp. I don't know that co-op will get them to play, but...

I'm not trying to sound like a dick or anything and I'll preface what i'm about to say with this - I'm not a tough guy by any means.. I have a hard time standing up for myself and spiders scare the piss out of me - But Dead space (the 1st one, I still haven't gotten around to the second) just did not scare me like I thought it should. You can only have jump scares for so long and still be the least bit startled by them before it becomes routine. The game was fun as hell.. But I just didn't find it scary. EA coming out and saying they added co-op because this series is too scary is just ridiculous to me.

They weren't scary in the fucking slightest.

@Hailinel: Yeah, maybe, but that isn't the point. She isn't saying "we're making the entire product less scary." So the point is to not assume and wait for the final product to then judge. There's absolutely nothing here to prove that the game will be any less scary than the previous Dead Space games. Dead Space 2 wasn't scary, but that's also beside the point. I just think you shouldn't be assuming so negatively that this game is going to be what you think it is off of something this person never intended on trying to say, then it's like you're putting words into their mouths, or in this case, text. People keep coming up with the "Oh man, so what she's saying is that this game isn't going to be scary. I'M NOT BUYING IT THEN! I'm so disappointed." And it's not at all what she said. I don't really care if someone has a negative opinion about the game, but when you assume one thing off of another thing someone says that isn't the correct reaction, I kind of do have a problem with it.

I thought having a second dude was optional, and that they were trying to keep the single-person experience (including the scariness) intact. I'm fine with a less scary co-op if the single player is unchanged. Honestly, couldn't hurt having the extra option.

First had it's scary parts, second game didn't scare me at all. Now they're going for even more action so... Meh. I guess time will tell how it turns out.

Hmm...I'm not gonna freak out yet, I still wanna wait to see how the single-player works. I don't mind if co-op is an option but if it effects playing by yourself then thats a problem. Being isolated and alone is kinda the whole point of Dead Space.

I dunno, they seem to be doing this right to me. I mean sure, they are making it less scary, but it seems to be only if you want it to. When I heard them talking about the co op mode they seemed to say that it completely changes the game, adding new dialogue, new story bits, etc. But if you want to play it single player, the co op character isn't there all the time, only occasionally showing up like any other character in the story... so what's the issue?

If you are nervous about the assumption that they will be making the game less scary, that's a valid point, but talking about the co op like is the straw that broke the camel's back is wrong. The single player element could've been dumbed down just as much even if this game didn't have co op, so I don't see the point in complaining about something that you really don't ever have to touch. Just do what I do, enjoy your single player Dead Space game, and if it doesn't live up to your standards then, go ahead and tear it to pieces.

But hey, I like what they are doing personally, as I said I don't plan to play the co op, but I think it's a great optional thing to add for people who can't handle the intensity of the base game.

Hmm...I'm not gonna freak out yet, I still wanna wait to see how the single-player works. I don't mind if co-op is an option but if it effects playing by yourself then thats a problem. Being isolated and alone is kinda the whole point of Dead Space.

@churrific said:

I thought having a second dude was optional, and that they were trying to keep the single-person experience (including the scariness) intact. I'm fine with a less scary co-op if the single player is unchanged. Honestly, couldn't hurt having the extra option.

Yes, bingo. You seem like the only one who knows what's going on without assuming the worst.

Once again focus testing comes along to bite all I hold dear in the arse.

I don't even...

@NTM said:

Oh, at first I was going to say "Are you fucking kidding me? Boooo!" now that I read it though, it changes nothing. It's basically saying, OK, you can play it on your own and it'll be like the originals (like you sitting in your room on your own watching a scary movie), or you can bring in a friend or sibling and experience it that way (by making it less scary in a way, but still entertaining). It changes absolutely nothing I think.

That's just going off what they say, and not my opinion of what I believe the actual finished product will be. I think if you take this negatively you're being kind of dumb. You have to correlate it with either experiencing a horror film with a friend, or not, and that's what they're trying to say. They're not saying "Alright, so people got scared from the earlier Dead Space games, we need to tone that down for the whole experience so people don't have a heart attack."

Also, people that keep saying "This is ruining the game" are ignorant. It ruins nothing. If you want to be scared, play the campaign, if you want to enjoy it with a friend although potentially making it slightly less scary, play it on co-op. This thread is bringing about negative opinions that are unnecessary since it seems to me the comments aren't correctly associated with what they were saying.

The thing is though, it's a game, not a movie. If you watch a movie in a dark room and it's scary, it's still scary, because you're just watching events unfold. It doesn't matter if you're alone or with someone else, it will still be scary. The difference is that if you have someone there with you, if you get scared, you can cling to them, or they can make fun of you for being scared, thus lessening your fear while you can still let yourself be drawn back in to the horror of the movie as much as you want to.

In a game you have to actively take part in it. You have to be the one that does everything. Either the level of horror will still be too high for people despite playing with someone else, or they won't be scared at all due to having to deal with the pressure of having to play it with someone else (i.e. "Hurry up already, I don't care that you're scared, we've sat here for fucking ten minutes doing nothing because you don't want to move on." or "Well, I have nothing to be scared of because the other person just blows through it all doing almost all the work and is talking the whole time and now I'm not scared at all and... this isn't very interesting.") And if the game isn't scary once you're playing co-op, then all you're left with is an action game, which means there needs to be considerably more action in the game to make up for the fact that if you're playing co-op you're no longer playing a real horror game.

If someone likes the setting of the game but is too afraid to play the game alone, all they would really need to do is call up a friend, ask their friend to come over while they play this horror game. Or if they have gamer friends go "hey, I'm interested in this game but I'm too scared to play it, could you play it while I watch?"

This is a decision that was made based on the idea that if people can play the game co-op, they won't be scared, and thus will play a game they wouldn't otherwise play. What that means is that it's a decision that was made not for the sake of the game. Not to make the game better, not to make it scarier, not to make it inherently more enjoyable, but to try and sell the game to people that wouldn't normally buy it, not to tell a better story. It was a decision that was made solely to try and sell more copies of the game and that seems like a perfectly valid reason for people to dislike the decision. When game decisions begin to be made not because it makes the game inherently better but to try and sell copies of the game to people that wouldn't have bought it before, marketing is the one that's calling the shots, not developers or designers, but marketers, and that's not typically a good thing. Concessions still have to be made to the single player campaign to make it playable as either single player or co-op. They will try to say to the very end that "nothing was compromised by this decision" except for the fact that, you know, the entire game had to be designed with that in mind, which, not that they *can't* pull it off and keep the solo just as scary as previous games, but the odds drop when you take that into consideration. And perhaps one of the biggest problems is that they made this decision to sell more copies of a game that is the third game in a series. Why? Are the people that were too terrified to play through 1 and 2 really going to buy 3 even though they've missed out on the ENTIRE story to this point?

Funny EA didn't bother to wait a generation to submarine their original intentions (they'll also tell you they were going to put co-op in DS1, but scrapped the idea, according to the latest of issue of GI) of making a tense and atmospheric game. Scary is subjective of course but i thought the first game did a good job of making an anxious and creepy atmosphere even if the jump scares got a little predictable. Pt. 2 was definitely a push toward action, though, less about creepiness more about deluging you w/ enemies and little ammo. Co-op i suppose is a natural evolution for a franchise moving from horror to thriller, which are two vastly different genres. It really is too bad b/c for its flaws Dead Space had something special going for it.

as long as it still scary in single player i guess its fine. but i thought the whole scary thing was the being all alone part. co-op seems to be a bad idea for this franchise. but who knows.

oh also i dont find them scary. but ive never actually been scared by a game

@Brodehouse said:

@TheSouthernDandy

Hmm...I'm not gonna freak out yet, I still wanna wait to see how the single-player works. I don't mind if co-op is an option but if it effects playing by yourself then thats a problem. Being isolated and alone is kinda the whole point of Dead Space.

As much as that's true, you do start pushing narrative credibility when you have to continue ginning up reasons for the same guy to wind up conpletely alone during a Necromoprh outbreak. You wind up in Die Hard territory "How does the same thing happen to the same guy?!". Much like Mass Effect has to create excuses for a three man squad with small arms fire to play a part in a space combat mission or an attack on a heavy armor unit. Look at Dead Space's main inspiration Alien; would it have been better if Aliens was Ellen Ripley alone and trapped in a cramped space ship with a xenomorph again? Probably not. Then again, that means this is Alien3. So, Ellie dies at the very start, you see a necromorph dog (actually that sounds pretty appropriate), and it ends with Isaac diving into a pool of fire with a Marker growing out of his chest.

If they kill Ellie...there will be a reckoning. I will be some kinda pissed.

@FateOfNever said:

@NTM said:

Oh, at first I was going to say "Are you fucking kidding me? Boooo!" now that I read it though, it changes nothing. It's basically saying, OK, you can play it on your own and it'll be like the originals (like you sitting in your room on your own watching a scary movie), or you can bring in a friend or sibling and experience it that way (by making it less scary in a way, but still entertaining). It changes absolutely nothing I think.

That's just going off what they say, and not my opinion of what I believe the actual finished product will be. I think if you take this negatively you're being kind of dumb. You have to correlate it with either experiencing a horror film with a friend, or not, and that's what they're trying to say. They're not saying "Alright, so people got scared from the earlier Dead Space games, we need to tone that down for the whole experience so people don't have a heart attack."

Also, people that keep saying "This is ruining the game" are ignorant. It ruins nothing. If you want to be scared, play the campaign, if you want to enjoy it with a friend although potentially making it slightly less scary, play it on co-op. This thread is bringing about negative opinions that are unnecessary since it seems to me the comments aren't correctly associated with what they were saying.

The thing is though, it's a game, not a movie. If you watch a movie in a dark room and it's scary, it's still scary, because you're just watching events unfold. It doesn't matter if you're alone or with someone else, it will still be scary. The difference is that if you have someone there with you, if you get scared, you can cling to them, or they can make fun of you for being scared, thus lessening your fear while you can still let yourself be drawn back in to the horror of the movie as much as you want to.

In a game you have to actively take part in it. You have to be the one that does everything. Either the level of horror will still be too high for people despite playing with someone else, or they won't be scared at all due to having to deal with the pressure of having to play it with someone else (i.e. "Hurry up already, I don't care that you're scared, we've sat here for fucking ten minutes doing nothing because you don't want to move on." or "Well, I have nothing to be scared of because the other person just blows through it all doing almost all the work and is talking the whole time and now I'm not scared at all and... this isn't very interesting.") And if the game isn't scary once you're playing co-op, then all you're left with is an action game, which means there needs to be considerably more action in the game to make up for the fact that if you're playing co-op you're no longer playing a real horror game.

If someone likes the setting of the game but is too afraid to play the game alone, all they would really need to do is call up a friend, ask their friend to come over while they play this horror game. Or if they have gamer friends go "hey, I'm interested in this game but I'm too scared to play it, could you play it while I watch?"

This is a decision that was made based on the idea that if people can play the game co-op, they won't be scared, and thus will play a game they wouldn't otherwise play. What that means is that it's a decision that was made not for the sake of the game. Not to make the game better, not to make it scarier, not to make it inherently more enjoyable, but to try and sell the game to people that wouldn't normally buy it, not to tell a better story. It was a decision that was made solely to try and sell more copies of the game and that seems like a perfectly valid reason for people to dislike the decision. When game decisions begin to be made not because it makes the game inherently better but to try and sell copies of the game to people that wouldn't have bought it before, marketing is the one that's calling the shots, not developers or designers, but marketers, and that's not typically a good thing. Concessions still have to be made to the single player campaign to make it playable as either single player or co-op. They will try to say to the very end that "nothing was compromised by this decision" except for the fact that, you know, the entire game had to be designed with that in mind, which, not that they *can't* pull it off and keep the solo just as scary as previous games, but the odds drop when you take that into consideration. And perhaps one of the biggest problems is that they made this decision to sell more copies of a game that is the third game in a series. Why? Are the people that were too terrified to play through 1 and 2 really going to buy 3 even though they've missed out on the ENTIRE story to this point?

This is all I have to add, and how I view all of this stays.

@churrific said:

I thought having a second dude was optional, and that they were trying to keep the single-person experience (including the scariness) intact. I'm fine with a less scary co-op if the single player is unchanged. Honestly, couldn't hurt having the extra option.

What the fuck?

@NTM: I don't think it's reactionary to think EA's head is in the wrong place, even if co-op is optional. I look at what else the game is doing - human enemies, universal ammo, cover shooting, set-piece action - and even w/ optional co-op the franchise is devolving into a focus-grouped mishmash of genres and ideas. Just doesn't bode well for the game IMO, and I love action-horror type stuff.

@NTM: So you have absolutely nothing to say to counter my points? Never mind that I already covered your rebuttal in my post by stating that concessions already had to be made to the game to make it something that is both playable as single player and co-op while offering the same story and experience. And that my point was about why people would be skeptical of being told that "we added co-op to sell more copies and for there to be a not-scary optional way to play the game."

But I guess that's what I get for trying to hold a discussion with someone that resorts to insulting people in their very first post in a topic.

@FateOfNever said:

@NTM: So you have absolutely nothing to say to counter my points? Never mind that I already covered your rebuttal in my post by stating that concessions already had to be made to the game to make it something that is both playable as single player and co-op while offering the same story and experience. And that my point was about why people would be skeptical of being told that "we added co-op to sell more copies and for there to be a not-scary optional way to play the game."

But I guess that's what I get for trying to hold a discussion with someone that resorts to insulting people in their very first post in a topic.

All of your points were assumptions and none could hold water under light scrutiny. What's you first one...the game will either still be too scary or it will have to be changed, and because coop simply won't change anything? There is no middle ground? Just not possible for you to imagine in your brain, that playing the same experience with your friend will make something less scary? No, it simply won't, and that's a fact, therefore the points by the EA marketing spokesperson must be wrong, because you know.

Yeah, talking to you would be a real discussion, I bet.

Dead Space? Scary? HA!

@NTM said:

@FateOfNever said:

@NTM said:

Oh, at first I was going to say "Are you fucking kidding me? Boooo!" now that I read it though, it changes nothing. It's basically saying, OK, you can play it on your own and it'll be like the originals (like you sitting in your room on your own watching a scary movie), or you can bring in a friend or sibling and experience it that way (by making it less scary in a way, but still entertaining). It changes absolutely nothing I think.

That's just going off what they say, and not my opinion of what I believe the actual finished product will be. I think if you take this negatively you're being kind of dumb. You have to correlate it with either experiencing a horror film with a friend, or not, and that's what they're trying to say. They're not saying "Alright, so people got scared from the earlier Dead Space games, we need to tone that down for the whole experience so people don't have a heart attack."

Also, people that keep saying "This is ruining the game" are ignorant. It ruins nothing. If you want to be scared, play the campaign, if you want to enjoy it with a friend although potentially making it slightly less scary, play it on co-op. This thread is bringing about negative opinions that are unnecessary since it seems to me the comments aren't correctly associated with what they were saying.

The thing is though, it's a game, not a movie. If you watch a movie in a dark room and it's scary, it's still scary, because you're just watching events unfold. It doesn't matter if you're alone or with someone else, it will still be scary. The difference is that if you have someone there with you, if you get scared, you can cling to them, or they can make fun of you for being scared, thus lessening your fear while you can still let yourself be drawn back in to the horror of the movie as much as you want to.

In a game you have to actively take part in it. You have to be the one that does everything. Either the level of horror will still be too high for people despite playing with someone else, or they won't be scared at all due to having to deal with the pressure of having to play it with someone else (i.e. "Hurry up already, I don't care that you're scared, we've sat here for fucking ten minutes doing nothing because you don't want to move on." or "Well, I have nothing to be scared of because the other person just blows through it all doing almost all the work and is talking the whole time and now I'm not scared at all and... this isn't very interesting.") And if the game isn't scary once you're playing co-op, then all you're left with is an action game, which means there needs to be considerably more action in the game to make up for the fact that if you're playing co-op you're no longer playing a real horror game.

If someone likes the setting of the game but is too afraid to play the game alone, all they would really need to do is call up a friend, ask their friend to come over while they play this horror game. Or if they have gamer friends go "hey, I'm interested in this game but I'm too scared to play it, could you play it while I watch?"

This is a decision that was made based on the idea that if people can play the game co-op, they won't be scared, and thus will play a game they wouldn't otherwise play. What that means is that it's a decision that was made not for the sake of the game. Not to make the game better, not to make it scarier, not to make it inherently more enjoyable, but to try and sell the game to people that wouldn't normally buy it, not to tell a better story. It was a decision that was made solely to try and sell more copies of the game and that seems like a perfectly valid reason for people to dislike the decision. When game decisions begin to be made not because it makes the game inherently better but to try and sell copies of the game to people that wouldn't have bought it before, marketing is the one that's calling the shots, not developers or designers, but marketers, and that's not typically a good thing. Concessions still have to be made to the single player campaign to make it playable as either single player or co-op. They will try to say to the very end that "nothing was compromised by this decision" except for the fact that, you know, the entire game had to be designed with that in mind, which, not that they *can't* pull it off and keep the solo just as scary as previous games, but the odds drop when you take that into consideration. And perhaps one of the biggest problems is that they made this decision to sell more copies of a game that is the third game in a series. Why? Are the people that were too terrified to play through 1 and 2 really going to buy 3 even though they've missed out on the ENTIRE story to this point?

This is all I have to add, and how I view all of this stays.

@churrific said:

I thought having a second dude was optional, and that they were trying to keep the single-person experience (including the scariness) intact. I'm fine with a less scary co-op if the single player is unchanged. Honestly, couldn't hurt having the extra option.

Here's the thing, though: he's totally right in that they are inherently designing the game around the co-op experience for no reason other than to sell more copies. Note that someone from EA stated around a month ago that Dead Space 3 needs to sell around five million units for them to keep investing in the franchise. This is pretty clearly a move to try and bring it to that level of sales. And really, considering how different even Dead Space 2 felt from 1 (in spite still being a great game), what possible reason is there to have faith in them not to fuck it up and turn it into an action fest?

It makes sense. Scary games don't sell as well as other games. They want money.

Dead Space.

Dead. Space.

D-E-A-D. Space.

EA, you are here now....

Isn't it time you actually started listening to your audience rather than telling them what you're doing supposedly in response to requests that they've made?