Just as the title says I kind of think its a little ballsy to be releasing a multiplayer only game that has a full price price tag. The last multiplayer only game I played was Hybrid and that was $15 while I know the scale isnt the same but it seems to me that $60 might be steep for what is a online multiplayer only shooter with no campaign or coop.

Maybe I'm just kind of old school but I just think that games should be more full featured when they come out at full price. Hell the last full price games following Titanfalls model were Brink, Quake Wars: Enemy Territories, and Frontlines Feul of war which we all know how well all of those did. While Titanfall looks a hell of a lot better than those games I'll be damned if I'm not a little worried. Am I alone in this fear/ assumption?

Personally I will never play this, I just don't play multiplayer games anymore but if it is good enough and lives up the hype I see no issue in charging full price. A lot of people only play multiplayer in games. I think their crazy but to each their own.

Well, when you think about a lot of first person shooters these days all you are doing is playing against crappy AI which is the same as a crappy player. There will be story parts mixed in with the story but I agree that it feels kind of weird.

I'd rather pay $60 for a solid, well crafted multiplayer than $60 for an adventure-line single player and completely broken or poorly balanced multiplayer.

Really a silly conception of games. DICE spending development time on campaigns is the worst idea they've ever had and I know plenty of people who really like multiplayer games who don't see why the developer spent time making content that was mediocre and would be played for maaaybe 10 hours per player, whereas they could have instead just made more maps for the 100+ hours of multiplayer people were going to play.

Spending $60 on a singleplayer only game and $60 on a multiplayer only game is much more likely to give you a "fully-featured" experience than only being able to buy games that insist on having both and inevitably diminish the good part of the game.

I can't understand how anyone could think that no multiplayer experience ever made could be worth paying $60 for.

Crazy as it may sound, lots of games can be thought of multiplayer only or this is not new. MMOs can be thought of that way. Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2. It wasn't until 3 they added single player and super crappy one at that. Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, man those were the days when you really picked which was better, (UT). Hell Unreal Tournament 3 was basically multiplayer since that campaign was only bot matches with cutscenes. Not ballsy, it has been done and been done successfully many times.

Well I guess we'll see, won't we? If the game's solid on it's own then I see no problem with charging the standard retail price. It really depends on the value we place upon it. If it's solid and fun to play, I'll gladly throw down 60 bucks for it. This market's so huge I think there's room for different experiences to be valued the same as others.

There is precedent for it to not do so well, as we've seen other multiplayer exclusive games tank before. But then again I'm sure there's plenty of people who regularly go out and buy the latest Cod or Battlefield game and never touch the single player, so it's all just relative to the individual's placed upon value. I don't abide by the mindset that because a game is one exclusive experience that it's lesser in value than another. What matters is how well the game is made and not it's nature.

We've been paying $60 for multiplayer only games for a while now. Basically the entire Battlefield franchise, most of post-Call of Duty 4 CoD games might as well be multiplayer only at this point..

If it is a good game, its worth the money.

I think the problem is that eventually the multiplayer dies off on all games. What is then left for fans of a game? Not much at all if there isn't a single player campaign of some kind.

Honestly i'm a bit worried about the story parts they did decide to throw in as it could get annoying seing scripted sequences play out over and over. But imagine if Counter Strike, DOTA 2 & TF2 (actually that might be pretty awesome) decided that they needed a completly pointless single player campaign. It would be a complete waste of Valve's time and money. (not that they cant afford it)

EDIT: I just realised none of those games were full price, and some of them are even F2P. But personally I stopped playing TF2 when all that F2P garbage was included, it kind of ruined the game in my opinion. So if £50 is the price I have to pay to avoid tons of balance breaking weapons and stupid hats I think i'm fine with that.

RE-EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot about XB1's requirement to shove microtransactions into games that dont need it.

Both Bad Company games had single player, and the campaigns in those games were actually good. Battlefield campaigns only got shitty when DICE decided a linear shooting gallery with a cliche military plot and no sense of humor was preferable to the fun, open, and lighthearted vehicle filled campaigns of Bad Company.

On the topic at hand, I won't be getting Titanfall at full price because I vastly prefer single player games over multiplayer focused, but I don't think single player is a requirement for a game to be full price.

I guess we'll see? I mean, it's hard saying. There's always the anecdotes of "I don't play multiplayer games" or "I've never touched the campaign in Call of Duty." But those are hard to apply to an unpredictable market and a 'system seller' type release. Who knows really? It might just sell well enough being one of the only games to play on the new consoles. Or, people will avoid it relating back to the 'always online' mindset that Microsoft wants to push towards. There's been tons of multiplayer games that have failed and tons that have blown up.

That's definitely a frequent reality of games these days. I look at stuff like destiny and the division and wonder where they'll be at in 10 years. There's definitely fun to be had in the mean time, but the modern reality is that some of these games will eventually become obsolete in one way or another. More and more of these games are meant to be experienced as they come out and the conservative mindset we as a fandom have can't always be satiated in this modern setting of games design.

I remember Field Lattice Generators or Flags. Goddamn the single player in that game was so bad. But now its the only way to play that game as no one is playing it online. I just can't and won't pay $60 for multiplayer only. Hell I really really want to play it but I'll only pick it up once it hits like $35 or lower for that reason alone.

An important difference is that games like Destiny and other MMO type experiences are generally supported over the long haul. I don't think you will see a Destiny 2 in 2016. You very well may see a Titanfall in that same time period, because at the end of the day it is just another multiplayer shooter int he vein of COD.

You actually will see a new Destiny in 2016 if you remember the document leaks from the CoD trial it stated that there will be three games in the Destiny series one every 2 years with a big dlc dump inbetween releases.

Whether it's 2, 10 or 20 years, my point still stands that these types of games will eventually cease to have a thriving communtiy to keep it going, therefore abolishing key aspects of the game. We as gamers should just enjoy them for now and not get hung up on the future, because all things eventually come to an end. If Titanfall's good then I'm sure it'll be a while till it's player base dries up, and by then like you said there will have have probably been a sequel for us to move onto.

Maybe they'll be expansions of sorts? I seem to recall in some bungie vid doc that they planned to support the game over 10 years or so.

Aren't they trying to go for some kind of story telling wrapped around the multiplayer matches? I'm going to wait and see before I call it "multiplayer only" because I think a lot of games going forward will be blending single and multiplayer together.

Its what made games like Journey and Dark Souls so great. Now you're seeing stuff like Titanfall, Destiny, and The Division taking that concept and applying it to shooters. I actually think its a much more exciting design philosophy than the antiquated idea that there must be two distinct modes.

They have the pedigree to get away with it easily. Especially when all the "From the makers of Call of Duty..." trailers start hitting the TV.

Also at this point I think the shooter genre is focused almost entirely on multiplayer, with the campaigns being some varying degree of afterthought. I won't be surprised if the next Battlefield finally just cuts the campaign completely.

It's hard to measure balls because if you got the balls it won't feel ballsy at all, but those without looking in could certainly consider it ballsy.

That seems crazy to me, not thinking it's worth full price because 5 or 10 or some amount of years down the road there won't be people playing online. Hell, the single player parts of COD easily make up less than 5% of my time spent with that game.

Also I think it's interesting the dichotomy between this and when devs add multiplayer to seemingly single player games. Always seems to be some outcry around that.

Totally agree. I dumped a ton of time into playing Halo 2 and Crimson Skies on Xbox Live, and I certainly don't regret paying full price for either of those games just because the servers are no longer running.

Heres a quote from the LA Times article covering the contract unsealing

The 27-page agreement calls for Bungie to develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," code-named "Destiny," released every other year, beginning in the fall of 2013. Bungie also agreed to put out four downloadable expansion packs code-named "Comet," every other year beginning in the fall of 2014. Activision has never disclosed release plans for Bungie's titles.

"Ballsy" isn't the right word. To put it simply devs price multiplayer only (or mainly) games at 60 bucks only because they can. As long as people keep buying them at that price there is no reason to change that. Right now titles like COD and Battlefield sell gangbusters, as soon as that changes I could see prices start to drop. That or they will just stop trying to make them all together but I that's a more far fetched scenario.

Yes its entirely fair. I've played around 60 hours of Battlefield 4 now. Add the Premium that I bought and that is about two dollars for every hour of entertainment and I'm nowhere near being done with that game. If you intend to play a multiplayer game for at least 100 hours or more I'd say that is well worth the price of admission.

I paid $60 for Warhawk (although that came with a headset). I seem to recall a SOCOM game that was multiplayer only, and lets not forget MAG. So I would say it's not ballsy to ask for $60 for a multiplayer only game.

If you can charge 60 dollars for a singleplayer only game why can't you do the same with multiplayer only games?

MMO's have done so for decades, and there have been plenty of other full price multiplayer only games for the past 20 or so years.

I will not be getting Titanfall at the release price point, but that's because what I've seen so far haven't been particularly impressive to me, not because of the price.

In the past I probably would have said that it's crazy.

But right now, you can pay $60+ for the right to Alpha test EverQuest Next Landmark, which is a free-to-play game. Wrap your head around that.

I never really thought about that, because I don't really give two shits about this game... but yeah, now that you mention it, it is pretty weird. I'll probably just pick it up when it drops in price.

Meh, it worked for Call of Duty.

Well I was going to making an argument that charging 60 for multiplayer only game in which you also have to pay for online play is crazy but you got me. I guess gaming have just sunk this low.

Few singleplayer games have entertained me as well and for as long as my favorite multiplayer experiences of recent years.

Outside of big Western RPGs and Rockstar-style Open World Games, I rarely buy into singleplayer-only experiences at full price. Even great singleplayer games often come with a great multiplayer mode, that'll keep me hooked for longer than the main game - as seen with The Last of Us and Mass Effect 3. So while I have no qualms to buy a multiplayer-only game, a singleplayer-only game on the other hand is a hard sell.

If I want a thing, I want it. Games release at 60$ -usually regardless of its production cost- and I don't care if it's singleplayer or multiplayer only, if I want it and can afford it, I'll get it when it becomes available.

Hope it's like $40 when I pick it up along with the optical drive less XboxOne that is rumored to hit late this year.

I payed 50 bucks to play BF2 with bots. At the time i didn't have any internet and it was totally worth the 50 bucks.

@soulcake said:

I wasn't a bot kind of guy, but I played hundreds of hours of both BF2 and BF2142, both of which are multiplayer only games that cost me $50 + the DLC that came out for them.

Titanfall being MP only made me want to buy it more, honestly.

I would argue (as someone who probably plays slightly more single-player games than multi-player ones) that in many cases it's almost more justifiable to do that than it is for a single-player experience. I've played many single-player only titles which lasted for 10-20 hours. Even playing them through two or three times over wouldn't come close to the amount of time that a vast number of people put into multi-player.

I'm arguing for the sake of the point of course - there's more to inherent value than simply time played, but nevertheless there's a proven market out there for people who put hundreds and thousands of hours into multiplayer modes (CoD, Battlefield, Dota, League, and so on) so I don't think it's a particularly big risk to put all your eggs in that basket. I'm sure they'll lose a few sales as a result compared to a game with both like CoD (which is why some publishers insist upon even the shortest and shoddiest of campaigns just to put it on the back of the box), but they'll still sell a good amount. Especially with that team's pedigree.

I'm no COD (and COD-like) expert, but isn't multiplayer the cash cow on these games; the map packs, DLCs, etc. It's also what gets people to stick with the game. Some claims floating around say a lot of people never even play the campaign in COD/BF. Whether that's true or not, the big draw is the multiplayer. There's a ton of F2P shooter that are MP-only, and they're not F2P because they are MP-only, they are F2P because COD/BF are the top draw making them unable to compete in the "pay for the box" model. Look at all the other FPS with a story; their price tag drop to 5$ within a year or so and their MP never get off the ground.

Never stoped me for years buying the new Call of Duty and never playing the single player for those games.

You mean like people (me included) want Battlefield to be?

I've spent FAR more time in multiplayer for these types of games in the past. The single player campaigns are usually 4-6 hours of gameplay that I tend to find pretty boring, and not worth a second playthrough (call of duty/battlefield). If Titanfall is as great as people are making it out to be, I could easily see it being worth the 60 bucks. It's the reason I go to those games in the first place.

@bigjeffrey said:

Because Jeff won't be able to make an Encyclopedia Bombastica about the game a decade from now without just playing against bots?

I'm not saying I actually believe that's a good reason, but yeah, pretty much the sole objection seems to be that time moves forward, everybody gets old and dies, and you won't still be able to enjoy a multiplayer-only game to its full extent ten years down the road.

For a non-mmo yes..

Well Microsoft has been charging $60 for multiplayer for years and you don't even get a game with it.

Boom.

I think it's a great idea. Cutting the fat from the already multiplayer focused modern fps. I hope they take the full price tag into account into the games life cycle. Possibly free DLC. I certainly hope it's more wallet-friendly than most of the other micro-transaction laden garbage that comes out.

Seeing that it's still full price I instinctively feel that there should be more maps or an extremely lenient DLC plan.

That being said, this game would have been undeniable if it were $40.

Isn't that why the vast majority of people buy Call of Duty and Battlefield in the first place?

doesn't seem ballsy to me, just seems like they are giving people what they want.

I'd rather these developers not waste time developing a tacked-on single player that very few people will play.

Charging sixty dollars for an EA game is ballsy. I wanted Titanfall, planned it as my full price game for the year, but I dont trust EA.