Why are AAA single player games so "dead"?

[escrow4]

So I was flicking through this list of games in 2013 to see if I missed any AAA titles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_in_video_gaming

And it struck me there was a drought throughout the year - next to no games that were interesting; something like the Witcher or ME3 or Dragon Age. Yes games are hideously expensive to make now but titles just seem to have dried up. We had on PC:

- Dead Space 3
- Aliens: Colonial Marines
- Crysis 3
- Tomb Raider
- Resident Evil 6
- Bioshock Infinite
- Metro Last Light
- Saint's Row 4
- AC 4
- Dead Rising

10 games and one of those is pushing the whole AAA title. There is nothing fresh, nothing that really stands up. You have formulaic shooters and er third person shooters? AC 4 and Tomb Raider were pretty good but in a whole year where are the rest?

I remember on PS2 we had cheese like The Suffering and Bloodrayne and State of Emergency that were fresh and different. Now its all clones - where are all the new titles and new franchises?

This year Watch Dogs (franchise I suppose with a poor start) and Wolfenstein stand out and now Mordor. Granted, there is a huge glut in November but its really more of the same. I have zero interest in indie games but now I question why exactly do I have this shiny gaming PC? Its all multiplayer this and MMPORG that and buy a DLC season pass . . . . .

 

[irishScott]

Alien: Isolation just came out.

I don't know if I'd call 10 AAA single-player games a year "dead". You're also leaving out non-shooter/RPGs. As for why MMORPG and DLC season passes are growing more common, well to make a AAA game you need $$$.

 

[escrow4]

Alien: Isolation just came out.

I don't know if I'd call 10 AAA single-player games a year "dead". You're also leaving out non-shooter/RPGs. As for why MMORPG and DLC season passes are growing more common, well to make a AAA game you need $$$.

There were no other AAA games in 2013, Batman I suppose but I despise PG-13 comics.

 

[Subyman]

I liked DS3, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, and Crysis 3. All were great games. Dragon Age is coming out this year. XCOM came out at the end of 2012. Shadows of Mordor just came out. Watch Dogs was AAA, but sucked.

I kind of liked the slow down. It let me catch up on a lot of older games that I missed. I also played a lot of indie games in 2013 and this year.

 

[Dankk]

What are you even talking about? It seems like you're deliberately leaving games out of your list to make a point. I looked at that Wikipedia list that you linked, and I see a ton of AAA games.

I don't know what your definition of "AAA" is, but to me, pretty much any game that had a development cycle of at least a year, was released externally under a major publisher, and cost millions of dollars to develop would definitely fall under the "AAA" label.

DmC: Devil May Cry
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Dead Space 3
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Pro Evolution Soccer 2013
Crysis 3
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
The Amazing Spider-Man
MLB 13: The Show
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3
SimCity
Tomb Raider
God of War: Ascension
StarCraft II: HotS
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
BioShock Infinite
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel
Resident Evil 6
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Dead Island: Riptide
Star Trek
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Metro: Last Light
Resident Evil: Revelations
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
Grid 2
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Remember Me
The Last of Us
Company of Heroes 2
Deadpool
Mortal Kombat
Dark
Dota 2
Payday 2
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
Saints Row IV
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Grand Theft Auto V
ARMA 3
NHL 14
FIFA 14
Shadow Warrior
Alien Rage
NBA 2K14
F1 2013
Beyond: Two Souls
Rocksmith 2014
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst
Batman: Arkham Origins
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Football Manager 2014
XCOM: Enemy Within
Need for Speed: Rivals
Madden NFL 25
Dead Rising 3
Forza 5
Ryse: Son of Rome
Gran Turismo 6

I pulled all of those from that article, and there are probably a few I'm missing. That's a lot of AAA games. And a good chunk of them are available for PC.

This is like one of those Texashiker or Shortylickens threads where they cherry-pick a few bad games and use it to make judgements on the current state of gaming as a whole. It's oversimplification.

Edit: I apologize if I sound hostile. I guess it's because I'm of the opinion that we're living in a time right now where video games are an incredibly interesting and diverse medium, and they're exploding at an alarming rate, everywhere from indies to AAA's, it's growing. So it kind of grinds my gears when someone just points at a few games and says, "hey, this is all we got. yeah. this sucks."

 

[Mai72]

I know Skyrim is a few years old, but with the mods and expansions that game will give you 6 months of play time easily.

 

[Annisman*]

All the stalker games + mods will give you a whole year of gaming.... We don't need brand new games every week, how many game hours are you playing ???

 

[Sulaco]

There were no other AAA games in 2013, Batman I suppose but I despise PG-13 comics.

No offense intended here, but that's a major "you" problem.

All 3 Arkham games are easily Game of the Year material for their respective years, and many reviewers and journalists called the Arkham the best licensed games ever.
Whether you like Batman or not, they are simply outstanding AAA single player games.

 

[motsm]

No offense intended here, but that's a major "you" problem.

All 3 Arkham games are easily Game of the Year material for their respective years, and many reviewers and journalists called the Arkham the best licensed games ever.
Whether you like Batman or not, they are simply outstanding AAA single player games.

The mindless button mash combat is too meh to describe, and all of the other mechanics were boiled down to their absolute minimums of functionality; judging off the first game anyway. As you said though, everyone loves them, so I'll gladly jump into the "you" category.

As for the OP, there are plenty of AAA single player games, you just may not like them. I don't like them either for that matter, but I've been ignoring more games than I could ever remember this year, so the genre seems covered to me.

 

[escrow4]

All the stalker games + mods will give you a whole year of gaming.... We don't need brand new games every week, how many game hours are you playing ???

30hrs or so a week if I dedicate it to a decent game. Point is single player PC games that are different - there really are none in 2013.

 

[Craig234]

I suspect a decline because of the risk of so much money, and competition with MMO's and more profitable business models - free to pay, mobile, and so on.

 

[davie jambo]

There are 2-5 AAA games released a month on PC

This month's AAA games I can think of on the top of my head - Shadow of Mordor , Ryse , Alien Isolation & the Evil Within

The OP is a nonsense

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

In my opinion, there were no video games released at all since 1999. This crap you people call gaming is merely a poor self-styling trying to recapture a brighter past.

 

[Sulaco]

In my opinion, there were no video games released at all since 1999. This crap you people call gaming is merely a poor self-styling trying to recapture a brighter past.

 

[XiandreX]

+1 The force is strong with this one

 

[MeldarthX]

No offense intended here, but that's a major "you" problem.

All 3 Arkham games are easily Game of the Year material for their respective years, and many reviewers and journalists called the Arkham the best licensed games ever.
Whether you like Batman or not, they are simply outstanding AAA single player games.

First 2 oh yea........third..no even close to the first two; but another studio did it.....

Now the next one looks very good; back with the original studio and to finish the trilogy....

 

[manimal]

The OP is a nonsense

I nominate this for post of the year! I am not dissapoint!

 

[Fire&Blood]

Why the hate on indies? Even if you perceive them all to be pixelated, ugly wastes of time, there is a lot of ground between AAA and indies, not an empty void. What defines the difference between AAA and "AA" anyway?

I'm not worried about lack of SP focused games regardless of how many A's are in their status, I'm worried about missing out on good games because titles like, COD, Titanfall and Destiny get so much attention, those marketing budgets really show. Over the recent years, I noticed I have to dedicate time for "game searching sessions" to find good games that I missed.

For example, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was a great "AA" game. I'm not worried about not having enough SP titles to play. AA games are out there, other AAA SP heavy games are coming back to PC like MGS.

Even Stanley Parable sold a million copies, not worried about the SP future atm.

 

[xantub]

Let me fix the title for you...
Why are AAA single player games that I like with my particular taste in games so "dead"?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Not sure what OP's definition of AAA games are, but it clearly isn't the same as 99% of the populous.

There are tons of AAA games, just in some peoples opinion many suck. I don't really care for most of them, but there are some really good ones as well.

 

[Oyeve]

This is why I keep going back to my old games. Hell, I was playing Urban Chaos just last night. Awesome game.

 

[werepossum]

In my opinion, there were no video games released at all since 1999. This crap you people call gaming is merely a poor self-styling trying to recapture a brighter past.

All your game are belong to us.

 

[Maximilian]

One word, multiplayer

 

[smackababy]

So, does AAA single player game now only mean "game I like"? Is that what we did here?

 

[escrow4]

So, does AAA single player game now only mean "game I like"? Is that what we did here?

As I implied, I hate multiplayer and don't bother with indie games. Then its PC only as I don't do consoles anymore so if something AAA isn't on PC I won't play it. That reduces the pool significantly.