EA Games' boss Frank Gibeau definitely seems to think so. In a recent interview with Develop, he was adamant as to the future online direction of the company. “I volunteer you to speak to EA's studio heads; they'll tell you the same thing. They're very comfortable moving the discussion towards how we make connected gameplay – be it co-operative or multiplayer or online services – as opposed to fire-and-forget, packaged goods only, single-player, 25-hours-and you're out. I think that model is finished.”

 

Jumping into the online realm has made many games the world over a lot more enjoyable and it's even been the origin of a lot of the titles we love to play today. However jumping in to enjoy a nice long single player title, losing yourself in the game world, is still a great experience which many gamers enjoy, and some actually prefer. 

 

In single player mode there are also not any bothers with annoying mic spam, whiny under-aged campers or constant invites to play with your in-game “friends”. 

 

Gibeau seems convinced that single player experiences will go the way of the dodo though. He also said that EA will be looking into alternative content delivery systems in the coming years. “Looking ahead into the next three years, we're going to change a lot of ideas in regards to content delivery mechanisms. We're going to try out new price-points, and we're going to try free-to-play models within my group – things like we did with Battlefield 1943, which was a $10 XBLA game that did extremely well. So we're going to focus more on content delivery models.”

 

It is definitely an interesting move, let's just hope the company isn't alienating a wide range of gamers in the process. Just imagine how bland the world would be if single player gems such as Half Life, Portal, The original Sims or Oblivion never made it onto the scene.