Huh, neither i, nor any of my friends care about online play. Facebook integration and Twitter integration are bonus features that don't mean much at all, in 5 years they'll be inactive buttons that make the main menu ugly. Offline gaming is still cherished, EA's just hyping a new trend, or, justifying the shitty bonus features, whichever You find more fitting.

I'm still a SP player with a deep love for LAN option. And i stopped buying EA stuff after the horror that was C&C3.. and yeah, i got the collectors edition of that one, You may laugh now.

Just my plug for good co-op play. You can't imagine how much Castle Crashers and (now) Fable 3 I've played co-op with my daughter. Co-op play in some games can be really awesome. I don't play co-op normally, even with my buddies at work, but with my daughter we play tons of games together (the DS is also really great for this).

As is the case with so many people. Yet companies still insist on releasing games in a broken, unfinished state like this. While I can understand them not wanting to fund a project indefinitely when it could suck anyway, failing to address major issues like that means that it should either get more time or simply not be released at all.

I like singleplayer games and I like multiplayer games too. No developer should be forced to incorporate on or the other or both. A good multiplayer shouldn't be force but be created because of a desire.

A number of their other games have multiplayer co-op capability though.

I could see multiplayer for The Witcher 2. The swordplay mechanic is very neat, and we don't exactly have a treasure trove of multiplayer sword-fighting games...

Regarding Mass Effect and so on as examples, they do have social features and unique communities in that respect, so perhaps he's including that in the mix. But yeah, should've been clear.

And we definitely need strong single player games..tons of titles (including EA ones) have proven it, so to tack on stuff otherwise is ridiculous.

The way his mind seems to be working is "This game didn't sell well, let's throw a bunch of multiplayer in there so it does next time" (e.g. Dead Space, Mirror's Edge). There are others reasons games do not sell...i.e. people aren't ready for them (I really think Mirror's Edge was just too unique for most twits to understand and appreciate), or the economy is in recession (Dead Space had a ton of players, just lots bought it used or borrowed from friends, rented, etc.).

No need to think of ridiculous reasons why they didn't. Reminds me of the typical reaction to piracy.

If they do want online functionality and people interacting and so on though, co-op is often a viable and very fun option.

This is the only one that comes to mind: http://www.determinance.com/

I could see a Mirror's Edge multiplayer mode being a blast. Also, there's "charming" indie and "oh god my eyes I am blind now" indie, and that sword-fighting game you just linked me to is the latter.

Yeah, I think it could be too if done smartly.

In a good or bad way?

I'm sorry to say that I just wasn't digging the way the indie game looked. I can tolerate some of that kind of stuff, but this one looked all the way nasty.