Single player games are an endangered species, according to Blizzard's Pardo

In the last few weeks, much has been made of the “death” of single player games. Insomniac stated that it was ”done” with developing single player games, while Electronic Arts prez Frank Gibeau bragged in a pamphlet he never green-lit a single player only title.

Blizzard exec VP Rob Pardo feels the pain of gamers who just want a single player experience during his interview with Games Industry BIZ.

Pardo stated, “It’s really sad. There’s just a lot of elements out there that conspire to make those games difficult to make now. Between pirating or the ability for people to rent games, it’s hard for publishers to pour millions and millions of dollars into a game and not necessarily see the return they need to make those budgets realistic.”

He went on to stated that most of the multiplayer grafting comes from executives and not the game designer.

”Someone that’s more business-oriented or production-oriented will graft a business model onto a game because that’s what they think is going to drive the most revenue, but the game doesn’t really support it,” Pardo noted.