Sony Exec Says God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man Successes Prove Demand for Single-Player Games

2018 has been remarkable for sorts of games, and single-player titles seem as viable as ever. This especially holds true given the success of games like God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Apparently, Sony kept a watchful eye on this trend. According to SIE Europe’s VP and Managing Director for the UK, IE, and Australasia, Warwick Light, the success of single-player games in 2018 alone proved audiences still demand these kinds of experiences.

In an interview with MCVUK Magazine, Light made a point to differentiate between “buzzwords” and player demands. While Fortnite may be the talk of the town, that does not distract Sony from noticing what its audience is interested in. Clearly, single-player games have not yet lost their widespread appeal. Light told MCVUK the following,

While 2018 was indisputably a big year for Fortnite, it was also a year which saw us really act like a publisher and focus on our exclusive titles whether it was God of War, Spider-Man, Detroit or VR titles such as Astro Bot.

Buzzwords are one thing, what our players are demanding is another. There’s still a huge audience for games that offer the best in single player narrative with stunning gameplay, as witnessed by the enormous popularity of both Spider-Man and God of War in this year’s charts. I was just at the Golden Joysticks–God of War won five!

God of War’s critical acclaim and commercial success is unlike any other the series has experienced since its debut in 2005. In fact, after being on the market for merely three days, God of War began breaking sales records. Before Red Dead Redemption 2’s launch, Marvel’s Spider-Man made waves by becoming the third best-selling game in 2018 in its launch month alone. Detroit: Become Human moved one million copies in two weeks, selling faster than Heavy Rain. All of this is to say that the sales of single-player games seems healthier than they’ve been in previous years.

Will story-driven experiences continue to perform well? It’s hard to say. Yet, with excitement continuously building for The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding, and others, it seems single-player experiences are in a good place for the foreseeable future.

[Source: MCVUK Magazine via Wccftech]