Several Japanese developers have proven that single player is what they excel at. They should run with what they are good at. We already have heaps of games with tacked on multiplayer modes that are just rubbish.
Like I said before, when you try to appeal to all audiences, you risk end up appealing to none (see Ninja Gaiden 3). Stick with what you're good at.
This is a classical development. The media landscape is changing as always, in this case because more and more people buy 2nd hand games. Game developers and publishers constructed their business model around the old notion that they make the games and people buy them from stores. Now that their business model is no longer optimal for maximizing their sales, they complain instead of going with the times. Maybe, in the future more developers will make smaller, cheaper downloadable games. Maybe they will release game episodes, like the Sam n Max franchise. Maybe the game market will be more, or less consolidated around a few big developers. All I know is, the game development will always change, and those that dominate presently will always say that the next phase will be devastating to gaming.
The US is a strange country. Congress want to have labels about violent behavior on video games, but still allow people to carry firearms. Say what you want about gun control, but the disparity between these laws is staggering.
Yeah, on one hand games are an art form and game developers the artists whose creativity goes into the games etc etc etc. On the other hand, there are cases when art grows beyond the scope of the original creator, because of the investment made by the fan community. Of course, Star Wars is the prime example of this. The prequels ruined something that so many people were invested in, and it is not clear that Lucas had that right, from an artistic and social stand point.
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