Blizz's Pardo: Single-player games are an endangered species

Blizzard big cheese Rob Pardo recently revealed his doubts about the future of single-player games in a wide-ranging interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"It's really sad," Pardo said. "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."

The interview delves into the pervasive social connectivity inherent in many current-gen games, and it also touches on everything from cloud gaming to monetization and business models. Pardo says he's a fan of game designers dictating the monetization models rather than leaving it up to a producer or an executive. "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 explains.

TH