Counter: Single Player is Still Alive and Well
 

Single player is not dead, not by any long shot.

In fact, single player may be on the cusp of a revolution and return to prominence. How many online franchise modes do we have now versus just a few years ago? What popular modes were the first to be entirely cut from NHL? It definitely wasn’t the single player modes.

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Single player sports gaming is 90% of my gaming time. NHL franchise mode and MLB the Show: RTTS and Franchise, NBA 2K15 career mode, and Madden franchise making up 100% of that albeit most of that is spent with MLB and NHL.

I say this speaking for what is likely a very small percentage of gamers. While it can be said that NHL has single player modes. Nixing the season mode for a gutted franchise mode is not an improvement. The fact that EA has removed individual season modes aside from Fifa is not something i find great joy in. I don't enjoy recruiting, scouting and micromanagement of Franchise modes. NCAA 14 brought back single season mode and i am thrilled with it. It's available in MLB the show, in NBA 2k, PES . Its not that they have eliminated single player gaming. Just limited the players options. If i want to play a single season in Madden, live or NHL i have to deal with scouting training and assorted tasks i would be happy to ignore if i could. While the option is there to play through as a single player, it takes you out of control of much of the game and there seems to be no happy medium.

I believe that developers have realised that although Online Gaming is a major attraction it is not yet & may well never be the go to mode for Sports Gamers. In recent iterations of top line sports games we've witnessed either poor Online performance or a reduction of Online gaming modes. This is no accident. It's more a sign of developers reevaluating their priorities.
Online Gaming is here to stay of course. However I think when you look at the demographic of a typical sports gamer, their idea of how they want their game to play out is very idiosyncratic. Online gaming brings a level of fun & randomness that can't be replicated by any AI engine but it also brings with it conflict & at times a complete disregard for how another person wishes to play a game.

Im am 100% single player, and have no use to ever play multi player or anything other than franchise modes in sports games. Im glad too see that Im not in the minority, cause if you listen to some of the online guys around here, they seem to think that online is all that matters, so great to see those little kids are wrong after all.

"What popular modes were the first to be entirely cut from NHL? It definitely wasn’t the single player modes."

Season mode is a single player that was cut, and the OHL's relevance to the game was relinquished to play now or HUT collections.

All i want from NHL single player is a basic season mode with lots of stats and the ability to use the current real life rosters at all times.

I am also a 100% single player kind of guy. It's good to know that single player is still the king. I only play franchise modes. And as for NHL- they stripped out a ton of the beef in their offline modes. And no player editing function made the game unplayable for me.

The only thing I play in the NHL Series is Live the life. I don't play online for anything.