Quote Originally Posted by darkchaos, in another thread
Are rpg's in general losing popularity amongst young teenage gamers or is it just the final fantasy series? Because video games in general are still becoming more popular all the time.
Some video games are becoming more popular all the time, but I would put most of that down to the generation that is generally accepting of video games maturing and the older generation dying off. I don't think that video games are becoming that much better, let's put it that way - graphics aside, of course.

I think that the single player RPG is finding it hard to compete in a market that is being dominated more than ever by games with online multiplayer capabilities. People will talk about the big games of recent generations and they will be talking about games you can play from the start of the year through to the end of the year and still have new things happening. If there is one thing a Final Fantasy single player game is not, it's sandbox. Call of Duty? Online multiplayer. Sims 3? Ever-changing and a community dedicated to providing more and more stuff to use in your games. World of Warcraft? Obviously multiplayer! Even Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 have multiplayer. Even GTA IV has it, as did Red Dead Redemption. It gives an excuse for people to talk about the game more and more both online and offline. Skyrim has both the sandbox aspects and the community making mods, despite being single player.

I feel the exclusively single player RPG is destined to take a back seat now. There seems to be a cocktail at the moment where people look dismissively at them. I'm sure it's not helping that the games haven't been as good as they were in the past, but it seems like a change needs to be made. Make the game a little more multiplayer? A little more sandbox? There are fantasy MMOs out there in abundance and there seems to be a growing market for the anime style, so I don't think it's a lack of desire for the style of game. I just think that the style of game has not kept up with other games when it comes to change.

What do you think? Do you think the JRPG needs to evolve in gameplay in order to re-establish itself as a top genre, or do you think that it's purely a case of a bad run of games? If you do think it needs to evolve, what ideas do you have for how it could go about this? Do you think this extends to more than just the JRPG, and that fixed-story single player games are on the way out? Perhaps all single player games?