My case for Offline mode
To say I was excited about playing Ghost Recon: Breakpoint when it was announced is an understatement. I have spent about 500 hours, mostly offline, playing Wildlands. While playing with friends is always a blast, I prefer gaming solo. So, I preordered the gold edition of Breakpoint on PS4, and with that came the opportunity to play the game 3 days before the official release. Spending $100 on a game sounds ridiculous, but I enjoyed Wildlands so much and wanted to get back into that universe. Fortunately, I work in a place that allows me to bring my PS4 to work, where I take advantage of the internet and download games from the PS Store. So, I got the game downloaded and then started playing while still at work and connected to the internet. About an hour into my gameplay, I decided to turn off the internet on my PS4, because I do not have internet at home and that is how I would be playing the game anyways. To my surprise, I was kicked out of the game and couldn’t play any longer because Ghost Recon: Breakpoint can only be played while internet is active. I was pretty bummed out about it. It sucked. So I requested a refund, got my $100 back, uninstalled the game, and put my money towards Borderlands 3 instead, a game that can be played without an internet connection.
When you decide to create a game that can only be played while online, you are cutting out a group of people that would normally purchase the game. I am in a situation where I cannot get internet where I live. So offline gaming is all I have. This isn’t the only time that I’ve encountered an issue with online only games. I was an Infantryman in the United Stated Army and spent most of 2012 in Afghanistan. While a combat deployment sucks, there were certain things that helped us get through our time over there. Gaming was one of those things that helped. After coming back from a 18, 24, or 48 hour mission, it was sometimes hard to come down off of that adrenaline high, so most of us would turn to some type of gaming to help with that (along with smoking a pack of cigarettes while cleaning weapons). We didn’t have access to internet where we were, so all of our gaming was done offline. Some of us would play some split screen Call of Duty, while others would lose themselves in the recently released Skyrim. Whatever game it was, it was played offline. Gaming was something that we could rely on to help us forget where we were and what might have happened on a given day. It was a release for a lot of us. It still is a release for some of us. I don’t like talking about myself or the issues I have now because of my time in service, but I think it’s important that you know this. There were a lot of us that came back from deployment and had trouble reintegrating into normal day life. It’s hard to just slap the label of PTSD on our issues when that can mean so many things. For me, it’s paranoia, anxiety, depression, along with other problems. Video games have helped me manage some of my problems and stresses since I got out of the Army. There are two games that I turn to the most: Minecraft and Ghost Recon: Wildlands. They are wildly different games, but they are great for me when I’m having issues. Minecraft lets me perform quite mundane which sounds boring but keeps me from thinking about things to aggressively. Wildlands, while still a large sandbox type game, provides me with a space that gives me specific missions to execute. It requires me to be much more focused and attentive, which helps keep my mind from wandering to places that I don’t want it to. In both instances, I played these games offline.
By making Ghost Recon: Breakpoint an online only game, you are making it so people who want to play your game can’t. I’m not looking for any kind of sympathy for my problems or why Breakpoint having an offline mode is important to me. I’ll continue to play other games that do have offline modes. I just wanted you to know how important it is to some of us that your games include the option to be played without an internet connection. I do not if there are any plans of adding an offline mode to Breakpoint. I doubt it. But, please know that I would have happily payed that $100 for the gold edition of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint if it had an offline option.
Very Respectfully,
John
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