EA: Project Atlas - A vision for a cloud-native gaming future

Well, the whole idea of 'this can only mean bad stuff for SP games. They'll force us to play with friends or something' does appear to be a type of singular tree that seems to block some people's view of the wider forest...

I think it means it's way more than it's suggested it is by some... as detailed in some of my previous responses, including the one on top of this thread page.
This really isn't just about SP/MP gaming. I mean... just read the article. Project Atlas is created with the idea that it'll become a new gaming platform one day - one that will someday stream games into whatever device we want to play it on, but also let us interact with other players through modules already integrated with the engine, personalize our games, mod them from within Atlas and likely even create new games via cloud-based Frostbite tools.

Atlas and similar projects will probably replace consoles not far away from now. Having tried Nvidia's beta for GeForce NOW I'm fairly sure that it's the direction things will be heading - not sure when it'll become a new normal, because I can't tell when we'd be ready for mass-streaming and when will it become affordable enough for most players to become a platform of choice, but clearly EA is stuffing money into this, just like other big companies do.

And it really has little with MP or SP games. Oh sure, games always online will naturally mean that we will likely keep getting more and more online, multiplayer or social modules in games of different types, but the extent of which stuff, like multiplayer, will be relevant in any individual game will very likely depend on the title/developer, rather than it existing within the whole project.

Well, there is if being online determines some modules within the game to work that may have little to no connection with social, multiplayer aspects of the game. For example, we know that Anthem's environments, enemy placements, random encounters and missions available in free roam mode will change with time thanks to the game being always online and stuff being determined either by server or dev team. I'm fairly sure that such remote control allows for way more immersive experience and emergent gameplay than, say, radiant quests in Skyrim.

They've put emphasis on social aspects, given that one of the main pitches of this thing is that social modules and other services have been integrated into Frostbite, but it most certainly isn't all there is.

And stating or implying that they envision their games as 'social media' is definitely not what happened - saying that their more immersive, evolving, living games will lead to 'deep, meaningful social interactions' hardly means that. I mean, heck - don't WE on this forum have deep, meaningful social interactions based on Bioware games we played, just based on story and lore, for example?

Most what they're saying centers around Frostbite now providing tools that will potentially allow people to form communities or exchange player content from within the platform, which hardly equates with "ungh, I will have to interact with people during my game ".

So you'd take radiant fetch quests (because that's what mostly is there in Skyrim) rather than, say - a dramatic change in weather or environment or sudden, eventful encounters or even new quests and challenges (given that they'd likely come with the game being frequently updated)?

I have a hard time believing that. Skyrim is played till these days thanks to modding community shaking things around and providing new content for the game. One could easily see that the game's greatest legacy isn't open world, but devs noticing how long the game lives thanks to it being, well, 'alive'... hence the current emphasis on live services, which Project Atlas seems to be largely built for.

So are games being on consoles or requiring PCs people can't always afford (personally I'm itching to buy PS4 for their many delicious exclusives, but have other expenses I have to take care of).

Yet both consoles and PC gaming with high demands are doing rather excellently these days, with Sony being a pro in providing excellent SP games specifically because current console business allows for it.

"Games as a service" to me, means that once the company decides to stop supporting it, you no longer have a game to play.

Or maybe that's just you trying to find a problem where there really isn't one.
Your point may be simple, but not necessarily applicable. Oh sure, this is all about ultimately making them a ton of money... what baffles me is that you seem to think that there's just one way of doing it or that gaming companies will just try to freeze this moment in time and monetize games that way forever. But - clearly - times are changing. Ultimately I don't think companies will care that much about what you play, so long as you play it on their platforms/via their subscription services. 
Well of course, but... what does it have to do with the original point?
It's mentioned in the article. At some point games and mods will be cloud-based.

Changes to games will likely be tied to the account. It's... not really anything new. Steam Workshop works in similar fashion.
I have no idea what kind of customization streaming and cloud computing will offer. 
Probably time savers or mods. This technology is still new and we have no idea what level of customization it'll offer in the future, however.
A selling point that may always change, friend, especially if such kind of new technology will not just offer new monetizing opportunities, but also more tools to create games.
Well, that's your prerogative. For me, one of the attractive aspects of gaming is that it's constantly changing and evolving and will continue to change and evolve regardless what EA or Microsoft or CDPR does, be it in ways either community or individuals like or don't. The one real solution to it is to just to asses them as they come and then decide whether an offered experience is what we're looking for.

Which is also true when the copy of my old game breaks, I no longer have a drive for it or it no longer works on OS I'm using. This is hardly a new problem.

And we know from the existence of Vanilla WoW on private servers and licensed retro gaming platforms popping like mushrooms after rain that dedicated player bases can keep old titles alive if they want to. With basically all our computer activity probably migrating to cloud-based services one day, I'm fairly sure that we're going to see businesses and services that will keep many games people like on life support... that is if they're ever going to be NOT part of any library of active games of large publishers or platform owners.

I mean a large amount of the article actually goes into how Project Atlas helps you make new content easier, they even mention BioWare's storytelling. If they can make the dev work quicker/more efficient we will get more story content. not less, as it's always the content that tends to be hardest/longest to complete. It's always been the biggest barrier to making single player story focused games GaaS (regular content over long term), is that it takes much longer to make the story content then it does to consume it. If they can make that easier? That allows a whole avenue for BioWare they didn't have before. Suddenly small linear games also become valuable as the cost/time to make it comes down meaning you don't have to sell as many. There's a lot of areas that could improve things

I have to ask if you're really reading what you're responding to... because I'm fairly sure that what I wrote clearly states that building social modules into engine/platform DOESN'T YET MEAN that they'll be putting other people in your game   It may as well be entirely separate, non-intrusive or unnoticeable for all we know (the article is clearly written for game industry insiders, most of this stuff is about describing services and tools we gamers will likely not even notice when playing) and will probably largely depend on what kind of modules or game components each developer would like to use in their game, while also offering a selection of services external to the game, but built into the platform and accessible through it via client, similar to what we already can do on Steam, Origins or Discord.

How is this hard to get...?