Crystal ball gazing game guru and Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, Michael Pachter, has said that Activision must start charging a fee for online gaming. He has been giving his opinions on why video game sales have declined for the fourth month in a row and lays most of the blame on online gaming.
“We think that the overall decline was due to a very large number of people playing multiplayer online games for free on PlayStation Network, and for an annual fee with unlimited game play on Xbox Live.”
“We estimate that a total of 12 million consumers are playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for an average of 10 hours per week on the two platforms’ respective networks, and the continued enjoyment of this game (along with an estimated 6 million Halo online players, 3 million EA Sports players, and 5 million players playing other games, such as Battlefield, Red Dead Redemption, Left 4 Dead and Grand Theft Auto) has sucked the available time away from what otherwise would be spent playing newly purchased games.”
A sensible argument, everyone has less cash these days so we are spending more time with the games we have rather than buying new titles. Pachter continues,
“While the shift has been great for consumers, who are enjoying an unprecedented, and largely free, game experience, it has been devastating for publishers and shareholders, who are seeing sales and profits decline.”
I am no economist but even I know when money is tight luxury items are the first to be cut. Games are expensive so in the current climate they are going to suffer. Publishers are profit driven so if they are losing sales they must look for other revenue streams. But are they missing the point? Perhaps people are buying less games as they have less money?
You may recall Uncle Bob saying he wanted to charge for Call Of Duty online – Pachter agrees.
“We think that it is incumbent upon Activision, with the most popular multiplayer game, to take the first step to address monetization of multiplayer. It is too early to tell whether that will be a monthly subscription, tournament entry fees, microtransaction fees, or a combination of all three, but we expect to see the company take some action by year-end, when Call of Duty: Black Ops launches.”
Pachter has been known to be wrong, but the indicators from both him and Kotick are Black Ops will have some sort of online payment scheme.
One other thought occurs to me: If games companies would prefer us to buy new games rather than play online why are they insisting on shoe-horning multiplayer in to games that, as far as the storyline goes, really do not need it. Uncharted 2, Assassins Creed 2, BioShock 2 and Dead Space 2 spring to mind.
Source: IndustryGamers
Rocket_345
It really doesnt bother me whether or not they do start charging unless as i will just buy it for the single player mode and then trade it in. The only thing that will bother me is if other devs start charging aswell.
mrfodder
Map packs are the way to do this. People see they are getting something. If they are playing a game alot online they will buy the map pack, if they are not they won’t.
Just charging for online game will speed up the decline. I am playing a few games online at the moment. If I had to pay for that on a per game basis, I would only be playing one or two. And went I move on I would move on permanently and never go back, new dlc or not.
Charmed_Fanatic
No thanks, ill stick to free PS3 online
skibadee
I prefer single player games.
DJ Judas
its inevitable but I really hope this doesn’t happen, not without some serious reasons to actually pay the fee.
mmorpgs justify a monthly subscription by constantly working with that one title for years, upgrading, adding LOTS of new content besides new outfits and a new map or two.
maybe the logic is that most devs spend years fixing bugs that shouldn’t exist when it goes gold, so why not get them to work on further content as well as fixing the bugs and justify it with a payment? also it might end the year after year sequels, maybe keep the same game for 5 years or so, means people don’t need to invent new IP :/
cc_star
From the analyst point of view, he’s blaming falling game sales on the fact that the majority of people are happy playing what they’ve already own.
And floating the idea that perhaps a fee somewhere down the line (freemium/micro-transaction/subscription) will mitigate the decline in sales either through shifting people off core franchises therefore encouraging more game purchases, or making sure there is ongoing revenue from the people that want to stay on them but maybe buy fewer games.
There’s sound business logic in it, probably.
DeathByNumbers
Isn’t dlc a way of charging people to carry on playing what they have plus giving them a little something extra? Surely most people agree that the development of mw2 was more expensive than the development of the 2 map packs which sold together for nearly half the rrp of a new title.
cc_star
Yes,
Who knows what ideas are being floated around the various boardrooms, or across analysts desks, perhaps DLC will be free with any subscription models they choose, if they ever choose one, perhaps the games will subsidised or nearly free.
I’m not saying its a good or bad idea, but I can see the logic in why the men in suits are thinking it
TSBonyman
On PSN you will never be charged for online gaming – unless it’s introduced as a new ‘feature’ of PS+..
cc_star
Unless Sony decide to eat humble pie and go after the billion dollars of revenue Live makes Microsoft
DeathByNumbers
On the plus side I can see sales of 50 mile Ethernet cables going up though. Just need to find away to hide them in the street…
brewersteve
I don’t see shelling out £40 a “largely free gaming experience”
Mick939
As if, if it cost money for online on one game I wouldn’t even consider it
Pete_UK
Pachter talking his usual crap :/ His use of Activision / CoD as an example is terrible due to the dedicated server issue, and is exactly the kind of mistake I expect this ‘analyst’ to make. The problem is that he doesn’t factor in (as mentioned in the article) the global economic decline; the drop in money spent on new titles, the booming used games market, both are exactly what you’d expect to see in an economic decline because – get this Pachter – games, no matter how big the industry gets, are still just games. This is common sense to joe public, but he’s so far up his own ‘pachter’ that he can’t see it.
The online pass system is bad enough; paying for online play as suggested is going too far and I will instantly strike any game that uses the system off my buy list (along with a lot of other people, no doubt). Games companies have become large, bloated and far too self-important – they could do with a diet. Top Tip: start by cutting the pay of your top execs – that should fund a few studios for the next few years, along with a couple of old Pentium2 machines for stat tracking, and show the industry that you’re putting it first instead of your own coffers.
SmokeyPSD
eloquently put. Top stuff.