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
Alex_Assassin_08
I’m sorry, but Uncharted 2’s online is, frankly, brilliant, and some of the best online on PS3. Many an hour have I lost to playing it with mates and randoms, it’s not just “shoe-horned in” at all, it’s amazing.
DrFreeman
Exactly Alex. I think it was unnecessary to include Uncharted 2 in that list, especially since one look at reviews and you’ll see the multiplayer was commended highly.
Tuffcub
Im not saying its not great, what I meant is it has nothing to do with very well written story. It does not fit in woth plot at any point and is in effect a seperate game multiplayer game branded with Uncharted gubbins.
SmokeyPSD
wasnt interested in this to begin with, medal of honour looks like a fps to bring me out of a fps draught (apart from killzone).
I’m really not interested if this eventuates though. I never play online frequently enough to justify regular payments for anything, that’s why I own a ps3, that’s why I’ve never taken part in a mmog.
xdarkmagician
what’s going to happen is these mega-publishers are going to create online subscription for their MP. But instead of paying 10$ month for just CoD, you’ll be buying a pass for all that publishers titles, so that way the publishers get their money for a hopefully improved MP experience and gamers still have money left over for games. This will also make people think twice about buying another publisher’s game since they’ll need a different on line pass to play MP. Or they’ll start charging for extra content clubs like EA’s “Gun Club” nobodies forced to pay it, but those who do will receive extra content, or reduced DLC. I wouldn’t mind paying extra for a better online experience, but alot of games fail miserable at MP, and having to pay for any MP game before you get to try it out isn’t going to work with any games but Halo, CoD, and Battlefield.
stonyk
It would be brilliant if this happened. As said example, say MW3 charge online and the equivalent ‘other’ modern shooter didn’t, we would all get that instead causing whichever greedy company that starts charging to lose out. In the end common sense should prevail and the greedy company will go to pot.
ericzap
Common sense should prevail, yes. But it usually doesn’t.
cc_star
Look how quickly project $10 and online pass have spread from publisher to publisher?
3shirts
I just don’t agree with this at all. The reason gaming sales have dropped over the last year is becasue of the bloody recession. Gaming is hardly an essential core expense so it’s something a lot of us have cut right back, choosing to squeeze more life out of old purchases.
All it proves it that, while we’d prefer to be buying new games, if money becomes tight, we can make do with older games. Start making gaming a more expensive activity, and we will tighten the belt again so overall the revenue will be basically the same
iAvernus
He does have valid points, but I for will not pay to play those games online. They have to come up with something far better than MW2 to get more money from me, to play online.
That is all… =)
Mentality
They will loose more money this way because the prosect of paying to play online will put most people off.
It will be an epic fail and there for an epic waste of time. If Treyarch did go in that direction they could shoot themselves in the foot, because they have what seems to be a very high quality game on the way, one which might actually compete with Infinity Wards Modern Warefare Series.They would put millions off buying it which means it wouldn’t do as well as it should.
But hey these guys are all about money and will probably overlook the obvious on seeing the the short side of a full story.
cc_star
If it happens in one game, it will happen across the board, just like pre-order exclusives, DLC, map packs, project 10 dollar style single use codes and online passes.
The analyst is just predicting that as the most popular franchise it may be up to them to take the first move that all the companies desperately want to take.
Who name what will happen, but if whoever does it first wants to ‘take’ gamers with them they’ll have to be a boat-load of benefits.
jikomanzoku
I dunno about this really, I play an MMO and I also play a few online FPS’s but when there was talk on MAG’s forums of charging a subscription fee I had no qualms with the notion of dropping it the instant that happened.
I don’t know if there’s a precedent within the PC market for subscription FPS or not but I’m just not sure it’d take off. I genuinely doubt a softco could produce enough content in the initial package and then with subsequent DLC in terms of maps, guns and other features whilst retaining all of that delicate balancing that is key in the FPS for it to feel like value for money.
Should one company try such a thing it would make such strong business sense for a rival to stick to the traditional model and capitalise on the bad feeling such a subs model would generate that I’m sure that’s what would happen.
It’d need some sort of agreement between the different publishers to work I reckon and to be honest, I hope it doesn’t happen.
Danny3194
I know for a fact subscription charges will take place for the new CoD. With the greedy bastards at Activision ripping customers of other companies will follow.
If I said to anyone of you TSA’ers 2 years ago that a Firstpersonshooter would have 5 maps as DLC for £11, you would think I were talking shite and that would never happen…only a matter of time before subscription charges take place TSA’ers
Vandix
The decline in game sales is largely due to not haveing the cash to buy them and that there are not many original titles out there… Mostly it’s all `part 2, 3, 400`… Make something new and the gamers will buy it…