Analyst- Activision Must Begin Multiplayer Fee's. Pay to Play basically. - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Gubbinz96;23432472]Latest bad idea in the history of bad ideas. [release]Publishers must find a way to profit off online multiplayer, says Pachter. July 16, 2010 by Jim Reilly If the videogame industry is going to rebound from its decline in software sales, publishers will need to look at monetizing online multiplayer, said Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter in his latest investor report. Pachter believes one of the main reasons software sales for PS3 and Xbox 360 are down year-over-year is due to gamers continuing to log substantial hours into a handful of online games and not picking up new titles regularly. "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," he said. Pachter also noted that Activision needs to make the first move with multiplayer charges, and expects we could see something with Call of Duty: Black Ops, set for release this November. "We think that it is incumbent upon Activision, with the most popular multiplayer game, to take the first step to address monetization of multiplayer," said Pachter. "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 says he expects the publisher will apply a World of Warcraft-like business model to its Call of Duty franchise. Activision will likely continue to offer some form a free multiplayer for awhile, he says, but notes that it's imperative the company capitalizes on the estimated 4 billion hours of time spent online since the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. "We are quick to point out that the average single player game has an expected play time of under 30 hours, suggesting that a staggering 133 million units of equivalent game play have been spent (so far) playing Call of Duty online, with Activision only seeing revenues from the original 20 million units sold, plus an estimated 8 million map packs sold," he added. Activision hasn't been shy in the past about its intentions for some of its key franchises. The publisher has said several times it's looking at new online business models for Call of Duty and Guitar Hero. In a recent interview, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick also made his displeasure known over closed online networks such as Xbox Live. "We've heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft's] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty," said Kotick. "We don't really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it's not our network." [/release] And they wonder why gamers hate them. :rolleyes: Sauce: [URL]http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1106732p1.html[/URL][/QUOTE] I'm sorry but to those of you who complain and hate on activision for doing this, it's stupid. People pay to play WoW and don't complain. Personally i would LOVE for this to be implemented ASAP. It's not like they our going to take are money and run off with it. If anything they will take the money and find better ways to make the game more immersive and more addicting to bring on more customers and keep the current ones hooked and not make them think they are wasting their money. AND my favorite reason i'm supporting this, is because i put up with the kids who have no skill and use modded controllers and such, but with the whole pay to play online shit, any type of mod to "enhance" your stats or what ever will be viewed as a cheat and i wouldn't be surprised if kids started getting the boot, it's about time something is done and i for one will be glad to for 15 bucks every month as long as i get good game play in return and the modded/cheating stops.

Why don't we go make our own video game with better storyline, game play and graphic and make it exclusively for the PC/MAC? Then we publish the game by ourselves. Want to help? I guess not. Most people here aren't game developers and businessmen so that is why we don't know why they think of it that way. Plus monthly Subscription based games is lame

[QUOTE=BCell;23441507]Why don't we go make our own video game with better storyline, game play and graphic and make it exclusively for the PC/MAC? Then we publish the game by ourselves. Want to help? I guess not. Most people here aren't game developers and businessmen so that is why we don't know why they think of it that way. Plus monthly Subscription based games is lame[/QUOTE] but look at it from a business stand point. You have say like 5 million gamers that will blow 15 dollars on a map pack and right there is (not doing math just bare with me) say 200 million in revienue or some shit. So it's logical sense to charge to play online and make more revenue. The company YES does care about money but it also cares about their customers but in this economy it's a viable source of income if you charge to play. By doing this they may lose like what 10 percent or less of their audience but it won't matter because people will still pay and play.

[QUOTE=Douchebags;23441549]but look at it from a business stand point. You have say like 5 million gamers that will blow 15 dollars on a map pack and right there is (not doing math just bare with me) say 200 million in revienue or some shit. So it's logical sense to charge to play online and make more revenue. The company YES does care about money but it also cares about their customers but in this economy it's a viable source of income if you charge to play. By doing this they may lose like what 10 percent or less of their audience but it won't matter because people will still pay and play.[/QUOTE] That shit won't run when they're trying to make you buy 20 different games a year each requiring their own pay to play fee on top of the game purchase. WoW works because it is an MMO that has near infinite replayability allows it to work with a sustained payment system. No ones going to pay to play for an FPS that's the exact same as anything and everything else out there.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;23441641]That shit won't run when they're trying to make you buy 20 different games a year each requiring their own pay to play fee on top of the game purchase. WoW works because it is an MMO that has near infinite replayability allows it to work with a sustained payment system. No ones going to pay to play for an FPS that's the exact same as anything and everything else out there.[/QUOTE] The general public wouldn't notice how games are similar. It's as simple as that facepunchers would get sick of call of duty but the general public rarely play games so call of duty would feel different.

[QUOTE=Fusilero1;23441712]The general public wouldn't notice how games are similar. It's as simple as that facepunchers would get sick of call of duty but the general public rarely play games so call of duty would feel different.[/QUOTE] not to mention that with the money that's flowing in from the subscriptions i'm sure the developers would find more ways to add replayability so that the game would not get boring and drop off the map, and when this finally is implemented into the console world i'm sure the companies will have an idea of how they will get people hooked onto the concept and keep them there.

[quote=johnnymo1;23440627]this is literally the worst idea in the history of the gaming industry[/quote] dlc

I don't think they realize gamers are just humans and not everyone can afford to pay for this >_>

I think their reasoning that went into this was something like [quote]That's so stupid it might actually work![/quote] except it won't

Whatever. There are plenty of good MP games that doesn't have pay-to-play feature.

Somebody's gonna get fired a year from now for coming up with this horrible plan

"Oh noes! Our stupid ideas made everyone buy less of our games, let's make them pay even more to compensate!"

I still can't believe they essentially said "we need our players to either stop enjoying their games for so long, or start paying us to enjoy their games for as long as they do." Why don't they just take the RIAA route and sue people for enjoying Modern Warfare 2 beyond the 40-hour expectation of gameplay? At this point, no cash grab would surprise me with Bobby Kotick.

[quote]Basically, you're going to need to pay to play our games at some point in the future[/quote] [img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/SpyLaughing.png[/img] DOOOHOHOHOHOHO THAT'S A GOOD ONE [quote]We mean it.[/quote] [img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/seeyafegs.png[/img] Later, assholes.

[QUOTE=Douchebags;23441433]If anything they will take the money and find better ways to make the game more immersive and more addicting to bring on more customers and keep the current ones hooked and not make them think they are wasting their money.[/QUOTE] Good point, except that it's not. The money would be used to fund further development, yes. But you'd have to pay for it too (DLC and all that garbage). WoW also has subscription but you have to buy new expansions. No, what they would do is make more games in general. And charge for those.

[QUOTE=eggnogg13;23439595]Suddenly, PC gaming doesn't seem expensive anymore.[/QUOTE] PC gaming has always been cheaper in the long run anyway. I don't know what you're on about.

Its times like this that makes me glad that valve exist, who are probably the only company that actually care about the games they make, not like these money grabbing whores.

Some originality would work better as opposed to the re-released clones they keep authorising.

So instead of doing better games more often they dig themself a grave and put a gun in their mouth?

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;23442665]Its times like this that makes me glad that valve exist, who are probably the only company that actually care about the games they make, not like these money grabbing whores.[/QUOTE] I'd say Blizzard does too, though I remember something about Battle.net becoming P2P, and if that's true I don't respect them as much.

[QUOTE=Kybalt;23442614]PC gaming has always been cheaper in the long run anyway. I don't know what you're on about.[/QUOTE] Exactly. It only seems expensive if you don't understand what a Long Term Investment is or think you need to get the absolute highest specification parts. [editline]11:39AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Angua;23442697]So instead of doing better games more often they dig themself a grave and put a gun in their mouth?[/QUOTE] The sad thing is that if Modern Warfail 2 or the next popular game in a console franchise got a subscription fee added for multiplayer, a lot of people would pay it anyway because "hurr durr lets play cod bro y0 rubber dingy rapids" (you'll understand the rapids thing if you've seen the movie 'Four Lions/Boilerhouse').

this is why i love valve, they're not money grabbing bastards that wants to fuck over their own fanbase

[QUOTE=Kybalt;23442703]I'd say Blizzard does too, though I remember something about Battle.net becoming P2P, and if that's true I don't respect them as much.[/QUOTE] Well I can understand P2P for WoW as they need the money to pay for the servers, but most of activisions games use player hosted servers, so I really don't see why they could need this money other than to make their bank accounts even bigger.

There are still many more companies out there other than Valve and Activion come on. Just because Actvision is going down doesn't mean we just have Valve, there are plenty of other companies such as EA Games, THQ, Rockstar and so on and so on. [editline]11:10AM[/editline] I would mention Blizzard too, but I want to see how they do together with Activision before I say anything about them.

Okay so you'd have to have the Xbox (min. $199), Xbox Live (Min. $5/Month), Points for DLC (Most likely about $50 a year), and then this fee (probably $15/Month). That is a guaranteed 20 bucks a month for that shit. That's almost like a whole new utility bill.

I don't play their games to begin with. Most of them are pure shit.

This is all because of their "release a new game every year" bullshit, they're wasting too much money on making shit games every year then they're suprised when game sales aren't enough.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;23442665]Its times like this that makes me glad that valve exist, who are probably the only company that actually care about the games they make, not like these money grabbing whores.[/QUOTE] And Rockstar. Well, some of those RDR DlC looks like a rip-off but they definitely care about the quality of their games. Really Valve, Rockstar, and NCsoft (because of Guild Wars, hell, they're doing the exact opposite of this for GW2) are the only companies I'll buy consistently from. [editline]08:31AM[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;23441641]That shit won't run when they're trying to make you buy 20 different games a year each requiring their own pay to play fee on top of the game purchase. WoW works because it is an MMO that has near infinite replayability allows it to work with a sustained payment system. No ones going to pay to play for an FPS that's the exact same as anything and everything else out there.[/QUOTE] If Activision did add subscriptions they might make it like an "Activision subscription" or something in which by paying monthly you can access multiplayer in all their games. Still a terrible idea though.

iD software also care about their PC Customers (All of them infact) They always listen to what the users want.

It the next COD is around 30 Euro,s has good singleplayer and amazing multiplayer, free mappacks and good costumer support then i would give them the "Troll Award". To bad i just woke up and realised what world i live in.