Michael Pachter Says Call of Duty is a Failure

[jpoon]

Man I don't like this guy at all. He comes across as a total money grubbing fuckwad. Of course, that's the motto for all corporations so I'm sure he's a damn messiah for them.

That said, I hate activision (and EA and several other devs/pubs) far more so what ya gonna do...other than not buy their shit?

 

[Deathfish15]

Someone find a way to get this guy fired from his job and put away from anything even resembling a video-game (even slot poker). He's been, for the past 2 years, trying to convince gaming companies to charge for it's online multiplayer.

I understand that "it's his job" as a market analyst who's supposed to wring every penny out of the sheep...er, customers. However, the question remains if his job is really needed and is not doing anything but a disservice? He makes predictions of companies failing, companies succeeding, and gives 'financial advise' to companies on ways to decrease their product and increase their profit.

Video games are about multiple things: innovation, creativity, artistic expression, and above-all-else they're about FUN. Pachter says they're about $$...he's a fool and he's wrong.

Is he even getting paid by a publisher to spew his crap? I've never seen anything from him further than what appears to be his version of common sense, which isn't something people usually pay for. I'm beginning to think it's not so much his "job" as much as it is some kind of sick passion of his. Either that, or he's somehow managed to carve a niche out of being a video-game related douchebag.

Yes, he gets paid for it (though by the company that employs him, not a publisher):



-~-~-~-~-Michael Pachter is an oft-quoted video game, social media, digital media and electronics analyst with Wedbush Securities. He is also the Head of Research for the Private Shares Group, a Wedbush division which focuses on companies which have not yet gone public such as Facebook (pre-IPO) and Twitter. He is regularly cited by national publications in the United States, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.-~-~-~-~-



And there are times that publishers hire him as an analyst and advisory from Wedbush. If I recall correctly, parts of Call of Duty Elite was set up based on his ideas (this was when it first released and was $100....yikes!).

 

[Vault101]

well if it means single player becomes important then I'm ok with anything

 

[Bob_F_It]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111567-Pachter-COD-Elite-Could-Make-Players-Defect-to-Battlefield

What a hypocrite.

 

[Rogjah]

A single player CoD game, or a subscription based one, would never generate $1 billion in sales. Plus, don't people already pay a monthly fee for their Xbox Live Gold for 'unlimited multiplayer'? Could Microsoft ethically allow a CoD multiplayer subscription model? It would kind of cheapen the value of Live wouldn't it? I guess as long as they were getting cut in on the action.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Actually, the DLC (which is discounted to US$50 with the "season pass") probably needs to be mentioned as a rebuttal to his analysis. It's a minimum 4 packs at $15 a piece, which effectively doubles a player's expenditures for the game.

Granted not everybody buys DLC, but enough buy it to seriously tweak those numbers at least $15 more on average.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

A single player CoD game, or a subscription based one, would never generate $1 billion in sales. Plus, don't people already pay a monthly fee for their Xbox Live Gold for 'unlimited multiplayer'? Could Microsoft ethically allow a CoD multiplayer subscription model? It would kind of cheapen the value of Live wouldn't it? I guess as long as they were getting cut in on the action.

A handful of XBLA games tried it. That said, there's a reason no one remembers them. Flat fees (i.e. the online access codes) appear to be the preferred method that gets the most bang for their buck.

 

[Scorpid]

I have the striking urge to take out fire and pitch forks and burn him. He's dealing with customer base that already feels like they're being ripped off at every new development of pricing between DLC and making genres all feel and play the same. I guess he's the kind of guy that dude that worked at EA ranted about on Twitter.

 

[Scorpid]

Indeed. This article just made me want to bite has damn head off.

Because I'm a Leviathan now, or something.

This statement made me incredibly happy.

A casual gamer isn't defined by the amount of games they play, or what they play, it's defined by why they actually play games and how often they even play them. (Examples are some Wii games which allow parents to play with their children, or mobile games which allow people to play games when they're travelling/can't access a computer or console).

Disagree. I played WoW casually for 3 years, but I racked up 120 days on a single character. Playing casually means you play exclusively for fun and relaxation, not competitiveness or compulsively (I'm looking at you, Farmville...).

I actually disagree with both statements. I think being a "hardcore" gamer means you care about games beyond just the novelty of it. Like how many people picked up the Wii played for a bit and they liked their Wii bowling games and what not put in time and dedication perhaps to become better but they never cared about the Wii or the game beyond strictly playing it. My view is that a hardcore gamers might be a person that sits down goes to message board to discuss what makes a person a casual or hardcore gamer.

 

[The_Echo]

Didn't Pachter also say Nintendo would fail with the Wii? Or, something to that effect.

Maybe I just don't pay enough attention, but I've never seen Pachter's predictions actually happen.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

so if Activision takes, take 2, then Rockstars grandparent company would be Activision? I don't want to see GTA released every bi-year by 2 diff company's.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Well, the thing is that Pachter wants it all- he wants a $60 price tag, monthly subscriptions AND a steady stream of map packs/DLC.

The sad thing is that there are so many gamers latched onto to the CoD/BF teats that it could actually happen that way.

But to that guy who pretty much exclusively plays Call Of Duty from week to week, year after year, paying extra to cover all of that blatant price gouging isn't that much of an extra stretch. From a business perspective it makes a twisted sort of sense for a market juggernaut like COD to do all they can to separate themselves from the rest of the market. Because from where they're standing it makes absolutely no sense to operate like they're a gateway drug into the wider gaming hobby and risk losing that consumer to competitors, when they could monopolise that initial sale and all over subsequent sales instead. For a good example of the practice in action just look at Games Workshop versus the rest of the tabletop miniature industry. Games Workshop has their own stores that sell self-branded products all the way down to their own overpriced line of super glue.

Cultivating your own fenced off corner of the market is also a good way of convincing people to pay more for your product because they'll have less comparisons with which to make an informed judgement on the real value of the products they're purchasing.

 

[thiosk]

I tend not to agree with him, but that's mostly because I think he's a twat.
He has a point, and I'll certainly suggest that cod would do just fine fully eliminating single player while sp games dump mp, but it's his belief that everything should operate on a wow model that I disagree with. There's not enough game there for 180 bucks a year.

People stay on mmos because of the human interaction- cod doesn't have that (unless being insulted by 15 year olds counts)

 

[Terminate421]

Wrong (methinks). I don't know if you've played any of the older Call of Duty games online, but they're mostly either fairly barren or full of hackers. Most Call of Duty players get the latest version with in a few months of it coming out (and most of the rest get it when they can find it somewhere for non-stupid money).

Actually quite a few people still play MW2, I do it with a friend every now and then because it's still kinda fun.

 

[dmase]

I think he forgot about the DLC aspect, if someone buys the game from the beginning and the DLC at full price you have 120 dollars if 4 DLC get released which is usually the case. Then there are the collector editions. There are groups of people that like sects of gaming, first person shooter is the widest aspect of that and more than likely if you like first person shooters you go out and buy CoD, they own that market and any time you own a market you can't ever say you'll be hurting for money.

Now if they could make more money off of doing a subscription online... who knows. There is a definite possibility they could but what about the people that get scared off and don't buy the game at all? I think activision went the smart route, they have the free multiplayer then they have elite that get the hardcore players that want to show off.

 

[Rogjah]

A single player CoD game, or a subscription based one, would never generate $1 billion in sales. Plus, don't people already pay a monthly fee for their Xbox Live Gold for 'unlimited multiplayer'? Could Microsoft ethically allow a CoD multiplayer subscription model? It would kind of cheapen the value of Live wouldn't it? I guess as long as they were getting cut in on the action.

A handful of XBLA games tried it. That said, there's a reason no one remembers them. Flat fees (i.e. the online access codes) appear to be the preferred method that gets the most bang for their buck.

I see. I tend to stick with PC and dabble in PS3 and Wii from time to time so I don't have much experience with Live or Live Arcade. At least with the online access codes they're upfront about it. I figure it's better than microtransactions. I can see it now "Pay 15 CoD creds to activate UAV". Or maybe CoD needs hats, lots and lots of hats. At the very least uniform insignias.

You're right though, the map packs are their way of generating extra money, it's unfair to say that they've failed. Also, as it has been mentioned before "gamers" isn't a single population, there are subsets. CoD succeeded the same way the Wii did, it brought in a ton of new people who normally wouldn't have been interested. There are a huge number of people who if they didn't play CoD, wouldn't play anything. So Activision has successfully taken their money which normally wouldn't be in the industry. The rest of us CoD purchasers, buy it, play the single player, play the multiplayer for a while, then move on to the next game just like Pachter thinks we should. I really don't think CoD is taking as much money 'out of' the industry as he may think. Also, he doesn't take player volume into account. WoW has about what? 9 million subscribers? So to even the score, Black Ops 2 needs to sell about 27 million copies? I'm pretty sure that's do-able. Revenue per player doesn't matter, total revenue does. Plus I'm guessing WoW has higher maintenance costs though I will admit I have no factual basis for that (Does that make me an analyst? Of course not, analysts wouldn't admit it).