Michael Pachter Says Call of Duty is a Failure

[Lunar Templar]

*shrugs*

To late for that now. Assuming that CoD hadn't conditioned gamers to expect free multilayer, there's been increased hostility toward the 'pay2play' model. WoW is really the only one that gets away with it now days, every one else? they should be going Free2Play any week now

 

[Lugbzurg]

This takes me back... I think I remember seeing a bunch of people on a thread (might've been right here on The Escapist) saying that they bought Call of Duty games annually, not because they were fans, in fact they didn't even enjoy it, but because they heard their friends payed it, and it would give them something to do with it. Wouldn't it be awkward if their friends felt the exact same way?

Captcha: "Haters Gonna Hate!" Heh, heh, heh...

 

[Callate]

...Sigh.

Yeah, Pachter? I didn't really like you before you came out here and basically said, "Game companies? You could be screwing your customers so much harder, what's wrong with you?"

 

[Rule Britannia]

Call of Duty can add a subscription, that'd be great, I could watch the number of people playing CoD multiplayer hit the floor. There will still be the dedicated players willing to pay to play but casual players won't bite.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This multiplayer thing being free was a mistake. I don't think anybody ever envisioned it would be this big. It's a mistake because it keeps those people from buying and playing other games.

So...
In context of the argument, you're saying CoD4.x competes with itself (other Activision titles), and that it's a failure because it isn't World of Warcraft?? The game sets sales records year after year, and from a monetary standpoint, IT SUCCEEDS MORE THAN EVERY OTHER CONSOLE GAME.

Even from an economic standpoint it's the top dog: every shooter out there wants to be Call of Duty 4.x (and always fails when they try), so long as the status-quo remains, the rest of the market has to dance to THEIR tune. Turning CoD4.x into a subscription title could actually give its competitors something to leverage on them. A selling point that isn't just based on a franchise name.

So overall, I'm certain this is EXACTLY what Activision is aiming for; just shy of monopoly.
Speaking of monopolistic practices...

I think the first thing Activision buys is Take-Two, because that fits in very nicely.

Good fucking God I hope not. I really hope not.
Take-Two is about the only AAA Publisher who hasn't pissed me off to the point where I stopped buying their products on principle alone. On average, their games feel a bit less generic than normal, and I actually have...FUN playing them.

I shouldn't act too surprised. Every other excellent AAA developer and publisher has gone down the shitter in the last decade, only to be muscled out by douchebags in suits peddling the most generic pigshit year after year.

?I think Nintendo becomes completely irrelevant,? Pachter claimed. ?They have their niche, Nintendo's first-party content is great content, and hardcore people will keep buying their consoles, but they're not going to only play with Nintendo consoles.?

*glares angrily at 3DS*
Tell me about it.

Outside of Japan, Big N's systems have first-party titles and close to nothing else (maybe a port of a Capcom game or two, but unless you're addicted to Resident Evil and Street Fighter, that doesn't mean much anymore).
Their whole game market and strategy is shitbiscuits.

Prediction: The next Bungie game will be single-player only; the multiplayer aspect of that game will be subscription only.

Er, if that was a reference to Halo, Bungie isn't developing Halo anymore.
If not, well. Carry on.

 

[Gatx]

He's not saying that it's a failure per se, just that they could've made even more money. He's been saying that CoD's multiplayer should have a subscription for a while now and gets a lot of flack for it but it makes sense from a completely business point of view.

Now of course they tried to test the waters for that with Elite but obviously that didn't work out since they dropped the subscription fee with the release of Black Ops 2. Now obviously that's different than forcing people to play a subscription if that want to access multiplayer at all, but I think there'd be enough backlash against that move since it'd be blatantly a cash grab.

 

[Snotnarok]

His info is a bit skewed...it's $60 for the game, and then 15 for each map-pack they put out which usually totals 60 bucks as well, then a month later the next CoD comes out. And the map packs hold nothing more than new maps that were probably created in the dev cycle.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

A shit ton of people do buy DLC costing ~60 dollars in a COD lifespan.
so make that 120, Analyst man who takes away my faith in humanity.

He is basically arguing that a company that does not entirely manipulate its consumers is "A failure"
What are morals?

 

[TheIronRuler]

Dude makes a lot of sense. It's scary to see it get implemented because I would hate to pay subscription (I buy retail) with no credit card or any kind of debit card.

 

[scott91575]

I understand where Pachter is coming from, but pay to play is becoming a thing of the past. Only big titles that have carry over from years past like Call of Duty and WoW can/could pull of subscription any more. Yet that will soon be a thing of the past. Free to play multiplayer with micro transactions is the true wave of the future. It is by far the superior economic model. Everyone pretty much pays the max they are willing to spend (assuming it's a good game with good items). That means you get the maximum amount of money out of the rich and the poor, and you therefore maximize revenue.

 

[Disthron]

I've noticed a lot of people saying that Packter is an idiot and this isn't news. I don't think that's true. If people are taking him seriously then they are more likely to take his advice and people need to know about it in order to call him out on it.

WoW, or any MMO really, has significant maintenance costs due to the complexity and shear scale of the servers workload. CoD on the other hand, dose not. It's just a first Person Shooter. If they let the players run dedicated servers on there own machines then the cost of keeping the multilayer up drops to $0.00. Since people who want to play, will make a server!

Some people might make the "value" argument. That you are getting all these hours of online play and that's worth it. That's the same one people used to make back when DVDs were 3 times the price of a VHS when they cost next to nothing to make and had the same content. It was BS back then and it's BS now.

 

[Vrach]

I find it hilarious how 1 billion dollars just doesn't seem like enough anymore. I mean sure you could make COD a subscription based game and tons would pay the price but damn who needs more than a billion dollars anyways? Who needs a million for that matter (well I do cause I want a jetski and a yacht but that's besides the point.)

It's not one person making a billion. It's a company and a company can NEVER make too much money. And for all our hate of CoD as a franchise, ActiVision ripping that playerbase off is good for everyone who hates it, because it means more leeway for trying other things.

In theory. In practice, ActiVision will just stick to what gets them the most money and barely ever try anything new, despite well being able to.

Oh I realize it's not just one person that makes a billion. I just find it funny that in this day in age we can say "Oh I just made a billion."

Well no, they can't... they can however say "Oh we just made a billion"
I'll take my hat off to the single person who can say he's made a billion alone and it's not enough.

 

[Reaper195]

Clearly, people are going to keep buying mopre CoD games if they have to pay even more for multiplayer. If that does end up happening, two things could follow. Either CoD suddenly suffers a massive loss because people don't want to pay extra to play online in an industry where multiplayer shouldn't trump (And didn't, about six years ago) single-player, or (And this one frightens me a lot) it will take. People will follow it. And quickly, more games will do that. To the point where you buy a game for a hundred bucks (NZD), and have to drop another twenty or so every month just to keep playing an open-world, offline RPG with a story limited by how much you pay.

If the latter happened...I'd stop gaming. Well...that, or save up, get a better PC and commit to being a pirate. Because fuck having to spend money more than once on a limited game (Meaning there is only so much to do, irrelevant of how large/long the game is (I.E. Skyrim, Oblivion, Just Cause 2, Minecraft)).

 

[Kopikatsu]

I'll take my hat off to the single person who can say he's made a billion alone and it's not enough.

That's every billionaire ever. They don't just stop wanting more money once they hit that big 1,000,000,000.

 

[Nannernade]

I wonder if his crack team of engineers raised their hand during a meeting to say if we start charging for the newest multiplayers what's to stop them from just going back to the previous one and playing it for free?

 

[In Search of Username]

Erm, isn't this what the constant DLC and frequent very similar sequels are for?

 

[Olas]

Oh well, I guess Pachter will just have to tighten his belt and settle for the billion dollars he made. Who knows, perhaps he could make every gun in the game paid DLC. Or better yet, the next Call of Duty game could make you insert coins to continue playing after every death just like in the old days of the arcade machines. Just some ideas. I don't play COD so I don't care what they do.

 

[ShaqLevick]

I guarantee more than half of the people buying COD will no longer be purchasing a pay to play online subscription model. Not to mention more than half of those individuals will stop paying a month in. So in the end the following COD game will probably barely cover production costs, and I guess that would be alright with me (Screw you Activision).