Pachter: Publishers Need to Charge for Online Play
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
This would generate more money but not how he pictures it. Yes you will pay to play but that is money you are not buying new games with. A lot of IPs would perish and in a lot of games multiplayer would be a dead wasteland. Sure games like MW would survive but I refuse to buy a game that I then have to pay a subscription to play. I've bought the fucking game already...
While we're considering ways to screw the consumers: how about this to boost sales, for every new game created, build a whole new console. Want to play Modern Warfare 3? Well you gotta get the MW3 box. That way games can each be $600! Developers will soon be rolling in the dough.
The only conceivable way I can see people paying for multiplayer is if it was a very minimal fee, for example... £10 a year. Sure, it doesn't seem like that much to us, but if you times 10 by the 12 million player stats of COD MW2 then you get an extra £120 million a year.
I mean, you should want to help your favourite developers right? Quite a few of us pay a small amount per year to support our dear escapist, so why not with online multiplayer too...
I mean, you should want to help your favourite developers right? Quite a few of us pay a small amount per year to support our dear escapist, so why not with online multiplayer too...
i'm sorry if i must say the less insults possible, but my first thought when i saw this, and how you see him in gametrailers in that recent Business $$$ show, you must have thought as i do: "What an Asshole!"
Lets face it, game prices are never going down, unless they stop selling well.
I think there's too much of impatience around here. Consider preorders, various overpriced editions, the "buy before try" logic... All this is hurting ANY price cuts. Money gets as good as burned into this crap and most don't care or even actively refuse or are too far incompetent to say anything against bad quality of products... Yet still it's just products for the companies, but, no. We call it "games". As if it's a special type of drug.
I think there's too much of impatience around here. Consider preorders, various overpriced editions, the "buy before try" logic... All this is hurting ANY price cuts. Money gets as good as burned into this crap and most don't care or even actively refuse or are too far incompetent to say anything against bad quality of products... Yet still it's just products for the companies, but, no. We call it "games". As if it's a special type of drug.
I wouldn't be against them trying this in the future, but it would need to happen as part of an XBOX Live/PSN kind of subscription. Consumers pay a flat monthly (or whatever) fee for multiplayer on their consoles and then Microsoft and Sony pay a portion of that to publishers based on played-time with a specific game. In some ways, multiplayer is a kind of DRM so I can see why they may want to focus their money-making in that area.
That being said, games should come with a slightly lower price tag. It seems like it would work. Companies are driven to create better multiplayer experiences in order to get more money in the long run, games cost less upfront, which is good for consumers, and XBOX Live has shown that people are willing to pay for multiplayer. They just need to work out a system that gets all the bills paid without screwing the customer.
That being said, games should come with a slightly lower price tag. It seems like it would work. Companies are driven to create better multiplayer experiences in order to get more money in the long run, games cost less upfront, which is good for consumers, and XBOX Live has shown that people are willing to pay for multiplayer. They just need to work out a system that gets all the bills paid without screwing the customer.
Frankly there's no shooter worth paying money to play online. But then again hardcore people buy dedicated counter strike servers...
Here's a suggestion, a crazy one, I'm just putting it out there... how about making some good games?
All the stuff that's coming out at the moment from anyone larger than GSC has only elicited a "meh" from me. The only upcoming game that interests me is that Grim Dawn. The only newly released games I've bought this year are Metro 2033, STALKER: COP and M&B: Warband. I think Metro 2033 was the closest to a big budget release I've bought since Fallout 3 came out. I might have considered XCOM if they hadn't decided to make it yet another FPS.
So you really think charging for multiplayer will get more money from me?
Let me look at the coming soon list on Steam.
There's New Vegas. I'll probably buy that.
There's RUSE. I liked it, but there's zero chance of me buying that with the Ubisoft DRM on it.
And Civ V. It'll probably be good, but Civ isn't really my thing.
The rest of the list is a resounding "meh".
All the stuff that's coming out at the moment from anyone larger than GSC has only elicited a "meh" from me. The only upcoming game that interests me is that Grim Dawn. The only newly released games I've bought this year are Metro 2033, STALKER: COP and M&B: Warband. I think Metro 2033 was the closest to a big budget release I've bought since Fallout 3 came out. I might have considered XCOM if they hadn't decided to make it yet another FPS.
So you really think charging for multiplayer will get more money from me?
Let me look at the coming soon list on Steam.
There's New Vegas. I'll probably buy that.
There's RUSE. I liked it, but there's zero chance of me buying that with the Ubisoft DRM on it.
And Civ V. It'll probably be good, but Civ isn't really my thing.
The rest of the list is a resounding "meh".
This is a terrible idea, and not just from a consumer standpoint. The reason sales are down is that we are still in a recession, so people have less money to spend on games or are just acting more frugal. If your new game, which people may be on the fence about to begin with so they can save money, suddenly has a monthly bill attached to it then you will lose a lot of buyers.
Wait, wasn't multiplayer included in most recent games to increase replay value and fight used game sales? So the strategy worked, and now some people thing that charging for it is the way to go?
Patcher makes all sorts of outrageous claims. I don't think they need to charge, but the future certainly seems to indicate they will try.
But seriously, can't we just treat patcher like the chicken little he is?
But seriously, can't we just treat patcher like the chicken little he is?
I don't know what his ratio is on his predictions, but like what he said or not it doesn't take a genius to see that this is where things are probably headed. It's a way to make money, but not the right way. Will it affect new game sales? yes, of course it will, but it will have a much /more/ lasting effect on USED game sales. Right now publishers and developers get nothing from used game sales, and if they adopt this model then everyone who's playing their game online will have to shell out the subscription fee.
It may take years, but if every major publisher adopted this philosophy eventually used game sales would probably become so unprofitable for retailers who must drastically lower their prices and thus trade values to get people to buy used games with subscription fees.... Seems to me they're trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. More money for publisher, yes. Used Game sales, drying up but still providing them with more money than the zero they were making off of them before.
As for people buying older titles instead, that's possible, but there's a solution for that as well depending on just how 'hardcore' the publisher wants to be. Once the next generation of consoles is released, they could simply shutdown the matchmaking servers for the current console generation games. Wouldn't happen immediately, perhaps 18-24 months after to ensure a good adoption rate before they swap over fully, but business is business.
I'm not predicting any of this will happen myself, aside from agreeing that some games will have some form of subscription based multiplayer. That might mean charging for dedicated servers for 'ranked' matches to make hacking more difficult, or any number of other options. The rest is speculation, and certainly one possible way things could unfold. Would I like any of that? Nope, but I don't think anyone can deny that those steps are likely being talked about in some conference room somewhere.
It may take years, but if every major publisher adopted this philosophy eventually used game sales would probably become so unprofitable for retailers who must drastically lower their prices and thus trade values to get people to buy used games with subscription fees.... Seems to me they're trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. More money for publisher, yes. Used Game sales, drying up but still providing them with more money than the zero they were making off of them before.
As for people buying older titles instead, that's possible, but there's a solution for that as well depending on just how 'hardcore' the publisher wants to be. Once the next generation of consoles is released, they could simply shutdown the matchmaking servers for the current console generation games. Wouldn't happen immediately, perhaps 18-24 months after to ensure a good adoption rate before they swap over fully, but business is business.
I'm not predicting any of this will happen myself, aside from agreeing that some games will have some form of subscription based multiplayer. That might mean charging for dedicated servers for 'ranked' matches to make hacking more difficult, or any number of other options. The rest is speculation, and certainly one possible way things could unfold. Would I like any of that? Nope, but I don't think anyone can deny that those steps are likely being talked about in some conference room somewhere.