Treyarch: Beat Used Game Sales With Great Multiplayer

[tk1989]

/snip

It wouldn't be too smart to do if sales are high. However since most publishers are complaining about used sales, it seems sales aren't too high, which is why it would be smart for them to lower price.

You were the one who said prices should be dropped at regular intervals. This implies that the price is dropped after a fixed period of time, in spite of how the game is doing. Obviously a company will consider dropping the price of a game once sales start diminishing....

 

[Mikeyfell]

so they're finally dropping that Xbox live driven FPS crap and adding some FUN multiplayer?
like FUCKING CO-OP, how about they make the single player take longer than 6 hours?
that'll convince people to keep their games for more than a day

 

[Mikeyfell]

Or they could just reduce the price of games at regular intervals. That would cause more people to buy the games, and put the squeeze on the used games market.

Why drop the price on a game which is still selling loads at its full price point? Dropping the prices of games at fixed intervals isn't that great an idea;

they should just give the Call of Duty games away for free. THEY DON'T DESERVE TO MAKE MONEY ON COPY PASTING GAME-PLAY FROM THE LAST ONE

the consumers need to stop buying these games until they put some fucking work in to the crap they're selling us

 

[Irridium]

/snip

It wouldn't be too smart to do if sales are high. However since most publishers are complaining about used sales, it seems sales aren't too high, which is why it would be smart for them to lower price.

You were the one who said prices should be dropped at regular intervals. This implies that the price is dropped after a fixed period of time, in spite of how the game is doing. Obviously a company will consider dropping the price of a game once sales start diminishing....

I believe that they should reduce prices at regular intervals.
You said they won't(or shouldn't) reduce prices if the game is still selling.
I said since they seem to be complaining about used copies a lot, they aren't selling so much, so they should reduce the price.

And I'll add this, if a game is selling well, reducing the price by a bit will cause it to sell better.

 

[John Funk]

Say whatever you want, I remember reading IW forums and everyone hated Treyarch while I always thought they did a decent job with W@W. But reading this, and after hearing other devs comments, these guys really know what they are doing.
They're into the business alright, like any other dev, but these guys showed more tongue and guts than any other Dev I heard about.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Because the multiplayer of Call of Duty is just SO amazing, right? Right?! Wrong.

 

[Outright Villainy]

And I'll add this, if a game is selling well, reducing the price by a bit will cause it to sell better.

There's truth in them words. Having it lowered regularly would be good for keeping the momentum going too. I think Valve said somewhere (IIRC) that after the first left 4 dead weekend sale they'd nearly doubled the sales they'd made up to that point. Pretty smart move in my book.

 

[Buizel91]

Treyarch, every bit of recent news about you i read, my Love-o-Meter Just keeps going higher, and higher.

Please Treyarch, make my wishes come true about Black Op's...if so, You are up their with Bungie and Valve and Bioware in my opinion.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I hate multiplayer mostly because I suck at it (except halo 1, for some insane reason)

The big prob with multiplayer, you need both a huge userbase and a "skill" matching system like Starcraft 2.

If you don't have a huge userbase the queues are too long. If you don't have a skill based matching system experienced griefers will wreck noobs all day and discourage them before they ever get better.

The prob with competitive multiplayer is 50% of the participants lose the game. And losing is no fun.

 

[Buizel91]

Say whatever you want, I remember reading IW forums and everyone hated Treyarch while I always thought they did a decent job with W@W. But reading this, and after hearing other devs comments, these guys really know what they are doing.
They're into the business alright, like any other dev, but these guys showed more tongue and guts than any other Dev I heard about.

Same, i thought WAW was great, they really did do a good job even if it was just COD4 with new skins.

The new perks and Vehicle section they added really made it fun and more challenging. The story mode was good as well. Very underrated game.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Or they could just reduce the price of games at regular intervals. That would cause more people to buy the games, and put the squeeze on the used games market.

But don't ***** about consumers trying to save as much money as they can in a bad economy. Games are expensive, so don't ***** when people are buying new to save money. Reduce your prices at regular intervals, and more people will buy new.

Of course thats logical and smart so it'll be ignored.

Yea, logic doesn't seem like their thing. In fact I bet what most publishers walked away from this article with is the notion that if they come up with a good enough multiplayer portion of a game, they can charge separately for it like Capcom tried to.
Lowering prices would be a good start. It worked for dvds; it even helped the movie industry combat piracy too. $60 is pretty steep so I can't exactly blame someone for buying used or even pirating if they're really that strapped for cash. Not saying I condone piracy, but I understand why it happens; I used to be that poor.

A game doesn't just have to have great multiplayer to be a keeper. I could never get rid of Fallout 3. My wife would kill me first of all (she never finished point lookout) but it's the kind of game that is so populated and compelling that I feel like popping it in at least once a month. And I'm not entirely convinced I've seen everything in the Capital Wasteland. Some people like single player games and Fallout 3 isn't the kind of single player game you can play through in one weekend like most other titles. Even really good ones like Uncharted 2 or God of War 3 are over way too quickly and I don't really see a reason to keep them. The rental satisfies my curiosity.

 

[S_K]

The video game industry is a wasteful one to begin with in how they treat their old games and now they want to stop them reselling completly?! Good call guys -_-

 

[Covarr]

Or they could just reduce the price of games at regular intervals. That would cause more people to buy the games, and put the squeeze on the used games market.

But don't ***** about consumers trying to save as much money as they can in a bad economy. Games are expensive, so don't ***** when people are buying new to save money. Reduce your prices at regular intervals, and more people will buy new.

Of course thats logical and smart so it'll be ignored.

Why drop the price on a game which is still selling loads at its full price point? Dropping the prices of games at fixed intervals isnt that great an idea; dropping the price is useful once the product sales drop, when a competitor is released, or when the market starts to saturate. Dropping the price of a game if its still selling loads just doesnt make sense; look at all these nintendo games which keep selling well week after week, or even the Wii itself, which i still dont think has undergone a price cut.

Dropping the price also causes insane amounts of the game to sell, if Steam sales are any indication. Team Fortress 2 repeatedly made back the amount it cost to make when it was put on sale. Same with plenty of other games that went on sale.

Yes its a business and the goal is to make money. But this is life in a tough economy and people are trying to save money. If the price is low either at launch or lowered over time, more people will buy it, and they will have more money which they could use to buy more games.

Team Fortress 2 was being sold through Steam however, which is run by Valve, maximising profits making it easier to get the money back. It also cant be resold, as its a digital download, meaning that valve get money for every copy sold regardless. Valve also have a great deal invested in Steam as a whole, so they will frequently drop prices in order to bring in new customers.

The digital downloads market is very very different to that of retail, and your analogy is unfair. Granted, if the price of a game in a shop drops from £40 to £20, sales will undoubtably increase. Why would a company do this however if the sales of the game are already pretty high? You were saying that prices should be lowered at regular intervals, but why do this if sales are already very high?

That is a bad comparison, yes, but Valve is also doing exactly what this article recommends: kickass multiplayer.

It's really a matter of extending replay value; people won't sell back a game they're still playing. Just when you're starting to get tired of TF2 or L4D2, Valve releases an update to keep you playing. With a system like this, even if you COULD resell the game (which you can on 360), you're not likely to want to. And the money that Valve spends making these updates? They make it right back on new sales, because there aren't as many used copies to buy.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Sebenko]

So, it seems the games industry has forgotten about piracy in favour of used sales.

What's next? buying games from other publishers?

 

[Xiorell]

While I am not that bothered about multi player these days, I do agree with this notion, seems a no brainer to me... makes the game so enjoyable or somehow loved that people just don't give it up.... Hell I still own games for consoles I don't even have anymore, just because they was so great to me somehow, if I ever decide to aquire said console again, there they are ready to rock.
Although when I got rid of my 360 I did let go of a few games I should really have retained.. mainly due to being special edition I can still get the actual GAME easy enough (do plan on getting 360 again in a few weeks)

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Damn Tryarch! My respect for them just keeps growing.

 

[Timmey]

To be honest I still play W@W just for the Nazi zombie mode, so if they can pull off something similar in this game then the chances are it will still be sitting on my shelf in a couple of years time

 

[crimson sickle2]

That's a pretty kickass attitude Treyarch has. Not certain it will work, but what if it does? We might see the quality of games to rise, and that would be awesome.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

Or they could just reduce the price of games at regular intervals. That would cause more people to buy the games, and put the squeeze on the used games market.

But don't ***** about consumers trying to save as much money as they can in a bad economy. Games are expensive, so don't ***** when people are buying new to save money. Reduce your prices at regular intervals, and more people will buy new.

Of course thats logical and smart so it'll be ignored.

Yea, logic doesn't seem like their thing. In fact I bet what most publishers walked away from this article with is the notion that if they come up with a good enough multiplayer portion of a game, they can charge separately for it like Capcom tried to.
Lowering prices would be a good start. It worked for dvds; it even helped the movie industry combat piracy too. $60 is pretty steep so I can't exactly blame someone for buying used or even pirating if they're really that strapped for cash. Not saying I condone piracy, but I understand why it happens; I used to be that poor.

Considering that many games are getting harder and harder to justify paying full price for a "full" game experience, they need to look at the cost versus game content. Simply because multiplayer is popular, does not mean it is often that spectacular to be treated almost as a completely new game or game's worth of content to garner the desired interst. In contrast to an engaging single player campaign with variation, how long until death matches begin to carry the same overall feeling? The game loses its appeal because multiplayer is being used as an easy filler, so the price can feel overwhelming for what one gets.

I find that Xbox 360 games are even worse because that $60 does not even include multiplayer without the Xbox Live fee. Adding more multiplayer equates to more content unavailable to silver 360 users.

A game doesn't just have to have great multiplayer to be a keeper. I could never get rid of Fallout 3. My wife would kill me first of all (she never finished point lookout) but it's the kind of game that is so populated and compelling that I feel like popping it in at least once a month. And I'm not entirely convinced I've seen everything in the Capital Wasteland. Some people like single player games and Fallout 3 isn't the kind of single player game you can play through in one weekend like most other titles. Even really good ones like Uncharted 2 or God of War 3 are over way too quickly and I don't really see a reason to keep them. The rental satisfies my curiosity.

That is exaclty why I bought Uncharted 2 used. Let's see, $35 or $55 (new), well, that's just too easy! Single-player focused games need to offer more replayability, without tacking on just multiplayer, and something a little more creative than "Even HARDER" modes. People would be more inclined to keep these types of games if they offered either a notably greater length, more side-question/missions, or dynamic choices that could allow different experiences. In turn, people would be more willing to pay full price because the game does not feel like a waste.