Analyst: Activision Should Monetize Call of Duty's Multiplayer For Shareholders.

JohnnyRacer

JohnnyRacer

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http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/7...ll-of-Dutys-Multiplayer-For-Shareholders.html

A research note released today suggests that stock-holders won't be happy until Activision implements an additional fee for players who wish to participate in any CoD multiplayer modes. According to an analyst, keeping Call of Duty's multiplayer free is "a betrayal of shareholder trust."

Michael Patcher, a Wedbush analyst, suggested that Activision's decision to not charge players an additional fee for multiplayer is "a serious strategic error." Patcher went on to say, "We firmly believe that until the publishers address monetisation of multiplayer, game sales will continue to be challenged by the publishers' altruistic decision to provide significantly more entertainment value per hour than ever in history."

This is a response to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg's previous statement saying that Activision would never charge for "out of the box" CoD multiplayer. However, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said he would charge Call of Duty players a subscription service "tomorrow" if he had his way.

The Call of Duty franchise is known for its multiplayer. CoD: Modern Warfare 2 and CoD: Black Ops are among the most popular played games on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Would you continue to play if you had to pay a subscription fee? Pay-to-play didn't work out so well for APB: All Points Bulletin, could this be beginning of CoD's downfall?


Read more: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/7...ltiplayer-for-shareholders.html#ixzz17MWHYS8]
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Cliffs: Activisions shareholders want a monthly fee on CoD.

How about a giant fuck you to these guys? I know we have a CoD thread, but I see this as a slippery slope that could hit a lot of console games.
 
I think monthly fees should be reserved for MMOs, not multiplayer FPS or multiplayer RTS, though I can't explain why that should be the case.
 
I think that charging for CoD multiplayer will only serve to accelerate the rate at which Activision is digging its own grave.
Personally though, I couldn't care less if they charge for CoD multiplayer or not. I stopped playing CoD when I realized that the multiplayer isn't even very good.
 
Short term principles equal short term profits, long term losses.
 
Mitlov said:
I think monthly fees should be reserved for MMOs, not multiplayer FPS or multiplayer RTS, though I can't explain why that should be the case.
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I can. MMO's have 10 times the content of an FPS. Plus, year round support. Lets looks at the king of MMO's, WoW. It's sheer scale requieres much more man power to run than a simple FPS. I'm more than happy to pay the techs to make sure everything is up. Activision has a horrible track record on maintaining games.
 
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Mitlov said:
I think monthly fees should be reserved for MMOs, not multiplayer FPS or multiplayer RTS, though I can't explain why that should be the case.
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On PC at least, multiplayer servers are hosted by players themselves renting out third party servers, and the game itself is only providing the server list (maybe a few of its own publisher servers), so there is no reason for multiplayer to cost extra.

On consoles, and on new PC games unfortunately, the matchmaking system is used where the system a player is actually playing on is used as a temporary server. Shittier performance and, once again, no reason to charge extra.

Only MMOs see large server banks provided by the game company to allow for online play, so it makes sense.
 
JohnnyRacer said:
I can. MMO's have 10 times the content of an FPS. Plus, year round support. Lets looks at the king of MMO's, WoW. It's sheer scale requieres much more man power to run than a simple FPS. I'm more than happy to pay the techs to make sure everything is up. Activision has a horrible track record on maintaining games.
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Especially when you consider maintenance and hardware involved. WoW has a ton of servers, at least 5 per realm. And there are a lot of realms. Plus you figure in all of the expansions and patches that release new content. Not just a new map, but new quests, lore, graphics, models, everything.

COD doesn't need that. They release a couple new maps every so often and maybe tweak the multiplayer options a couple of times in the games life (which is about a year). They don't even have servers, as the XboxLive model uses the user's own Xbox as the server. Little to know backend hardware is needed from the publishers standpoint. I can't speak for the PS3 side of things, but I would imagine its similar.

Its just greed.
 
fuck these greedy cockgobblers.

its only a billion dollar franchise
 
Thanks to everyone for the technology explanation about the server differences between an MMO and a FPS. It further backs up the gut reaction I had, which is that this move is a steaming load of bullcrap.
 
I'd say to boycott Activision but we all know how that worked out the last time

http://img5.imageshack.**/img5/6062/1258035395841.jpg
 
What the fuck is this shit? pay-to-play multiplayer in an FPS? really? seriosuly? I learned, back in fucking high school econonomics, that when you invest in a company, you ought to have a damn good understanding of the industry that company is in. Like, I keep seeing headlines about biotech companies, but I would never invest in fucking biotech. Why? because I don't know shit about fucking biotech, that's why. These shit-for-brains analysts and investors seem to have about the same amount of knowledge about the gaming industry as I do the biotech industry. I'll bet most of them are 50+ year olds who have never picked up a controller or a gaming mouse in their lives. Nobody would ever go for a pay to play multiplayer FPS that isn't also a MMOG.

Sadly, though, I'm having a sneaking suspicion that I may be wrong on that last part, and these guys may actually be on to something. A large part of CoD sales are parents buying the game for their spoiled little kids after all.

I hope I'm wrong though, and I hope Activision fails hard if they try this. If pay to play catches on outside of MMO's, then its goodbye multiplayer gaming for me.
 
I think pay-to-play multiplayer would be interesting and unobjectionable IF the game itself was free and the monthly fee wasn't exorbitant. It would shut down piracy and it would also give the game designers a self-interest in giving the game lasting appeal (instead of just a glitzy ad campaign to get people to buy it *cough*Medal of Honor*cough*).

Wouldn't it be interesting if, instead of buying a game for $50 and playing multiplayer for free, the game was free and you paid say $7 per month to play it?
 
Mitlov said:
I think pay-to-play multiplayer would be interesting and unobjectionable IF the game itself was free and the monthly fee wasn't exorbitant. It would shut down piracy and it would also give the game designers a self-interest in giving the game lasting appeal (instead of just a glitzy ad campaign to get people to buy it *cough*Medal of Honor*cough*).

Wouldn't it be interesting if, instead of buying a game for $50 and playing multiplayer for free, the game was free and you paid say $7 per month to play it?
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That may work for games that only have a multiplayer component but giving the game away for free is going to make a lot of developers not bother with a single player component. Now if the game was $10-20 to buy and then $5-7 a month to play multiplayer, that would be more favorable to developers.
 
But certainly not $60 for the game, $10 for XboxLive Monthly), then another fee (we will call it the Activision Gaming Privilege fee)
 
problem is, that if they did implement this. there will be plenty of people who will buy it regardless.

i just don't see anything coming out of it that is worthwhile and reading the article gives me the impression that Activision is attempting to push out Call of Duty Online and make it look like they are following customers wishes.
on a side note, Blizzard is responsible for WoW and yet is partly owned by Activision and yet they never have seemed to look at how good a job Blizzard actually does. WoW is one of the few games where i do see my money being spent on the game. Cataclysm is released tomorrow and i'm buying it, not because of the raised level caps, but the amount of new game content being implemented. Mostly because i know full well that the new game content is going to keep me in the game far longer than the any Call of Duty online. I am still yet to play the MP of Black Ops and i have no intention of changing that.
 
The merger of Activision and Blizzard is a huge oxymoron. Blizzard is a high standards game company that gives its costumers almost unmatched support with years of quality content and patches (Valve is another example of this kind of company).

Activision is a company that not only charges more for a game that had a 1 year development cycle (and in some cases has less content than its predecessors), but then charges a quarter of that price more for insignificant add-ons to the game.

Activision is the epitome of what is wrong with the gaming industry, and it is highly unfortunate that they have been so successful with recent CoD titles. A large percentage of gamers seem to have no long term vision and just need the newest games no matter what the cost. Hopefully they grow up and see the direction Activision wants to take the industry.
 
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