Analyst: Activision Should Charge for CoD Multiplayer

[DeathPrincess]

While I don't agree with the statement in the news article - I'd really like some of you to give me your ideas on some new gameplay types or "innovations" you'd put into your next FPS if you got the chance. I mean you had Doom. Then you had the true 3D FPS games that wowed you. Then you got all these awesome multiplayer modes which were great. Perhaps I'm just not flowing with creativity at the moment, but I am at a loss when I try to imagine how the next great FPS would play or what innovative features it could bring that we haven't all seen before. You can only do so much when development gets costlier and costlier. You've gotta balance development costs between graphics, cinematics, the story, etc, and you all expect MORE MORE MORE every time.

Most of you just complain too damned much.

Yes they do *shakes fists*.
Video games have become big buisness, almost overtaking cinema or something. Before it was a kind of thing that a few friends got together and did. Its not so bad risking 3 peoples spare time and money on something different, but risking millions and your company and it:s easier to play it safe. Which is proabably why the big companies like activision, ubisoft, EA push out endless generic millitary shooters and sequels to games people probably dont care about. Similar to what has happened in hollywood, where its all remakes, comic books and 80s shows in film form. Familiarity sells. However stupid (monopoly movie!?)
But development may get costlier and costlier, but if history is anything to go by, the games made by smaller development studios have been the ones to break out of the old ruts. For example plants vs. zombies. That was one of the best games of 2009, and it lacked cutting edge graphics, story, cinematics. It was simple and fun, and was kind of something new. Smaller studios have less to risk, so its easier for them to try a new direction. Usually after that they get bought by EA, Activision and get kicked to death making sequels for smaller and smaller profit margins. But that is not the point. There needs to be more money and less 'buisness'.
The internett is a great place for bad opinions. If there was "free gold and diamonds for your toenail clippings" there would be 1000 websites clambering to be the first to tell people how stupid they were for falling for this obvious scheme to rid them of their toenails. What was the last peice of good news you heard?

The next breakthrough...

Weve have single player...
Weve had multiplayer...
Something like littlebigplanet for fps???

 

[piscian18]

The difference between activision and valve though...Is that valve seem to make games because they LIKE games.

quoted while it's still true -__-

 

[Easykill1978]

if they start charging to play them online i would not buy them..

see here in australia its 90 bucks/yr for xbox live.. thats right 90.

mw2 while is fun has many problems, the map packs have ssooo many easily exploitable sections and it cost 25 bucks for the maps..

will i buy another mw2, prob not..i may rent it tho for a day or two and hand it back..

activision will go down in flames if they charge for online..

 

[Hornet]

He's complaining about users getting more hours out of the games they paid for.

Someone needs to put him out of his misery

 

[bacon]

While I don't agree with the statement in the news article - I'd really like some of you to give me your ideas on some new gameplay types or "innovations" you'd put into your next FPS if you got the chance. I mean you had Doom. Then you had the true 3D FPS games that wowed you. Then you got all these awesome multiplayer modes which were great. Perhaps I'm just not flowing with creativity at the moment, but I am at a loss when I try to imagine how the next great FPS would play or what innovative features it could bring that we haven't all seen before. You can only do so much when development gets costlier and costlier. You've gotta balance development costs between graphics, cinematics, the story, etc, and you all expect MORE MORE MORE every time.

Most of you just complain too damned much.

You don't have to do something outrageous. Example Portal.

Just make a game that has all the basics that you listed, and polish it. After its released support it! More more more isn't always better. MW2 has at least twice the weapons, and perks as cod4 yet its not a better game.

In fact half of that fluffy crap they put in it core pc gamers would remove of forbid on their servers if given the chance. Honestly most all the great shooters are pretty much all the same with a few things changed, and the MP part of cod4 could have just been updated with new player and weapon models, higher res textures, and maps and been a success.

The market is flooded with crap, and people how play games more than 20 hrs a week don't have time to play even a fraction of them. Make fewer more polished games and those will sell better.

 

[Phoenix333]

If all video games go subscription for multiplayer then my multiplayer days are over. I just won't do it. I don't have the money to sink into subscriptions. I will not pay $10 a month to play a video game when I have other games I can play as much as I want. I already pay for monthly internet access, and that's as far as I'm willing to go. I buy most games when they hit the bargain bin. That way I pay half the original price and it will most likely run on my hardware. I can afford $20 once in a while for a game. I will not pay $50 for a game. I absolutely refuse to pay $120 a year to play one online.

Subscriptions are bad all around. They pigeonhole you into playing one game repeatedly so that you feel you "get your money's worth". People I know that used to play FPS games stopped once they got into WoW. Why? They didn't want to split their time between WoW and playing shooters. Subscriptions STAGNATE the gaming industry because all you have to do is just add a little more content, another hook to keep existing players shelling out cash, and not do any major innovating. It's a huge cash cow that just keeps getting milked.

This is why I like Id and Valve. They make a killer game and throw everything into it, then once you buy it, it's yours to play as much as you like. They support the mod communities and listen to feedback from their players. I can STILL play Doom and enjoy it, or Quake 2, or Half-Life, or Wolfenstein 3D. I have the GPL'd Quake 3 engine source and I'm using that in my own project.

So if someone out there in the development world thinks subscriptions are the way to go for FPS, here's one less customer for you.

 

[SamuraiInBlack]

Good thing I don't really care for the Call of Duty series past the singleplayer storyline then.

 

[Tolyngee]

Decent point, but when do people get tired of Baseball, Futbol, Football, Basketball? Some people PREFER the same ol shit.

No, they still get tired of the same ol' shit.

That's why there's HOCKEY!!!

 

[tempo*]

or "How To Make Sure Your Next Game Doesn't Sell At All"

WIN!

 

[Michaelius]

You don't think CoD is a good game? It's not the absolute best or anything, but even I, who don't play a lot of FPS games, think it's a very fun game. However... nothing really gets me going like UT99 did.

I played the multiplier on free weekend and it's barely average. I could have bought it for 10$ in bundle with x6 cpu but decided i have better usages for 10 bucks

 

[Apocrypha]

Originally Posted by LeninGHOLA
I forgive you because it is Friday, but I'm pretty sure that is $600 million!

The correct math is 10 million users times $60 per game is $600 million. If those same 10 million users pay $20/month for 1.5 years (average lifespan of a title) you end up with $3.6Billion.

I don't like your math at all.

The correct math is:

5 million users, because half of the people would not buy this game if it costs $20/mo to play online.

Users will not subscribe for 1.5 years, and as soon as The Next Big Thing™ is released that number will drop rapidly.

So what you got there is one of them exponential curves, which probably means they won't make any more cash than before, they will have half as many users and those users will be pissed off.

You can't charge for something that has been given away for free for so long.

 

[mdswish]

I don't like your math at all.

The correct math is:

5 million users, because half of the people would not buy this game if it costs $20/mo to play online.

Users will not subscribe for 1.5 years, and as soon as The Next Big Thing™ is released that number will drop rapidly.

So what you got there is one of them exponential curves, which probably means they won't make any more cash than before, they will have half as many users and those users will be pissed off.

You can't charge for something that has been given away for free for so long.

I disagree. That $20/month fee will cover multiple games, not just one title. It would be a gaming service similar to what pay tv is today. Within different "tiers" of programming you have different channels available. Within different "tiers" of pricing in a subscription based gaming service you would have different titles available for a flat fee per month. Let's say you pay $15/month now and you play MW2, COD4, TF2, and C&C. MOH comes out, but it's not included in your tier. So if you want MOH you have to upgrade to the next available tier, which costs more money per month. This is a workable model that has proven success in other industries. It's happened with television (which used to be free) and it can happen with gaming. People WILL buy it. I'm sure there will be the initial outrage, but it will happen. The gaming industry is already headed in that direction. They're beginning to condition us for it little by little already by making us pay for map packs and monthly fees for certain games like WoW and anything on XBOX or PSN. It won't be long until it comes to the PC as well.

 

[night_2004]

Games these days are barely worth the $50 price tag right now. Monthly sub? No, thanks, I'll pass.

One less customer here too.

 

[DeathPrincess]

I disagree. That $20/month fee will cover multiple games, not just one title. It would be a gaming service similar to what pay tv is today. Within different "tiers" of programming you have different channels available. Within different "tiers" of pricing in a subscription based gaming service you would have different titles available for a flat fee per month. Let's say you pay $15/month now and you play MW2, COD4, TF2, and C&C. MOH comes out, but it's not included in your tier. So if you want MOH you have to upgrade to the next available tier, which costs more money per month. This is a workable model that has proven success in other industries. It's happened with television (which used to be free) and it can happen with gaming. People WILL buy it. I'm sure there will be the initial outrage, but it will happen. The gaming industry is already headed in that direction. They're beginning to condition us for it little by little already by making us pay for map packs and monthly fees for certain games like WoW and anything on XBOX or PSN. It won't be long until it comes to the PC as well.

PSN is free. Even the plus version or whatever only gets you some free games and some exclusive demos. Pretty much all MMORPG's used to be pay per month before games with micro transactions (pay for items) came along (mostly korean imports). Some RPGs have gone from being payed to micro transactions (cabal online, knight online I think). I've tried a few MMORPGs but have got bored fairly quickly (I tried knight online because of the 300 players on each side battles, you needed to be level something so I played for a week or two then relaised it was full of high level people and I was being one hit killed). I would never pay for a game in perpetuality becaus it would lock me into that game (I bought final fantasy XI just to own it, I've never even installed it, I collect games).
But anyway, if I was forced to pay to play a certain game, i'd go play one with something free. All the millitary shootwers are just the same with maybe a new feature. For things like portal and borderlands, that kind of thing I could possibly see it working. But not for anything so generic. People would either go and play the old versions, buy it on a console, or play something different.

 

[pothb]

I played the multiplier on free weekend and it's barely average. I could have bought it for 10$ in bundle with x6 cpu but decided i have better usages for 10 bucks

I thought it was fun.... then again, I base my experience mainly on single player.

 

[FLECOM]

As much as we all hate this, I believe that this is the direction the industry will be going within the next 2-3 years. With technologies like the STEAM cloud and cloud computing and Activisions idea of a monthly subscription service for COD, it's not too much of a stretch to take it to the next step. I could see it happening where Activision or EA or whomever would charge say $20/month for a gaming "service". You can play as many games as you want as long as you want. And then of course there are the expansion packs and upgrades that will have individual costs as well. It will become a pay service just like satellite TV is today. About 12 years ago when the old 10 foot C-Band dishes were popular you paid an initial fee of about $2500 for the dish and receiver. Then you could watch as much tv as you could handle. Then someone realized all the money they were losing and slowly but surely began charging for one channel after another, until we find ourselves in the present day and pay as much as $120/month for tv service depending on the package we choose. The gaming industry is headed in the same direction. And no matter how much we bitch and complain all we are doing is prolonging the inevitable. I don't like it anymore than you do. But I can see it coming.

so I wont pay for it the same way I dont pay for cable or satellite... its called OTA... and just how there are 3rd party WoW servers, there will be 3rd party everything else servers, I guarantee it... if they think the $50~60 i paid for the game isnt enough, well then I dont know what to say, most of these games are not even worth that to me

 

[Azhar]

Except that, joking aside, it's completely irrelevant since everyone is also limited to the same controller.

You can get keyboards and mice for consoles these days. The suckers are ones who prefer controllers over them.

 

[Azhar]

You are correct. I realized my error, but for some reason I don't have permission to edit my posts.

Just so you know, there's no edit feature for users in the Front Page News forum