Pachter: 50% of online gamers would pay for multiplayer
"Black Ops, MoH, Halo Reach, GTA 5 all will contain the opportunity for gamers to pay more to the publishers"
Outspoken Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has made a number of brave predictions about multiplayer gaming, claiming that he expects premium paid features to be added to a slew of major releases.
Pachter's latest round of projections follows Activision's firm rebuttal of suggestions that it might attach pay-to-play fees to current or in-development Call Of Duty titles.
His latest proclamation also maintains that, although he does not know exactly what form this new breed of monetisation will take, he expects it to bifurcate the online arena, with half of current players paying for premium versions and the rest sticking to limited free multiplayer.
"We expect somewhere around half of the current 15 million online game players to pay something for premium content, and expect the other half to play fewer hours online if the free experience is slightly less robust in the future," he said.
"Should the 7.5 million people who choose to pay generate only $5.00 per month (around 11.5¢ per hour), publisher revenues and operating profits would increase by $450 million," Pachter went on to appromixate.
"We think that premium online multiplayer content will be the event that turns the negative tide of industry sales around," he said, additionally claiming that those players who feel disenfranchised by charges would be likely to buy more games to make up the lost hours.
He cites multiplayer as primarily responsible for Modern Warfare 2's sales, claiming "Activision laments the missed opportunity to somehow monetise the incremental gameplay" and calculating that charging players the equivalent of $0.06 per hour would have raised an additional $120 million profit within six months.
Although Rockstar has yet to even announce its next game, Pachter has declared that the Red Dead Redemption developer/publisher's next title will include a new payment model - as would other impending big-hitters.
"We think that scheduled releases like Call of Duty Black Ops, Medal of Honor and Halo Reach, and unscheduled releases like Grand Theft Auto 5 all will contain the opportunity for gamers to pay more to the publishers," he surmised.
Good for the big dogs... not so good for everyone else though. You only have to look at the MMO market to see that predictions of WoW-like figures for subsequent MMOs were just unrealistic. There's only so much space in each market or so much money in the pot. Changing how you charge for something means that the available money gets shifted around.
Just like how gaming is eating up DVD/movie revenues (or at least that's what they say).
You haven't posted the full quote, but from what you put he says "if" half of the 15 million pay then they could make $450 million. That's different than "50% would pay $5 a month to play CoD."
If you've got the full quote where he says "they'd make $450 million and I have data that suggests half of them actually would" then please prove me wrong, but the headline is telling a different story than what he seems to have said.
publisher revenues would grow by another $450 million."
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Alec Meer on 2nd August 2010 6:33pm
Trying to con the gamers out of their hard earned cash for something we're all accustomed to already (self/clan/guild funded servers) is not a great idea, it's just a greedy idea.
EDIT: my bad, I thought it was another Acti blood sucker doing the talking. However, if anyone is sure to do it then it WILL be Acti, so what I said still stands ... in a way.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Ashley Tarver on 2nd August 2010 6:50pm
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Finlan on 2nd August 2010 9:50pm
As for Pachter's reasoning though...
OR the idea can be successful if amount of content for such shooter will become comparable to MMO
If Activision can deliver an online experience free of 8-year-old racist homophobic children, a place where glitchers don't exist, where a 'see everywhere' hack doesn't work and where lag doesn't determine the outcome of a game, then hey, count me in.
Until then, I'll continue to cough up money to Microsoft for my Gold membership, and suffer the consequences of a game like MW2 and its over abundance of tiny, mouthy children whose parents ignore age ratings.
Most gamers I know refuse to pay for online subscription, both professionals and 'normal gamers' alike. Whilst I do know plenty who subscribe it's nowhere near half and half. Bloody statistics....
Goods should be provided as is on the tin. Whereas a middle ground option such as that advocated by Playstation for Premium content is more palatable. As it is, multiplayer is still glitchy/laggy (depending on yoru net connection) that the thought of forking out more for a less than perfect product....
How about this, if the product doesnt work as stated, perhaps they should really pay us to try out their products
there's a significant number of online players that have no real sense of the value of a pound/dollar/whatever. (if they're underage - well we all know of people who fund their kids online purchases without really a clue as what they're paying for.)
so yes that will definetly get more money out of that group, who want to just keep on playing.
the other thing to think of though is how this can turn people away from games. there are instances where i hear people turn down an otherwise good game in their opinion, because they don't like the unlevel playing field created by those who are willing to spend more money on the game. - these people may in fact have spent money on microtransactions/premium content if they played the game and got into it, but they're just not willing to do so because of how the landscape of the game is laid out to them.
in both cases the company kind of villifies itself, which isn't really something a company can get away with as easily these days. this just hurts image and may even negatively effect profits.
also to consider is that older gamers aren't used to this method of payment. how willing will they be to adapt to it over sticking to older titles?
it may be that this is the way things will eventually go, and be considered the norm, but the transition peroid to this will be very difficult to get through.
Xbox Live Gold.
:/