Pachter pisses people off again, does this piss you off?

[Joelcool7]

fastyxx said:

Pachter is correct.  And here's why it works.

Activision would make more money, even if they sell considerably fewer copies.  Remember that Activision only gets a slice of that $60 retail price on the box, but they get nearly ALL of their subscription, so they could make as much with 4 million players on subscription as they do currently moving 10 million copies.  So it's good for Activsion.

I think the only loser is the consumer who plays COD or other games that follow that lead, and perhaps MS with the double-dipping on fees.  The industry as a whole would actually likely bring in more money.

Well you have a point. However as a consumer this is very bad. Also if Activision charged say 5$ a month to play Call Of Duty online. That is 60$ not being spent on new games, thats one new release that consumers are not buying, good for Activision but very bad for the other publishers and smaller developers. If that happens other publishers will take note and follow the leader. Pretty soon we will be paying subscription fees for all the big games leading to lower game sales.

With online subscription fees eating up at least 60$ a year, publishers will inturn cancel or turn down risky new IP's. Its bad enough right now but if every big game starts charging subscription fees that will mean a heck of alot fewer sales. In turn developers and publishers would begin to compete with one another more online seeing as a bulk of their profits would be coming from online. This would mean less content on each disk, shorter campaigns and less features. Because the publishers would be so focused on making their title the best online.

Then remember the consumers. Would many of them pay for X-Box Live anymore? Many would be upset and cut their memberships. It may work alittle on PSN where consumers don't pay for their online it may even work abit on Nintendo but doubtful. A decline in online users would probubly occur.

Also developers and publishers would be anxious to get consumers to upgrade their games as much as possible. Example somebody is paying 5$ a month to play W@W but CoD:BlackOps costs 5$ a month too. The consumer either has to pony up 10$ a month or stop playing the older title. Publishers would be constantly trying to get you to upgrade from one game to the next. They may start closing servers early once they are no longer making a mint.

So a decline of online users might still bring in a decent profit but less online users can't possibly be seen as a good thing. Imagine a game that right now has a million users online. After subsription fees their might only be 200K meaning longer wait times. Publishers would begin competing inturnally and externally to get your online buisness which would harm the single player campaigns and offline content. Then as people spend that 60$ a year they no longer have that money to spend on other titles leading to lower game sales.

I can't see how any of this can be beneficiary for the games industry!