cunger said:
fauzman said:
sales2099 said:
You cant improve sales year after year indefinitely. Its got to peak at SOME point.
COD has been gaining sales since 2005. It was a great run. Now its sales can stabilize and remain flat. |
You are making the assumption that sales will stabilise and remain the same rather than falling. Why? With most of the series that have tanked, sales have tended to go down so why do you think they will remain the same? I would say they really need to innovate - bring in new devs to come up with new ideas, upgrade the graphics which they can certainly afford to (and would stop some of the criticism), take gameplay or MP in another direction.
|
I think that Activision would still argue that they make more money this way. Part of the success they have had with Call of Duty comes from the anualization of the franchise. They keep gamers engaged in thier franchise 365 days a year this way instead of allowing them to drift into other game worlds and wonder whether or not they will come back. Eventually people drift away from the game but it will be highly profitable for some time. By the time World of Warcraft is done they need a new MMO to take it's place. And who knows Destiny might be the next big thing and perhaps after they build that franchise up it might get annualized to replace COD one day as their cash cow.
I don't like it but it might actually be sound business so long as they are still able to create the next big thing in time.
|
You are right in that it provides Activision with a huge yearly money stream. The problem with this is that when the sales start decreasing, like they are now, then as has already happened your investors arent happy and there is a huge ton of negative publicity. There is a huge profit in annual sales but you have to weigh them against the likelihood of years and decades of sales of an IP if it is not kept annualised. GTA for example has been around for ages and no doubt it will be for a couple more generations (or more) as each sequel is well spaced out and increases in sales every time. Investors know they have a winner on their hands with little or no chance of sales decreasing anytime soon.
Add to that, yes they do have to find a new IP to replace their previous success but there is no guarantee that it will be successful. If Activision made a new shooter series would it be as successful? Or would it use the same elements the COD series use today? Would the devs be able to hook the gamers in again with new innovations? While it might seem that the annualisation is a more reliable system, its actually pretty dangerous to count on.
