Multiplayer Gaming Blamed for US Sales Decline

[djab]

[citation][nom]Rab1d-BDGR[/nom]First P2P was killing the games industry. Then used game sales were killing the games industry. Then cheap games were killing the games industry. Now games with high replay are killing the games industry?!WTF crAptivision? They don't want to make games that are fun in case people play it more then once after buying it? It is attitudes like this that are hurting gamers and good developers alike!They think they have some sort of god given right to sell games at full price, THEN charge rent to use them (especially multiplayer) THEN make you pay for the second half of the game which should have been in the box but is now DLC AND they want killswitch DRM that can lock users out whenever they feel like it. Frankly, I don't see myself ever buying another activision game so long as I live.[/citation]
[citation][nom]drwho1[/nom]... they are also mad because a few "good games" are "over used"... it's like wait a second... what?Wolf: I want you all to buy my gamePotential customer: CoolWolf: but you must play the game a few hours and go buy another gamePotential custmer: Wait, What.. F()(/\ Y()![/citation]
Exactly what I thought when reading this article.
They want us to buy games but when we finally buy one they do not want us to play it.
They just want us to buy another one!

Otherwise, first they will try to make multiplayer content with subscription fee.
Then what?! ... single player content with subscription fee.
Or microtransactions rental model.
This will not be too difficult with games that already require constant online connection.
It would be like rental play (+ the cost of the original game).
I thought Onlive model was going to be an EPIC fail with its Playpass/time credit you have to buy for each games. But it seems there is going to be the same thing for other models of distribution. then I'll stop buying games.

They do not care about the quality of the games, they care about how much profit they can make.
The sad thing is that the money is not to pay their employees more(see Activision and Infinity Ward), it is to satisfy their friends, the shareholders.

 

[antilycus]

More proof that these "analysts" know NOTHING about their field. It's the lack of ingenuity and the constant puking of the same drivel. Plus 60 dollar games are hard on families and people are waiting for them to turn 30 before buying them. Geez I get so upset at that "analysts" getting paid to be completely wrong just to please the people gambling their money on companies futures.

 

[antilycus]

@Sonicmask
Speaking of fanboys. You obviously know very little about the video game industry, as you can tell from your comment about XBL not having dedicated servers, because that EXACTLY what you are paying for.

MS offers their XBL network/infrastructure to any developer. That means the developer doesn't have to spend money on a server, an administrator, a design engineer, the backbone, the firewall and all the milions of other things that go into creating a strong network. Instead EVERY SINGLE DEVELOPER is GIVEN THE ENTIRE XBL network to develop for. MS pays the bill on the energy, adminsitration, upgrades, designes, hardware, software, etc etc etc. That's why users pay 50 a month.

It's also the number 1 reason that EA didn't want to join XBL because EA wanted control of their own servers, which MS eventually gave them, which baffles me, because every time I play an EA game (or any game for that matter) on PS3, their network connections are a joke/disaster. massive lag across the board. 100% of the time. It's obvious that SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS should not be responsible for HARDWARE infrastructures. And it's why I can afford the 4 bucks a month for XBL. If you can afford $4/ a month for a premium service with little to no lag problems, you shoulnd't be playing current gen video games. GO back to your 386sx.

 

[antilycus]

sorry 50/ year

 

[everygamer]

I dont know about anyone else, but since games went up to $60 a pop I started buying less games. Also, I have started using a service like Gamefly as $24/month is still cheaper than buying 5 games at $60/game and I get to play between 12-15 games a year. Sure I might not get the game the day it is released, but I still get to play it.

At this point, I only buy games I really really really want to add to my collection ... which last year translated to about 3 games. I used to buy 10 or more a year.

 

[spleendamage]

But the biggest culprit to the decline is apparently games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty--those with high replay value.

This just amazes me. So the converse would be, create games of low replay value = sell more games. That's nice simple zero-sum logic. Just one question... why exactly would people be inclined to buy low replay value games to begin with?

Does anyone go read a game review and equate the part where the author says "not really any replay value, no multi-player to speak of" and think Oh yeah, this is a MUST BUY!

 

[Guest]

Thing is, the guy is right, people WILL pay for the multiplayer (on top of everything that is the "nature" of consoles).

So:
Pay for the game
Pay for the XLive
Pay for the DLC
Pay for the misc things in XLive (anything like changing your name)

and now, pay for the multiplayer. Its natural progression.

I really wish they do this AND FAIL MISERABLY, but, they'll probably succeed and this will become the new standard. Fact of the matter is, people are lazy (or sheep), they'll pay for anything as long as its popular and they are the "part of it".

 

[grandshadow3581]

Multplayer is only one factor to the decline of pc/video games, I think the main factor is that games cost too much to develop so there are no longer a large variety of little companies making games. The games don't have to be ultra high graphic games to be entertaining, yes it is a plus but when more graphics are add the games seem to get shorter.

 

[waffle911]

Holy crap. This might be the first relevant article Kevin has posted in…wait… no, I can't count that high.