President Reagan
Junior Member
They are greatly underestimating the resolve of gamers. If this happens single player gaming will receive a huge renaissance.
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Pachter Attacks Your Sensibilities (Again): Online Multi To Be Subscription Based
- Thread starter Ca1amity
- Start date
He does make some good points. Online play is cannibalizing sales of new games. People play online games longer than they would a game without an online component. I still play MW2 quite a bit and because of that, I'm less likely to buy another game. MW2 is keeping me entertained. Why buy another game?
President Reagan
Junior Member
Paying $10 more for a game does not equal paying a monthly fee. I understand where you're coming from, but a recurring fee to play a game is way different, especially when the first month of the fee is more than likely going to be $10 or more.
Works for MMOs, but for a FPS? I don't think so.
Works for MMOs, but for a FPS? I don't think so.
Beer Monkey
Member
This whole thing reminds me of a movie disc format called DIVX aka Digital Video Express that was designed to kill DVD in the late 90s. It drove Hollywood crazy that these evil consumers could, you know, watch a movie that they bought over and over and over again and not have to pay! It's almost like stealing from the studios! Disney and FOX loaded DIVX up with lots of hot exclusives, but consumers weren't biting and the format was killed in less than nine months.
Valve I don't see doing it. They always see the big picture and would not poison the long-term well for short-term cash. Blizzard has to be considered likely to start charging monthly fees for all their games, because:
1) Bobby Kotick
2) They already killed LAN play and require online authentication, a critical building block to charging for all online play.
After many millions of people get addicted to SC2 and Diablo III, I would not be at all surprised to see Actiblizzard start charging for all Battle.Net access.
Except there's nothing to back up this "they might start charging" stuff for consoles. Bobby Kotick himself has already said that he wants to move all the Call of Duty players to PC because there he will be allowed to charge for online play.
APB would have tanked as a retail-only game with no sub fee, because it is not a good game. APB will teach the industry nothing.
Smash88 said:
Valve I don't see doing it. They always see the big picture and would not poison the long-term well for short-term cash. Blizzard has to be considered likely to start charging monthly fees for all their games, because:
1) Bobby Kotick
2) They already killed LAN play and require online authentication, a critical building block to charging for all online play.
After many millions of people get addicted to SC2 and Diablo III, I would not be at all surprised to see Actiblizzard start charging for all Battle.Net access.
AdrianWerner said:
Except there's nothing to back up this "they might start charging" stuff for consoles. Bobby Kotick himself has already said that he wants to move all the Call of Duty players to PC because there he will be allowed to charge for online play.
Vigilant Walrus said:
APB would have tanked as a retail-only game with no sub fee, because it is not a good game. APB will teach the industry nothing.
adamsappel
Member
Draft said:
You don't get the point.
What happens if you want to play WoW and Everquest and LOTR and KOTOR Online and whatevs? You have to keep a separate subscription for each title. Hassle. And what if one month you stopped playing WoW and want to concentrate on LOTR because of a new patch brings new content? Dropping a MMO subscription is a real hassle. You will waste money, and reward a publisher for not having new content for you.
If MS simply gave a share of the Gold money to the developer that published the game that is played online, proportionally to the time played, every multiplayer game would be converted to a per title subscription model, transparently to the user, who would still pay only one subscription.
Simple and elegant.
RiccochetJ
Gold Member
Dyno said:
He talks to investors about where he thinks the industry is going for fuck's sake. What else is he supposed to do? How can you pay off an analyst? If he's wrong, investors will lose money and ultimately he will too. Jesus Christ, people are bitching about his so called parroting to investors about what CEO's are saying? He's doing his job.
the nightman cometh
Member
I don't think Microsoft is dumb enough to allow companies to charge a monthly fee on top of the Xbox Live fee....or at least I hope they aren't. Xbox live is Microsofts party and if publishers don't like it I'm pretty sure Microsoft will tell them to get out.
President Reagan
Junior Member
I've had problems dropping subs before. It doesn't always go smoothly.
H_Prestige
Banned
the nightman cometh said:
The question is not if MS is dumb enough to try. The question is, are most of their customers stupid enough to pay the extra fee?
I think the answer is a resounding "yes".
President Reagan
Junior Member
H_Prestige said:
I don't think thats true for the most part. I mean you'll have little Timmy gamers who's mommy and daddy will buy them anything, but the median age for a gamer now who plays online is much older. Hence they have many more real world expenses than gamers did years ago. I think they'll be in for a big surprise at how this will flop.
Barkley's Justice
Member
someone, somewhere, will have to give. these people can not expect consumers to pay for all of this shit:
xbl
ea pass
cod pass
hulu plus
netflix
isp bill
etc. i know for their bottom lines they think this is a good idea, but consumers are about to get squeezed. too squeezed. and they will respond with their wallets and companies will need to concede and re-prioritize.
as consumers, we hold all of the power.
xbl
ea pass
cod pass
hulu plus
netflix
isp bill
etc. i know for their bottom lines they think this is a good idea, but consumers are about to get squeezed. too squeezed. and they will respond with their wallets and companies will need to concede and re-prioritize.
as consumers, we hold all of the power.
Barkley's Justice
Member
honestly, i know everyone (activision, ea, hulu, etc) wants to get paid, but i feel like sony and microsoft really need to take the reigns on this and go, "woah, everyone...this is too much for our consumers...let's work out a profit-sharing deal under one subscription model." because honestly, like i said in the post above, consumers will be stretched too thin. all these media companies will end up losing.
President Reagan
Junior Member
Shanadeus said:
That would make it too easy. I can bet there are thousands of people all over the world who still pay for shit they don't even use because they either don't know, don't have time, or just forgot to cancel. This is a big money maker in its own right.
And Barkley is correct, these subs are getting fucking out of hand big time. Something will give and it won't be the consumer I'm betting.
President Reagan said:
Are we talking about the same demographic that ate a $10 price increase in games because of nebulous "HD gaming is more expensive!" claims?
$20 a month live wouldn't be such a shock. The real problem is that a lot of people don't really pay $15 a month for Gold anyway, given the availability of better prices than that. That would have to stop if MS had to share some part of the pie with publishers, though.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
FLEABttn said:
Meh I hate this argument on both sides. It was obvious we'd never know really who was gonna buy it and who wouldn't. It was a big release with a sequel to a game many thought was GOTY. It was obvious it was gonna sell, but who knows how it broke down in terms of buyers and non buyers in how pissed they were with the price hike.
Just like the topic at hand, I think a lot of gamers will be pissed and balk at the idea. While there will be a large chunk of people that will just adjust and do what they have to do to play their favorite titles online. When the world is as big as it is population wise you're just bound to get both sides of the coin. What matters is what YOU do personally, and how that effects your gaming time/money/enjoyment.
ElFly said:
Because you won't get everyone retroactively under one umbrella because a publisher thinks they're getting screwed. As well as MS wouldn't take the hit purely on their profit and would increase the subscription cost to live. Which would piss off publishers who don't have this "payment" problem Activision has because it dissuades people from playing their online game as now the entry bar has been raised.
Brettison said:
It's pretty easy. If they bought it, they weren't that pissed about the price hike.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Shanadeus said:
Many services are like this. I just canceled my cable and had to call them. Last month I switched web services and had to call them.
President Reagan
Junior Member
ElFly said:
The $10 hike? Games were already more expensive in the N64 days. I still remember paying $70 for Virtual Racing for my Genesis and I imported several Japanese Genesis and Famicom games costing in triple digits. LOL
Also, back then you didn't have the added expenses of monthly subs like Netflix, ISP, the skyrocketing cost of cable TV. I'm a 44 year old gamer and I can still remember when I paid $20 a month for cable with HBO, the old sports networks, etc.
The consumer is being squeezed here like never before and I don't think this model will work. Time will tell though.
The problem is that almost no one stands up and says "fuck you, I'm not going to buy your game". The few who do don't influence anything. Activision can charge $25 for their Map Packs and people will still buy them. Prices wouldn't increase if everyone would just say "nope". Neither would we have to pay for P2P online or DLC that's already on the Disc.
FLEABttn said:
It's not any publisher. It's Activision Blizzard. Besides, I bet that EA and others would side with Kotick on this one; why MS gets the Live money when they provided the content?
What I think will happen is, that either Sony will jump the gun and publishers will threaten with exclusivity, or that MS will create Live Platinum, while (maybe) dropping the price of Gold, and Platinum's fees will be shared with publishers, and new games will only support Platinum.
In fact, the market has already created an alternative solution to this, by charging for new maps, as the equivalent of charging for online multiplayer. But obviously it's not what publishers want, and something will have to give in the end.
President Reagan said:
The N64 was an anomaly. There was a real price hike from the PS2/GC/OXbox to the HD consoles, and consumers happily accepted it.
I dunno what to tell you about rising costs of Netflix and cable. I guess that whatever you spend in netflix was money you spent in blockbuster movie rentals, so the only thing that changed was where your money went.
Somebody, somewhere will pony up and pay the subscription fee. This will give the green light to everyone else that this is how the industry should go.
Just like the first person who paid for horse armor. It opened the floodgates for everyone else to charge for every little goddamn thing. I thought it would flop. I thought that charging people for horse armor, special guns, and cute little outfits was laughable. Turns out the gaming industry got the last laugh on me. I assume it'll be that way for online subscription models as well. Sure, some of us may quit gaming, but several will soldier on and pony up the money and the publishers will be able to train a new generation into being nickeled-and-dimed to death while squeezing the rest of us out.
If you're reading this and you turn out to be one of the ones who just can't live without Call of Duty, and you decide to pay the subscription, you're going to fuck over the rest of us that refuse. So in turn, I hope your consoles catch on fire and lightning hits your TV.
Just like the first person who paid for horse armor. It opened the floodgates for everyone else to charge for every little goddamn thing. I thought it would flop. I thought that charging people for horse armor, special guns, and cute little outfits was laughable. Turns out the gaming industry got the last laugh on me. I assume it'll be that way for online subscription models as well. Sure, some of us may quit gaming, but several will soldier on and pony up the money and the publishers will be able to train a new generation into being nickeled-and-dimed to death while squeezing the rest of us out.
If you're reading this and you turn out to be one of the ones who just can't live without Call of Duty, and you decide to pay the subscription, you're going to fuck over the rest of us that refuse. So in turn, I hope your consoles catch on fire and lightning hits your TV.
President Reagan
Junior Member
LIVE isn't only about the actual match you're playing. See PS3 online for a good example.
Basileus777
Member
There's way too much competition for this to be a realistic possibility for anything other than Call of Duty, and even then it would be a mistake. Maybe some sort of PSN+ type deal could work, but if publishers start charging subscriptions for just playing a game online, people will stop buying those games. They'll go and buy one of the other dozens of FPS that have free online. Or maybe they'll just keep playing an earlier version of that same series.
durrrrrrrrrr
Member
thisGK86 said:
if patcher was a random junior he would have been sent packing a long time ago
ElFly said:
Consumers did not happily accept it, which is partially why the Wii is so far ahead of the 360 and PS3.
This is yet another example of short-sighted publishers trying to squeeze more dollars out of an ever-shrinking percentage of consumers. The response to most of this is barely going to be heard on message boards or boycotts or whatever, the majority of casual console CoD players will just spend their money elsewhere instead of topping up a subscription and we'll never get solid numbers on subscription figures when this whole thing bombs.
If they have sense they'll shift Modern Warfare into a more classical MMO price structure and charge for a subscription there rather than expecting people to fork out $60.00 for a short singleplayer mode and then subscription money to get the rest of the game. I really have no idea why, right now, ActiBlizz aren't putting together PC hardware bundles with other vendors that are "WoW-ready" or "Call of Duty-ready", and come with HDMI and TV-outputs.
Kotick talking about going to Dell and HP seems like one of his few proactive measures in this industry, even if it is purely profit-oriented.
The death throes of the "hardcore" console market sure are fun to watch.
Maztorre said:
Not really. The Wii got their head start by having an attractive console price, and a great bundled game. The other half of the american market accepted $60 games.
Maztorre said:
I've wondered why activision hasn't done this already. I am guessing the main problem is the logistic of getting walmart et all to carry another "console".
MarshMellow96
Member
I think that the 'stigma' that goes with MMO type games should be considered. Regardless of how it really is, the average person has a stereotypical opinion of the MMO gamer. Similarly, you've got the COD fanboys calling people 'WOWfags' etc.
I've had friends who've cancelled their Xbox Live subs and stopped playing as much because of the social stigma of playing too much. I don't think the MMO pricing is going to help at all in this regard (and before anyone says anything there is a difference between a WOW sub and a Live sub stereotype).
I can see it now:
'What's they you're buying Chris?'
'It's just a sub so I can play COD online'
'Oh you mean like WOW?'
I think that many people will pull out in lieu of becoming hypocrites/'losers' and such. Then again I may be wrong on that - It might just fan the flames :lol
I've had friends who've cancelled their Xbox Live subs and stopped playing as much because of the social stigma of playing too much. I don't think the MMO pricing is going to help at all in this regard (and before anyone says anything there is a difference between a WOW sub and a Live sub stereotype).
I can see it now:
'What's they you're buying Chris?'
'It's just a sub so I can play COD online'
'Oh you mean like WOW?'
I think that many people will pull out in lieu of becoming hypocrites/'losers' and such. Then again I may be wrong on that - It might just fan the flames :lol
H_Prestige
Banned
FLEABttn said:
Oh, you mean that thing which was already paid for?
President Reagan said:
Yeah, I think buying a game, and then having to submit your credit card information for monthly withdrawals afterward is going to prove something of a tipping point for a lot of gamers.
there is a big psychological difference between spending money once to buy the game, versus having to invest in another monthly bill for yourself. MMO's are a huge difference in that they are only online games, whereas Modern Warfare has a fantastic single player campaign too, as does Halo.
StealthGoblin
Banned
I was a single player only gamer before this generation (even splitscreen etc) and really got into MP on consoles. This will just make me not go online at all for MP. The single player of GOW III, Uncharted 2 and Valkyria Chronicles has been more fun to me than any MP I have played, even though I have really enjoyed KZ2's online, L4D's etc.