There’s no doubt that the Call of Duty series is known for its online multiplayer experiences and it’s arguably the major selling factor for most of the installments in the franchise. However, is the multiplayer component so popular that Activision should start charging its players to play it? Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter, certainly thinks so.
Pachter told IndustryGamers that the gaming industry should start considering adding subscriptions to the multiplayer aspect of their games:
We estimate that a total of 12 million consumers are playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for an average of 10 hours per week on the two platforms’ respective networks, and the continued enjoyment of this game (along with an estimated 6 million Halo online players, 3 million EA Sports players, and 5 million players playing other games, such as Battlefield, Red Dead Redemption, Left 4 Dead and Grand Theft Auto) has sucked the available time away from what otherwise would be spent playing newly purchased games.”We see this as a continuing problem, and think that unless and until the publishers come up with a business model that appropriately captures the value created by the multiplayer experience, we are destined to see a migration of game playing away from packaged goods purchases and toward multiplayer online.
We think that it is incumbent upon Activision, with the most popular multiplayer game, to take the first step to address monetization of multiplayer. It is too early to tell whether that will be a monthly subscription, tournament entry fees, microtransaction fees, or a combination of all three, but we expect to see the company take some action by year-end, when Call of Duty Black Ops launches.
Would you mind paying a fee to play certain games online on the PlayStation 3? Or is Patcher just talking nonsense? Let us know in the comments below.
