Liberal Arts Major
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1106732p1.html
Pachter believes one of the main reasons software sales for PS3 and Xbox 360 are down year-over-year is due to gamers continuing to log substantial hours into a handful of online games and not picking up new titles regularly.
Right. The problem lies with multiplayer games. Not the fact that they overcharge for games as it is. >_>
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"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
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"Critics of lemmings tend to overlook how awesome it is to run off of tall things."
Liberal Arts Major
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"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
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"There's a pony in the shop, but don't buy it. It might do something unfortunate to you." ~from the first Summoner's Seal topic
Liberal Arts Major
Didn't Halo 3 and then later Modern Warfare 2 absolutely destroy the fastest sales records? Something tells me that doesn't happen if they don't have online multiplayer. But in either event, clearly the online multiplayer doesn't seem to be holding it back. At worst, the problem is that other games aren't being seen as being better as, say, MW2, so people would rather stay with it rather than downgrade.
As for them eventually charging for online multiplayer, I have no doubt it's going to happen eventually. Good thing I wouldn't really have a problem with just stopping playing online multiplayer in that event! As a side note, I could also see it entirely possible that if they did start charging for individual games' online multiplayer, that people might tend to actually stay with a single game even more, because now there's even more costs associated with going to a new one, plus the perception that you will have wasted money playing the first game's online multiplayer if all you're going to do is switch now.
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Liberal Arts Major
(1) Network maintenance and administration costs (for the multiplayer environment); and
(2) Multiplayer games have virtually infinite replay value
So multiplayer games are financially distinct in that, in addition to the initial cost offset by the initial revenue, there is a long-run cost that scales to the total revenue of the games operated on a particular network (because greater revenue implies greater network traffic). But this isn't a groundbreaking alteration of the history of industry: network costs are just additional overhead, much like a restaurant still has to pay the lease and the staff and various bribes and so on regardless of the number of dishes sold.
The real supposed change to the business, which is highlighted by this random financial analyst, is due to (2), which supposedly depresses revenue. Except the reasoning is empirically denied. Just look at any popular multiplayer game in the history of games: Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, Halo, other games I don't know. You put out a new game and, if it's better than or as good as (but different than) what you currently offer, people will buy it (genius, I know) - especially if the newer game's multiplayer offerings are incompatible with the older's, in which case the migration is amplified by network effects. So as far as turnover is concerned, it's all the same damn story, and anyone who has been paying attention to multiplayer games since forever would be able to piece that conclusion together. The argument that players' times are limited and therefore multiplayer somehow depresses sales is a deftly-executed failure to see the big picture.
What is relevant is, again, twofold:
(1) Online multiplayer, on a whole, is outcompeting single player and regular multiplayer
(2) Online multiplayer provides new instruments for monetization
(1) is why we see a drop-off in the number of games purchased for the XBox and the PS3 (PS3, hahahahahaha), although the Kinect stands a good chance of reversing that trend for the XBox. (One way for regular multiplayer to compete with online multiplayer is to offer games that are better if your partners are physically present, which the Wii does admirably and which the Kinect stands a good chance at replicating.) (2) is the real reason Activision and other network providers should consider charging for online multiplayer - none of this "oh noes the videogame industry is getting cannibilized by Halo" bullshit - and in fact it's already what it's done more or less with that map pack stuff the article points out. I mean, letting people use your network for free without even trying to sell them extra stuff for it is like keeping your golden-egg-laying geese locked up in the basement.
tl;dr: You'd have to be asleep at the wheel to think multiplayer is killing video games, but the monetization of online gaming is inevitable and/or has already happened.
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
But I have absolutely no problem with paying for an MMO account if the game is good enough. But I would NEVER pay fucking money to play ONE god damn FPS online >_>
Also. In the case of the Xbox 360, there are NO overhead costs for game developers because all the match making servers, data servers (For DLC), and such are hosted directly by Microsoft. Hence the XBL fee.
On the other hand though, Sony forces ALL developers to host their own Multiplayer servers, and makes them pay for all bandwidth when someone DLs a demo or DLC.
Which is why if a company goes out of business, their game will still be available to play on Xbox Live, but on the PS3 there will be nothing.
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882
Liberal Arts Major
I would assume they have to be licensed to use Microsoft's servers.
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
It's STILL probably cheaper then paying Sony for bandwidth used, setting up your own server set, etc. Pretty much though, every dev is basically required to use Microsoft's infrastructure.
IIRC, only 3 devs/titles DO NOT use the Xbox Live infrastructure itself.
All EA games
Shadowrun
Final Fantasy 11
<->
"What the fuck is Alice doing in Wonderland anyway? Who the fuck told her she could leave the god damn kitchen in the first place?" -Random guy on Xbox Live
http://www.backloggery.com/kodan882