Not a very controversial article... however, I enjoy his statements regarding how Activision is not involved in the income stream of Live. I put the sentences in bold. Just kind of irritates me that he's annoyed that another company is making money and Activision is not a part of that...
Activision CEO wants to break console 'walled garden'
By Randolph Ramsay, GameSpot AU
Posted Jul 5, 2010 5:48 pm PT
Publisher head laments lack of income from online console games such as Modern Warfare 2; will strongly support new PC-based hardware designed to connect straight to TVs.
Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick is certainly not afraid to speak his mind. Last year, the executive made blunt threats to drop support for the PlayStation 3 and the PSP unless Sony made cuts to the hardware's price. He also earned the ire of many gamers after stating at a conference in 2009 that he wanted to "take all the fun out of making video games." Kotick also predicted a future independent of game consoles, a statement he reiterated over the weekend in an interview with business news organisation The Financial Times.
Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick.
In the FT interview, Kotick lamented the fact that despite the strong sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the publisher saw no additional revenue from the game's continuing popularity on console online environments like Xbox Live. "We've heard that 60 percent of [Microsoft's] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty," Kotick told FT. "We don't really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it's not our network."
The Activision CEO said the company would "very aggressively" support new gaming hardware being planned by the likes of HP and Dell to better integrate PCs with TVs, saying this would break the Xbox 360 and PS3's "walled gardens with new gamer-friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television. PCs have long been used for online play, but PC gaming remains niche when the games industry needs to widen its appeal."
"We have always been platform agnostic," Kotick said. "[Consoles] do a very good job of supporting the gamer. If we are going to broaden our audiences, we are going to need to have other devices."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6268257.html?tag=recent_news%3Btitle%3B1
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This line just kills me: "Publisher head laments lack of income from online console games such as Modern Warfare 2"
ReplyDeleteA quick look at Wikipedia tells me that as of January 18, 2010, Modern Warfare 2 had generated over $1 billion dollars in sales. The first DLC pack made $37.5 million on its FIRST WEEK. I don't even know about the second set of maps.
It sounds to me like Activision is making plenty of money from "online console games such as Modern Warfare 2." And the best thing for them is....all they have to do is keep re-releasing COD4 maps coupled with some new maps every 4 or 5 months and people will keep buying this stuff.
As much as I HATE to say it I can at least understand his position.
ReplyDeleteI think that saying that 60% of LIVE GOLD members are members for CoD is a little steep, but it can't be that far off.
If his company pumps out a game that generates sales for M$ and their online service, which they charge for, then I can see being a little bugged by it. At the same time w/o M$ there wouldn't be a console to play on so I guess it works both ways.
I was just reading an article about famed long time video game analyst Michael Pachter and he believes from all he knows and his insider knowledge that a subscription based service for all shooters isn't far off. He states this because of people buying fewer games and playing others longer like CoD or HALO or some other online game. They need to make up lost revenue in dropping sales in SP games from their blockbuster online games.
I think he has a very valid point and the community is the one to blame.
It really depends on the content and what not. A game like WoW with an enormous world with continuous patches, balance tweaks, ect., etc. yeah, I understand the monthly charges. For a shooter though? Really? I think it will force people to play even LESS games than they already do. I would be willing to pay monthly charges for 1, at the very most 2, games. And that is pushing it... well, if that's a pay-per-game model.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's fair to say that 60% of Live user's pay for COD... exclusively. I'm not trying to debate the playing statistics, but is the argument and the general point of the article saying that Activision thinks they could get 60% of the xbox live community to spend the same amount of a subscription to exclusively play COD? No way.
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about Live, or the PSN, or even Nintendo's service is that I can choose what to play, when to play it, and I know I've paid that fee as a flat rate, whatever that cost may be (console, subscription, etc.)