Industry analyst Michael “The Pink Jackal” Pachter has been obsessed with multiplayer charges for the past year, demanding that we gamers need to accept them as a reality, and constantly telling Activision to slap a subscription fee on Call of Duty. It doesn’t matter that Activision has already said it wouldn’t, Pachter has yet again insisted that they should.
“We firmly believe that until the publishers address monetization of multiplayer, game sales will continue to be challenged by the publishers’ altruistic decision to provide significantly more entertainment value per hour than ever in history,” he states. “In our view, monetization of multiplayer is one of the greatest opportunities for the publishers, and we think that it would be a serious strategic error to pass on this opportunity.”
Pachter, as usual, misses the bigger picture. Activision makes its money from downloadable content, and the basic free multiplayer is a way to get gamers hooked. You could argue that people would pay for a subscription fee and DLC, but why would Activision risk it when it has a good thing going right now?
The legendary analyst seems a little obsessed with pushing a concept nobody is really very interested in. At this rate, I think Pachter wants publishers to start charging for multiplayer just so one of his predictions can turn out not to be bullshit.
Analyst: ‘Serious Strategic Error’ In Not Charging For Multiplayer [Gamasutra]
