Activision needs to start charging for Call of Duty online, says Pachter

No…..just no.

The industry can fuck RIGHT off with that.

We’ve bought the product in the first place, people can buy extra maps at stupid prices if they want to.

Just…. just fuck off with that thinking.

agree with retroid, here, i bought the damn disc i ain’t paying to play the fucker too. as a side note, people get in an uproar with ‘on disc’ dlc (dlc thats just unlocked).
Surely xbox live is doing the same thing, you have to pay to access the online component which is on the disc of a game you rightfully bought, im my eyes same principal with on disc dlc, both have the code on the disc both restrict it despite you paying for it already.

Well if they do.. looks like im not gonna play cod

It will happen. It’s a massive Achilles heel. They all made multiplayer games to stop you trading them in, but now all you do is play multiplayer games and they get no kick-back unless they release DLC. This is a dead cert, IMO.

He does have a point, unfortunately.

And I am posting comments too quickly.

They should do really, makes good business sense

Charge a monthly fee, but update with new maps/weapons/perks/tags/shit every month for free. I’m sure they could make one new map a month every month.

They should make a COD waypoint like the halo one

this will get messy

You cannot simply atach a fee to something without adding substantial to the user experience.

See APB for this verry problem: a third person multiplayer shooter with a subscription fee but at the same time not a full MMO.

There are sound buiseness reason to do this but the consumer won’t go along with it if there’s nothing in it for them.
Plus add onto that the fact that Xbox gamers are already paying for Live and it just becomes an even bigger barier to break through.

OH FFS!!! DON’T ENCOURAGE THEM PACHTER!

This will damned happen aswell, the next CoD after black ops in all liklihood will do this (probly MW3, heck why not test it out on the only game that will be bigger than MW2 after all?).

Its the inevitable shit like this that is making sure i don’t buy black ops or any CoD or activision game ever again.

FUCK YOU PACHTER AND FUCK YOU KOTICK! >:(

I think mington’s got that exactly right – that’s what should happen if they insist on charging for online play. Of course, it won’t – this is Acti. They’d still charge you for DLC and maps and probably to shag your mum too if they thought they could get away with it.

I bet they would like to but they better work out a deal with MS because no one will pay for gold and COD live.

It all depends if Cod remains popular, if it nose dives in quality which now that IW are all but dead is only a matter of time then i cant see them doing this, as it was IW that always brought the big sales.

They’ll do it and then watch as their entire player base moves over to Battlefield, Halo, Killzone or Medal of Honor.

I agree with Pat. This has been on the horizon forever now. If I am paying for my multiplayer fix however (even though the idea is disgusting), I fucking want a steady and constant influx of decent content.

I can’t see Microsoft loving the idea of someone eating out of their rice bowl.

We could see a trend away from multiplayer(thank God), or Activision charging PS users and taking a tracked cut of Xbox’s subcriptions.

I thought part of the reason they got rid of dedicated servers was because they couldn’t charge for online? If they start charging, are they going to have to increase their online infrastructure?

*shakes head*

I think that Michael Patcher should just STFU for a change.

@16 – I reckon it’ll be a similar proposition to an MMO. You buy the disc and get 30 days online play for free. After that you pay Acti a direct sub. Given the amount of people that play CoD on both Live and PSN Acti has plenty of leverage to make it happen. I may be wrong, but from Acti’s point of view I suspect the current situation’s just unacceptable.

screw u Pachter

OMG. Start doing that.. And I won’t be buying anymore CoD titles & won’t be playing onlime MP anymore.

Another million gamers will follow suit.

They don’t mention PC so… is this talk only for consoles?

hahahahahahahahahahahaha
i would love if they started doing this
maybe then everyone will realise what a hunk of shit that game is and start playing some better games.
nice one activision. way to kill your franchise

They should make a Activision subscription, one monthly fee to play all Activision games online

But in all honesty, i don’t think they’d fucking dare

What they should do is create an competitive multiplayer only game, release it as a 20 pound download (1 month free) with free updates and a monthly subscription. This is the only way i can see it working

“… the industry needs to start thinking of adding subscription models to its multiplayer experiences …”

Haven’t we got XB-Live subscription fees already?

You really can’t charge twice (or even triple if you count in the disc price) just for being enabled to play a certain game online! That is ridiculous.

I’m really glad I’m not a regular online-gamer; I prefer the single-player offline experience of games a lot more.

The problem this holds for Acti, is that others will make a marketing point out of the fact that they DONT charge for their online gameplay.

When or as soon as this plays out, I don’t see CoD maintaining it’s laurel rested spot as the #1 online FPS.

The biggest problem will be their own old games. If CoD 25 requires a sub for online play, why would anyone bother switching over from CoD 24? There are still a gazillion people playing the original Modern Warfare even though MW2 was super-popular.

Wrong. What the industry has to realize is it can’t keep increasing development costs to follow changing tech capabilities, the market just can’t support it.

If prices rise the number of gamers interested will contract, making the problem worse.

What developers need to do is push MS, Sony, etc. to hold off on any new tech unless it actually helps reduce the cost of development.

It’s like Hollywood summer movies. Development costs rise, ticket prices rise and attendance drops, plus for every big hit plenty of films fail due to too high development costs.

What’s needed is a realization development costs need to be improved, developers need to work with HW providers to ensure ever better SDKs and a more even approach to game development, with a sensible approach to what you’re going to get, graphically and content wise, for your money.

I think a multi-tiered charging model would help too. Expensive AAA online title is X, shorter, fun SP platform title is Y, etc. Because if they charge more for all titles again it’s simply going to push many outside tolerable cost/value balance for many gamers.

In theory PSN/XBLA was supposed to help here, but I don’t think the model works well enough and I think too many people still look to retail vs online.

@2 – HUGE misconception right there.

You haven’t bought the product. You’ve bought a licence to use the product under terms outlined by the publisher. You’ve also been given a copy of the product that the publisher (still) owns.

So, if the publisher changes the terms of the conditions of use – such as “online play costs extra” then those are the terms. Your righteous indignation based on the belief that you are the “owner” of the product is entirely misplaced.

I’d say vote with your wallet. But all the sheep bleated about the premimum pricing and lack of dedicated servers on MW2 and then promptly went out and gave Activision their cash. All they did was validate Activision’s decision to act this way.

@28 When the consumer stop demanding that sort of AAA+ production values that cost the increasing amount of money then I’m sure developers will stop trying to meet those demands. Whilst gamers take one glance at an alpha screenshot and dismiss a game wholesale for not exploiting all the latest whizz-bang technology, or when games AND the games press stop making a HUGE deal out of a blurred texture here or crying over a marginally imperfect voice recording there – that’s when you’ll see the industry stop responding to such demands. It’s cause and effect.

Erm… might be stating the obvious as no-one has mentioned it, but this isn’t exactly up to Acitivision.

Until Publishers have their own online network (which 1st parties would never approve), they physically cannot charge for access to online play.

It’s the reason square are having issues with the new FF online – MS just aren’t playing ball with subscriptions.

Oh, and watch the numbers of sales plummet when you have to pay to play online.

Companies need to stop this way of thinking right now.

It’s getting stupid with shit like Project Ten Dollar, not to mention Modnation Racers and UFC 2010 having online codes that are one use only.

Instead of charging gamers for content they have already purchased they need to find another way around.
I mean, they wouldn’t charge PC gamers for the same content?
Especially seeing as the PC version is normally cheaper too.
Why should console gamers pay more for their product and then more to use it?

Instead of treating us all like criminals, how about rewarding us for loyalty and making us want to keep the game rather than sell it on?

Pachter needs to start shutting the fuck up, says phatb0y.

I would so love to see this happen, and then also see Activision rotting in hell afterwards. However, I can hardly see this happening, since Microsoft just wouldn’t want that kind of shit on their console. PS3 and PC it would probably work, but with Xbox Live subs already in place, it just wouldn’t happen.

All this shit is going to kill the console market.

At least psn is free to start with, the eggsbox live punters are going to be hacked off…

I can see micro-transactions and annual (bi-annual?) tournament fees adding value, but I think full-blown subscription fees will be one heck of a hard sell.

Yeah, I’d much prefer a cheaper game and paying to play online.

Besides, it could have some HUGE benefits for legit players, like stopping all of the little hacking kids from easliy creating multiple accounts to cheat with… I think they’d be much less likely to do it if they had to take out another annual subscription just to boost with.

They could go for two models:

Free is just non-ranked games with a few basic modes…

Pay to play is ranked matches with stats and a whole lot more modes/maps/clan features, etc.

That could work.

@G1GAHURTZ

Yeah, I agree with everything you’ve said there G1GA. It won’t be an all or nothing thing, but I can well see a basic online offering being supplied for free, with ranked matches and certain modes being subscription only.

It should be interesting to watch MS and Activision lock horns over this one. As we’ve seen with FFXIV, MS aren’t at all flexible when it comes to publishers wanting to charge a subscription fee separate from Live, but with the CoD franchise being a regular staple for Live users, Activision have quite a lot to bargain with.

I imagine Sony will have far less hurdles for publishers to jump over, given the free and more open nature of the service.

I’m not a big online gamer really, so the news doesn’t really bother me. Just so long as these multiplayer games come with a solid single player campaign, I’ll be happy.

Thing is, you try getting these companies to use common sense and apply schemes like that.
All they care about is how to get their hands on more money, not what they can offer their consumers.

You don’t see DvD distributors clammouring to make more money from second hand DvD sales do you?

You’ve finished with the game, it is your right to sell it on how you wish.
You sell it to someone, the company hasn’t actually gained an extra player, they have the same amount of players, so, no money lost in theory.

@ 39:

Yeah, good point, Robo. It would be interesting to see how MS react to the prospect of having to market a console where their core player has to pay for Gold, then potentially have to subscribe to 3 or 4 games on top of that, at the same time.

If MS don’t agree with this, Activision aren’t ecxatly going to pull out. The 360 is a huge percentage of online players which is a lot of money for them.

“You sell it to someone, the company hasn’t actually gained an extra player, they have the same amount of players, so, no money lost in theory.”

This is true. However, if you look at it from the point of view of the pubs/devs then they’re ‘losing’ money like this:

Consumer A buys game for £39.99
Consumer A takes game to store, gets £9.99
Store puts game on sale again
Consumer B buys the same game for £35.99

End result is that one copy has been sold (at least) twice at near enough the same price each time, but it’s the store who is (probably) making more profit on the game than the people who actually made it.

Hence, there is a lot of money changing hands, but the pubs/devs aren’t seeing as much of it as they could get if they were able to stop the 2nd hand sales.

@40 You’ve finished with the game, it is your right to sell it on how you wish.

It probably isn’t actually. But, as is persistently demonstrated, very few people understand what it is they’re buying when they acquire a videogame. Fewer still read the licence. If they did they would undoubtedly read something that amounts to “by using this software you agree to the following” with one of the following typically explicitly forbidding resale or redistribution.

I’m not especially in favour of this idea. But it’s important to understand your side of the contract before you point the finger at the other party.

@Giga
That is true.
But not everyone takes their games for trade in.
What about those who sell on Ebay or to their mates?
What about those that swap their games?

Say I buy a game, I use the voucher for Online access, my mate then wants to try the game, so I lend it to him. But, alas, he cannot try the online mode as I have used the voucher, thus he is missing out on something that could have sold the game to him, and thus gained a sale for the company.

Things like Project Ten Dollar, and the MNR and UFC2010 codes are extremely short sighted schemes that they seem barely thought through and rushed out, a little like Playstation Plus.

Wow, usually everyone just ignores Patcher now all of sudden he’s sparking a 50+ comment thread. WTF.

PS: I won’t pay to play a game online. Refuse to be charged twice.

I don’t see a model that includes Xbox Live and a seperate subscription. I really don’t think it’s seen as plausible as long as Microsoft charges you to play as well. They’ve got it locked down.

Like Giga points out though, a steady flow of cash can lead to a lot of goodies that ultimately fall back on the players. Imagine a Modern Warfare multiplayer experience that let you customize your model, with a steady stream of all-included updates adding maps, weapons and possibly even perks or killstreaks.

For my part, I’d be very interested in that sort of thing.

If you’re hysterical enough to think that a company would start charging for a regular game out of nowhere, take a valium and go sit in the corner for a little while.

I would never follow Pachter’s advice. Look at his predictions: Kinect will cost $50. Red Dead Redemption will sell 500.000 copies this month. And we are still waiting for Wii HD.

If this ever happens i will stop buying Activision games all together and i will find and shoot Pachter for giving them the idea.

They want from us to addict this game after long time, then ok its time to make them pay cuz they like it and cant leave it, ok bye bye no more playing, Pc and consoles becomes worst and worst with charging and paying monthly fees, what this! noo more.