More great news for console owners.

[alienware]

Bend over, get out the butter and grease up lads, because if this goes to pass your console is going to become even more expensive.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/...ng-for-call-of-duty-online-play-says-pachter/

...we think that the overall decline was due to a very large number of people playing multiplayer online games for free on PlayStation Network, and for an annual fee with unlimited game play on Xbox Live," Pachter noted. "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."

He continued, "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. While the shift has been great for consumers, who are enjoying an unprecedented, and largely free, game experience, it has been devastating for publishers and shareholders, who are seeing sales and profits decline."

Ultimately, Pachter says Activision will have to lead by example and push the industry and its online games in the paid direction. Gamers will not like it one bit, but if the experience is as compelling as Modern Warfare 2, then gamers will probably pay. Pachter's advice is no doubt music to Bobby Kotick's ears, who's already said that he'd like to turn the entire Call of Duty business into a subscription.

"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," Pachter commented.

You've just got to love that. Those greedy fat little corporate pork pie eaters would charge you to sniff your own farts given half the chance.

 

[FragTek]

Wow, Xbox already charges it's users a monthly fee (which is completely asstarded....), only the complete re-knobs are going to open their wallets to further pay to play specific games. Thanks but no thanks, I can live without online gaming.

 

[Brooksie]

Hell with that.

 

[thestepster]

i showed my mate it and he said still cheaper than gettin a gamin pc

 

[alienware]

i showed my mate it and he said still cheaper than gettin a gamin pc

Yup and that's the exact kind of mentality that will make something like this work.

It's not just the consoles though. I mean this would never work on the PC because the PC is an open dev platform where people can code and release whatever they want. There are already many free to download and play FPS based on the HL2 source (Neo Tokyo and Goldeneye as a couple of examples).

On the console though? well if Microsoft decided to go along with this then they could control it 100%.

Not saying they will of course but I wouldn't put it past any company..

As I say it's not just consoles. That new Onlive ! thing is trying to do something similar with PC gaming. Basically AMD invented something called a cloud. It's a massive super computer that runs games remotely and streams them to you via Divx. From there you pay a monthly sub and play the games on your computer, laptop etc. You don't need a massive graphics card etc. Sounds good right? Well it isn't. They have pointed out a few of their terms already, and the ones to note were...

You don't store any of the code on your computer. You don't have anything at all on your computer, no games, no code, no save games. If you don't pay you don't play - See also Sky Sports. It would work just like that. Miss a payment? lose the lot.

You don't own any of the games you are paying to play. They remain full property of the developers and you are paying for the privelidge to play them.

You don't even own your save games. Stop paying and you lose the lot.

It also destroys its way through bandwidth. Something mental like 2gb an hour.

The only saving grace with this is how massively it is failing already. When invented it was touted as, and I quote - Crysis on any PC ! and early screen shouts touted just that. Well, it seems the early screenshots were complete crap and totally fake, because what you get looks more like this.

Which of course is hilarious so we should all point and laugh. Max Payne from ten years ago looked better than that.

 

[thestepster]

yeah i remember a good few years ago they tried that same things in brazil and it was an epic fail there so i dont see this being better it would work that if u actually owned the games and paid a small fee to play a month online kinda like Live

but thats what i love about live on the pc its all free no need to spent like an extra £35 for a years worth but there is flaws with it that only microsoft/there dev's have it

 

[alienware]

Sega TV. That is all

 

[Runebeard]

i showed my mate it and he said still cheaper than gettin a gamin pc

Wait one cotton picking minute! I can see them chargingin something extortionate to play CoD online, as they upped the RRP of MW2 for all platforms by like £5-10 compared to other games and charge over £10 for the map packs most of which aren't worth it.

No doubt it'll end up something like £10/month to play it online, which when you take into account a NOW £200 Xbox and £40/year Xbox Live Gold membership means you'll have paid £520 from just playing online for a couple of years!

And that's if you only played one game! Other companies will probably jump on this bandwagon and start charging gamers as well making it even more expensive.

For £520 you could buy/build a decent, albeit not MINDBLOWING, little rig to play games on as well as anything you might want, from which you can upgrade bit by bit as you get more cash, unlike a console which you'll have to buy whole new kit of every 3-4 years costing at least £300 at release.

That's my fav point of a PC, you can do little upgrades as and when it's feasable, not to mention you can do SO MUCH MORE on once anyways.

But enough ranting on my part, think I got a little carried away

 

[thestepster]

Wait one cotton picking minute! I can see them chargingin something extortionate to play CoD online, as they upped the RRP of MW2 for all platforms by like £5-10 compared to other games and charge over £10 for the map packs most of which aren't worth it.

No doubt it'll end up something like £10/month to play it online, which when you take into account a NOW £200 Xbox and £40/year Xbox Live Gold membership means you'll have paid £520 from just playing online for a couple of years!

And that's if you only played one game! Other companies will probably jump on this bandwagon and start charging gamers as well making it even more expensive.

For £520 you could buy/build a decent, albeit not MINDBLOWING, little rig to play games on as well as anything you might want, from which you can upgrade bit by bit as you get more cash, unlike a console which you'll have to buy whole new kit of every 3-4 years costing at least £300 at release.

That's my fav point of a PC, you can do little upgrades as and when it's feasable, not to mention you can do SO MUCH MORE on once anyways.

But enough ranting on my part, think I got a little carried away

i tried to explain that all 2 him but its fair to say he isnt literate on pc's he struggles with facebook and he really doesnt think its that bad with all that money (cause it isnt in one go like a pc) and i then showed him a game on the pc and how much it looks better than my 360 but he was like they play the same so im cool with that

 

[alienware]

Again game producers are a law unto themselves. They will do everything they can to screw us out of more money. The problem they will have is when they push it too far and finally get the laws changed. Right now there are few laws on how you should conduct yourself when selling games. That's why they are coming up with this hair brain scheme to try and charge a sub. Thing is, they will end up going too far like Microsoft and it will end up costing them.

Rune & Step.

Basically some people just don't have the gumption to sit down and figure out how to use a PC properly. It's not something for the faint hearted and it can be pretty taxing. Thus people want simplicity and are prepared to pay for it. If you thought otherwise? take a look at how many were lined up outside the Apple store to buy a phone that they pretty much already had. One that doesn't even work properly. Will they buy the next one? oh of course they will

Without sounding like a total goth here, it's this conformist way that makes companys millions. The way that console owners reacted over MW2 for the 360 was just utterly pathetic. Dressing up as Marines, camping outside game stores. I mean FFS what the hell is all that about?

PC owners have been playing games like that online for years. We know what to expect from a good FPS and if there is even so much as one thing to complain about then you can bet we will. MW2 on PC sold like crap because it offered no dedicated servers. Why did they do that? because as far as Activision are concerned they own that game and own control over it. If and when they decide they don't want you to play it any more and close the servers? you have no other choice. They find things like that very arousing. Us PC owners however won't bloody stand for it and vote with out wallets. Bad Company 2 topped the PC charts because it offered an indefinite play experience, where as MW2 sold like crap (170k units in over a month, pathetic) because we just thought "To hell with them".

Also note the extreme lack of single player content in MW2? it was online or nothing with that. The single player was a complete afterthought and could be played through in about five hours.

Yes PC owners are a different breed and more patient and intelligent than people who sit in front of a console. I am not being rude with that statement it is merely one of fact. I would rather be called a geek and do what I do than conform to paying Microsoft a fee each month for a pretty much non existant service (live).

It's bloody hilarious how they tried to pull that on the PC and were just laughed at because of Steam. See, PC owners now get GFWL for free. Why do console owners accept and pay that fee along with their monthly broadband bill?

The mind boggles really. Still, at least I know I am safe with my PC and it won't eventually become a paperweight.

 

[Runebeard]

You should really be a games journalist, with a column entitled, "Alien's Rant Farm"

But well said my man.

 

[alienware]

TBH it wouldn't be a good idea. Joking aside I mean that.

A lot of people start out like me but then soon realise that if they want to keep their bread buttered they had better STFU and roll with it. I couldn't do that...

I once worked in a call center as a manager. For the most part I was perfectly happy with my job as we only took inbound calls and sold some pretty cool products (vitamin supplements that were very good, natural cosmetics and so forth). Sadly the boss decided to get greedy and started selling some utter crap. Worse still were the adverts that went along with them. Some one was selling powdered vitamin C and then their advert was saying that it *could* and *might* prevent bird flu. I took great issue with that as it was nothing more than scaremongering. So when the CEO of that company showed up and started asking questions about what we thought? Well put it this way, I was out of a job the next morning.

It doesn't make good business sense to speak the truth tbh. That's why I love it here. This is the only place on the entire bloody internet that had the balls to do a good honest review about the 465. Same held true with the 480 review. So many completely negated to mention just how hot they got or how much power they guzzled. And to that ends loads of people actually went out and got a 465 because they were touted as being good value for money.

Of course the opinion here was wildly different because it was truth. I've known Vonblade a long bloody time and I know full well I can totally trust in him to be brutally and viciously honest if something is crap.

Me? Well I am too honest and far too brutal. If I were to review a product and find a hole in it (and believe me I would) then I would absolutely obliterate it and end up on a charge for libel or something