Multiplayer blamed for decline in game sales

[EpsilonX]

Multiplayer Gaming Blamed for US Sales Decline (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Gaming-Console-MMO,news-7509.html)


But the biggest culprit to the decline is apparently games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty--those with high replay value. Gamers are purchasing these titles and spending most of their time playing the multiplayer portions rather than going out and buying new games.

"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 said.


I prefer narrative in my games to be honest, multiplayer IMO is a side feature.

[Muffincat]

Guess it's time to start making terrible games so we play them less ;D

[Damonmensch]

Guess it's time to start making terrible games so we play them less ;D

But chances are we wouldn't bother buying the terrible game in the first place

[EpsilonX]

While I don't mind a multiplayer section, i'd much rather have a strong single player in my games. I tend to stick to RPG styled games, like Final Fantasy, or currently Monster Hunter 3. I hope they start to charge for online so less people play online and play single player games instead. Then developers would find it more worthwhile to make single player games, and start to make much better single player than we're getting.

[Jokersvirus]

People are playing the same games over and over for one of three reason:
1) friends
2) enjoyment
3) fan of the series.

True statement people love online player capabilities.

I love it cause i get to play with my friends who are around the world at the moment and piss off some little kids :D

[thedeparted]

Well with how games are getting shorter and no replay value more and more are going for rental spending 5 bucks instead of 60. Make your game worthwhile and most the time it'll be bought

[Jokersvirus]

This is a true statement alot of games arent including online play which kils it

[Damonmensch]

Yeah could you imagine if Assassin's Creed had online Multiplayer?

[thedeparted]

Yeah could you imagine if Assassin's Creed had online Multiplayer?

lol well thats good for you...cause the new one will.

I mean hell Joker most games these days don't even have offline mp/co-op

[EpsilonX]

games these days NEED offline multiplayer/co-op. If my N64 didn't break, i'd STILL be playing goldeneye with friends when they come over. Now i usually play wii sports or halo.

[Elite-WarFighter]

People are playing the same games over and over for one of three reason:
1) friends
2) enjoyment
3) fan of the series.

True statement people love online player capabilities.

I love it cause i get to play with my friends who are around the world at the moment and piss off some little kids :D


Name one person who wont buy Blakc ops after they bought MW2

[BobTD]

Guess it's time to start making terrible games so we play them less ;D

75% of the games made currently fit that description. Lets face it, good FPS games are a powerful genre, but thats not to say if they weren't available people would buy new games, they would just be playing whatever older FPS was available.

Or at least thats the way I look at it. Games are like music, you cant say that because so many people are listening to rock that its taking away from the country music fans. To say so without proof is just speculation.

[Muffincat]

... I was joking, to you guys who apparently took my post seriously, somehow o.o

[Jokersvirus]

Name one person who wont buy Blakc ops after they bought MW2

Uhh, alot of people wont for the simple fact of if it doesnt have that MW2 feeling its a piece of crap.

Same can be said for other games.

For example people have cried over the halo: Reach beta saying they wont buy it because it doesnt hvae the look and feel of halo 3.

While it wont be a majority issue alot of people still wont switch over.

[Damonmensch]

For example people have cried over the halo: Reach beta saying they wont buy it because it doesnt hvae the look and feel of halo 3.

While it wont be a majority issue alot of people still wont switch over.

Personally I feel that is Halo: Reach's main selling feature. It isn't like Halo 3 and I personally think Halo 3 was crap when compared to the previous two installments of the series.

Now when it comes to multiplayer games versus non-multiplayer games. I feel both of them have the same potential downfall. If it isn't done well no one will bother buying it.

For example: Fable II become a platinum hit, not because it had multiplayer, but because of it's replay value and that it was and overall enjoyable storyline with it's challenges.

Bioshock became a major sell-out and that game has no hint of multiplayer, the same with Assassin's Creed. This was because these had enjoyable game stores.

And then a game like Perfect Dark 0 did kind of ****ty. And that game was all about the multiplayer modes. It did poorly because it no where near lived up to it's potential of a game in that genre.

[Ilyich Valken]

This is a true statement alot of games arent including online play which kils it
No, see, the problem is, most games do include multiplayer, and they suck. With the quality of single player games dropping exponentially from the past few years, companies feel like they need to include multiplayer, which.. again, sucks. With the campaign being mediocre at best, and the multiplayer being crappy, whats to stop someone from renting instead of buying?

[Samus-Fan]

Well, here, I'll use an example.
I bought Alan Wake, a single player game. I'm guessing this is what they're talking about.
I beat it in less than 12 hours.
So, I get rid of it, bought Blur, and now I play that online and will continue playing it much longer than Alan Wake.

Single player games suck unless they're some of the best ever made. Some games like Bioshock (The first one) are amazing, and I will replay that. All these new crappy games without online though shouldn't be 60 bucks, they aren't worth it and consumers know that. They know not waste their money on something that won't last them a long time.
So games like Left 4 Dead (Strictly online) Call of Duty (Eh, mainly online) and such and such continue to win the charts. BUT if the companies made new amazing online games, that is how they will make money. They just have to top current ones.

/done.

[EpsilonX]

Yeah, with online nowadays people don't have to care about single player anymore. I mean, back in the day we got games like FF7, Metal Gear Solid, and Ocarina of Time. all single player games.

[BobTD]

I have kind of been holding back on this topic to see where it goes, but I guess Im ready to share my mind. Yay, time for one of those posts that no one will ever read.

No one here seems to have touched on the heart of the topic, and probably the most likely cause of decreased sales in gaming in the US. We are in a depression. Since we aren't seeing the same slump on an international scale this should be the first thing we consider.

I wont argue that large blackbusters have no effect on how long we play certain games, I just dont think it slows down our spending. We can enjoy a single game almost every day we come home and still be tempted to buy a new release if we have the loose spending cash. Multiplayer games have been consuming our time for much longer then this problem has occurred.


But lets consider the possibility that multiplayer increases or decreases the overall quality of the gaming market. Many people seem to be considering the merit of multiplayer being a good or bad feature. Games have genes, with some being obviously more inclined to multiplayer features. So its hard to really nail multiplayer as a low or high quality addition to a game, because its quality often is determined by the genre.

For example consider movie games, usually short replay value (and quality) and more recently much more frequently multiplayer (we dont make them unless they sell). Sandbox action games are breaking into multiplayer with, Red Dead Redemption for example. The multiplayer in this type of game is usually accompanied by a single player mode featured as the main component.

While on the other end of the spectrum we have First person shooters and MMORPGs, two genres that classically have needed little to no storyline to sell copies and thrive on the multiplayer experience.

And finally we have game genres that dont tend to include multiplayer, such as RPGs capable of holding out attention for hundreds of hours. Or simple but addicting puzzle games like tetris.

Clearly the existence of multiplayer doesn't determine the quality of a game, but the specific merits of each individual game and what we expect to normally find in the genre.


... I was joking, to you guys who apparently took my post seriously, somehow o.o

I know you where joking Muffin,, I wasn't taking your post and trying to argue the merit of the joke, I was discussing the reason it is a joke. Its funny to me because its sarcasm, producing poor quality games wont make us buy more.

But its also ironic because the video game market has started to become over-saturated. Not exactly like the 80s arcade boom that ended with two many machines that couldent pay for themselves, but similar. Similar in that there are two many games being produced in America that our demand has changed.

Tired of all the letdowns and fakers, americans seem to be more inclined to buy blockbuster titles. Large advertising campaigns and hype from peers tend to sway our choices more and more every day.

In the American market its not surprising to see our purchases limited to to most popular games among peers.

And to cut to heart of Linuxs post (most of witch I agree with, yet I dont come to same conclusion):



Single player games suck unless they're some of the best ever made. All these new crappy games without online though shouldn't be 60 bucks, they aren't worth it and consumers know that.

/done.

Consumers dont know that. They will buy crap if they have extra money.

This thing called "logic" doesnt keep consumers from buying games that dont offer a long and rewarding experiance. Its a good reason not to, but we would not see the current selection unless they where able to sell crap. The problem we are seeing now, (lower game sales) would still be present all the time if the overall lifespan of games where a crucial factor. Rather then appearing (not surprisingly) during a pretty low point in our economic history.

So these two arguments combined formulate my answer: an over-saturation of the market makes games more likely to spend more time playing popular bloackbuster games (those deemed "more worthy" by our zealot peers). While the economic situation in America reduces the rate at witch we purchase new games. This conclusion doesn't deny they are connected, but they are not dependent on each other as well. No matter how over-saturated the market gets we WILL buy crap if we have the money.

We just wont spend as much time on the crap as the popular titles. And our time is invested more heavily on the popular titles because we are told what is good rather then finding out on our own.



Name one person who wont buy Blakc ops after they bought MW2

ME.

And frankly its rude to think EVERYONE is so mindless as to follow mainstream hype. But you are right to assume MOST people are pretty mindless.

I sold my copy of Modern Warfare two after reaching the third prestige. I didnt like the changes they made with non dedicated servers and saw the future of the ip dying as infinity ward slowly strangled the COD franchise. Anything coming from Infinity ward is now is probably from an entirely new team.

After they fired the two leads Zampella and West, they lost over 20 of the former team to the newly formed "respawn entertainment" under EA. And another 20 or so probably because of what went down before Activision fired the two leads:


"Anything less than their full cooperation with the inquisition would constitute 'insubordination," which would justify the firing of Zampella and West.

"Activision conducted the investigation in a manner designed to maximize the inconvenience and anxiety it would cause West and Zampella," the lawsuit claims, alleging that the two were "interrogated for over six hours in a windowless conference room" and that other Infinity Ward employees were "brought…to tears" by Activision investigators.

The ousted Infinity Ward heads believe that the investigation was "a charade," citing "trumped up grounds for termination" and "charges that were disproved in the investigation" at the root of their March 1 dismissal. Activision, they claim, had "already made up its mind" to terminate the two in an attempt to deny them payment.

Sources:
http://kotaku.com/5485733/ex+infinity-ward-heads-claim-orwellian-moves-by-activision



http://www.geek.com/articles/games/activision-fires-back-at-former-infinity-ward-co-heads-with-hefty-countersuit-20100412/


What does that rant above have to do with anything you ask? Its me pointing out that smart consumers would not rush to purchase millions of copies of MW2: black ops. That they would be more wary of infinaty ward and maybe wait until they hear if its good or bad before they buy it opening night. Or worse, preorder it.

But this wont happen, because we are saving our money for that one game every few months that all our friends will buy. We are almost all going to do this because we have less money to spend, and feel that there is to much crap on the market.

The cool part is, millions of people will sometimes purchase crap, and not even realize it.

So Im going to take a risk and call it right now, All future infinaty ward titles will lack inspiration and inovation, millions will buy the next game, but Halo Reach (and I despise halo, or rather just the multiplayer) will be the new dominant force on the list of console shooters.

The lesson here is:

Crap sells- Good games and bad games are hard to rate, but we just buy what we are told so crap sells just as often as not

We buy as much crap as we can afford- crap is an in demand product

Multiplayer can not be defined as good of bad- sometimes there is crap inside, but you can never be sure until you look

[thedeparted]

Tired of all the letdowns and fakers, americans seem to be more inclined to buy blockbuster titles. Large advertising campaigns and hype from peers tend to sway our choices more and more every day.



ya internet hype machine can kill or boom a title at the snap of a finger



This thing called "logic" doesnt keep consumers from buying games that dont offer a long and rewarding experiance



true dat i've seen sales of complete and go woah how da f000k and seen excellent games and weep for the devs that put together a good game that got passed over.

[BobTD]

For example: Fable II become a platinum hit, not because it had multiplayer, but because of it's replay value and that it was and overall enjoyable storyline with it's challenges.


Fable2 should never have been released with so many bugs. And frankly I liked the first one better. It bacame a platnum hit because they dumbed it down (oh lawl, they still want to reduce the number of buttons you use?) so more casual and social people would play it and like it, while the hardcore bought it because the first one was good.

I understand a lot of people loved it. But I felt betrayed after my save file was corrupted by glitches and bugs (3 times total). Betrayed when that wraith boss wouldn't die. Betrayed when they cut preorder content.

And like a slap to my face when at the end the man I wanted to kill the most put up no fight.

I could go on... but this game falls under my "hyped" category.

[EpsilonX]

Yeah, fable 2 was pretty disappointing. I got it last year though, so i didn't have to face any glitches but there was really nothing to the game.

[Ilyich Valken]

That they would be more wary of infinaty ward and maybe wait until they hear if its good or bad before they buy it opening night. Or worse, preorder it.
....
So Im going to take a risk and call it right now, All future infinaty ward titles will lack inspiration and inovation, millions will buy the next game, but Halo Reach (and I despise halo, or rather just the multiplayer) will be the new dominant force on the list of console shooters.

My only complain with your post, is that now Treyarch is basically in control of the CoD franchise, not the small remainder of IW. Treyarch's games had barely anything different from IW's.

WaW only had slightly different perks and weapons in it's multiplayer, but it DID add Nazi Zombies. However, other than that, the single player was a somewhat-clone with a different setting and enemies that threw grenades x100 as much as in 4.

Sure, MW2 wasn't all that great, I think the customization was a plus, but it doesn't have the same feel as the first game did.

Not to say I disagree, now that Activision got rid of a good portion of IW, the IP pretty much goes to Treyarch, who will probably continue to run it into the ground.

My only fear for the next 10 years, is that with Bungie going to Activision, that they're going to force Bungie to make a new IP and basically run that into the ground, too. =\

[kapolei808]

I love the single player and multiplayer, because when you get boredof one then you just play the other

[Iceskater101]

hmm I would have to say I would rather buy a game with great campaign mode than great multiplayer
but thats me
thats like asking would you rather buy Batman Arkham Asylum or Call Of Duty
and I would definitely choose Batman :)

[EpsilonX]

I'd rather have a game that's a great single player but is still enjoyable multiplayer. For example, Goldeneye. One of the best multiplayer games ever. It's unfortunate that there weren't any AI bots in that game though, and Perfect Dark wasn't nearly as interesting as Goldeneye (yet still fantastic)

Another great game that balances single and multiplayer was MGS4. Even though it was hard to get the multiplayer to work, since it didn't run through the PSN, the multiplayer greatly extended the life of the game, who's main focus was the single player.

I've played MW2 and I thought it was great, but from what i've heard about how short they are, and with how many people play the game nonstop online, it doesn't really appeal to me. I can't play online without being massacred, and it makes me mad.