Activision's Kotick Discounts Downloadable Games

kukyfrope writes "In a recent interview with the New York Times, Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick claims to be optimistic about the future of gaming and the potential revenue of new gamers as many traditional gamers hit their 30's and 40's and are introducing their kids to the world of gaming. While Kotick has a bright outlook, he sees 'full downloadable games' as being 'so far in the future that it's almost incomprehensible.' This would seem to be contradicted by the success of online avenues such as Valve's Steam system, Xbox Live and Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console."

Comments

The Wii?

[Xaroth]

I'm sorry, but the success of the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console? Has /. suddenly turned time in reverse, and is now duping stories from the future?

Re:The Wii?

[Sentri]

Heres an important point you gloss over

Small Full Game = Small Full Game

even if it is old

nice summary of a registration required article

[skreeech]

can't read the actual article.

Digital distribition is weak because of a lack of a physical product. That will always be the weak point. For consoles full games for download won't take off for a long time because of storage space. PS3s harddrive is barely big enough for one blueray disc. Highspeed internet can't deliver full games that fast either.

Re:nice summary of a registration required article

[base3]

Exactly--and I thought when I read the article header that Activision was going to address that by giving a discount on download-only product--a move which would have made sense. Damned if I'm going to pay $50 and install Steam spyware, (and sometimes on top of that a monthly fee--Gawd, what are people thinking???) in order to play a game.

Re:nice summary of a registration required article

[Snover]

Before Steam, you could connect to World Opponents Network without registering. All it required was that your CD-key that wasn't being used at the same time as someone else.

Once Valve introduced Steam, you were forced to link your CD-key to a login username and there is no way to unlink it except by paying what basically sums up to being an extortion fee to Valve.

The guy purchased the game, at the store. It was a transfer of property from one person to another. He is having to re-register something he already owns. And that's a big, big problem.

Define "Full Game"

[Anonymous Coward]

It all depends on how you define "Full Game." If the only definition you have is that of a bleeding edge PS3/XBox 360 game that requires 5GB to download then (obviously) the market is too small to really make much money with it; on the other hand if you produce higher-resolution SNES games (say 800x600) you should be able to make tons of games that require less than 16MB to dowload and there is a huge market for that.

Re:Define "Full Game"

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If you have a 512 MB SD card, and, assuming a full 16 MB per SNES game, that's thirty-two games right there. If five of those games are, say, "Final Fantasy II," "Final Fantasy III," "Chrono Trigger," "Super Mario RPG," and "Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past," well, you've got yourself hours of play right there, and then twenty-seven more games after that. Whoever doesn't think there's a market for this stuff is insane.

Direct2drive

[amazon10x]

While Kotick has a bright outlook, he sees 'full downloadable games' as being 'so far in the future that it's almost incomprehensible.'

Hmm, I guess he has not heard of Direct2Drive?

For consoles perhaps

[VGfort]

but for PCs it will become somewhat more common. I think Ive seen a few places online where you can download when you buy a game, I know Id Software does this. Although some people like paper manuals and hardcopies of the serial keys and such.

These So-Called "Horseless Carriages" Are a Fad.

[McNally]

I've fallen away from the computer gaming world, but while travelling last week I paid a visit to an old college roommate who showed me "Geometry Wars", a $5 download for the XBox 360 that clearly so vividly captured the spirit of the great arcade games of my youth that when I returned to the home of the relatives I was visiting I downloaded it and spent half the weekend playing round after round with my equally-captivated nephew.

Perhaps Kotick is correct that the games which his company are producing are not yet suited for download, but that doesn't mean that nobody's games are suited for download.

Here's the key quote from the article, in my opinion:

However, because costs of development on next-gen platforms are going to hit $10 - $15 million or more, Kotick also sees the industry focusing on games with hit potential (those that could sell a million or more copies) rather than pumping out many more titles that may not perform as well commercially. He's previously spoken about how Activision specifically will focus on proven franchises.

This is exactly the strategy which has, at times, nearly destroyed the music and film industries -- focus only on copying the last big thing and don't spend any effort at all looking for the next big thing. I truly hope a bunch of net-aware $5-per-game upstarts eat their $50-per-megatitle business for lunch. It'd be the best thing to happen to gaming since I don't know when..

Re:How so?

[snuf23]

Steam's offerings are growing. Aside from the normal Valve software you can purchase games like Dangerous Waters, Darwinia and Space Empires IV.
Direct 2 Drive has a much larger selection of games including recent full blown titles like Hitman Blood Money and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. I'm not exactly sure why people would pay for games this way as the price is the same as a store bought one.
Stardock's Totalgaming.net offers full games for purchase, including Galactic Civilizations 2. While a number of the games are smaller, indie releases, there are some older titles from large publishers.
Direct distribution may be in it's infancy and mostly focused on smaller or independant games, but there are definately some companies on the PC side trying to make it work.

Damn misleading titles

[modemboy]

Man, from the title of this article I thought it was going to be about Activision discounting downloadable games to a price less than a box copy, as obviously their costs would be lower, passing the savings on. I'm still waiting for a company to do this, although I guess Steam sometimes is cheaper online.
So stop using homonyms in the article titles, especially confusing ones. I get dissapointed enough with the shit going on in our world, I don't need slashdot making me think I can get my games cheaper and then dashing my hopes with an opposite story...

P.S. this Kotick guy is an idiot.

Scared much?

[AudioEfex]

The only reason companies are afraid of downloads is because they know it's going to cut into their sixty-dollar off-the-shelf-games.

Just like articles where some publishers/companies discount so-called "retro-gaming" as being insignifigant in their eyes.

Well, I spent about an hour yesterday playing "Super Mario Brothers 3", and it was just as fun now as it was fifteen years ago. All of the suits making comments like this are so out of touch it's almost comical. They keep going after that shrinking "gotta have the newest, bestest, prettiest game NOW!" market and fail to realize there are tens of millions of us who gave up on gaming years ago because we were sick of all the "shitty but pretty" games where pretty pictures rank far above gameplay.

If only these guys would realize that spending enough to make a feature film on a game just isn't necessary, that paying 50 artists for every 1 actual game mechanics programmer is silly.

They need to look outside the box. Problem is, they created the box, and seem so lost in it that I don't know if anything is going to demonstrate otherwise for them until the box just busts apart and disintergrates.

AE