Call of Duty is back – although it didn’t really go anywhere to begin with, did it? Activision’s announced that historical first-person shooter Call of Duty: WWII has now raked in over $1 billion worldwide since launching last month, which in case you hadn’t noticed is an extortionate sum of money. It’s also the top selling console game of 2017 in North America, marking the ninth consecutive year that the series has taken that crown, based on revenue.
“Thank you to our players for your incredible passion and engagement,” said chuffed Activision bigwig Eric Hirshberg, before blowing his nose on a $100 bill. “And thank you to our talented, committed teams all across the globe that make incredible results like this happen.”
In other victorious news for our overlords at Activision, the publisher announced that Destiny 2 is the second highest selling game of the year in North America based on revenue, and that it’s outsold the original instalment based on units. So yeah, it seems that the company will be dining fine on Christmas Day.
Comments 21
i will never support them.
Wait a sec. Did Destiny 2 do that well? I don't get how.
This game is way better than Destiny 2 except for the pvp multiplayer!
@naruball It's surprising, isn't it? Feels like it was a bit of a wet fart to me, but I guess that's the "bubble" at play again.
But.. but...but games are too expensive to make and they need micro transactions to make them profitable? This does not compute.
@Rudy_Manchego This doesn't apply to all games. It's an exception, if not THE exception, as it's the best selling video game of the year.
@naruball It's usually the better selling games – like COD, FIFA and Battlefront – that have the micro-transactions and Wilson lootboxes.
@Octane Most games have additional optional purchases. Whether it is micro-transactions, lootboxes or different costumes as DLC, most companies can't survive without them. The big ones clearly don't need them but of course they want to make as much profit as possible.
My point is that games are too expensive to make nowadays, so you can't take how much the big companies make and generalize about the industry.
@naruball You do know all of these big companies spend less on game development than they did ten years ago, right? Yet, profits have gone up. They were fine without micro-transactions in 2007, they spend less and earn more today.
Their inclusion of lootboxes is just another reason that I will never touch this game. Consumers should take more of a stand against these awful practices.
@naruball I was being a little silly but I need to see evidence that game development is too expensive to make these days? No one can give me evidence.
The only evidence I have is that, on the whole, profits of major publishers have risen almost year on year yet their output remains largely consistent. If games were too expensive to make, they wouldn't be made. That is just supply and demand. Indie devs can't afford the same budget as big publishers so they make what they can afford. The larger publishers do the same.
Now games development is risky, I'l' admit that and a dud can hit a publisher bad but that is true of most businesses, particularly in the entertainment business. My joky point that in an industry where a game can hit $1billion in 2 months, then things probably arent going too bad.
@Rudy_Manchego
You need evidence that games cost more than they did back in the 90s when they cost they exact same amount with no voice acting, simple music, simple graphics? games that were were sometimes less than an hour long, but difficult to beat to make them feel longer?
Are you not aware of how many companies during the ps3 generation made one or a few non profitable games and had to close down?
Most things have gotten more expensive. Games haven't. One of the reasons is that more people are gamers and the other that they rely on additional purchases.
Your joky point makes no sense. It's like taking the album sales of Taylor Swift or Adele and saying that albums still sell well. No, most music artists make money from tours, ads and other means. Similarly, many video game companies need the profit from dlc. Activision may not need it, but many other companies do. Japanese games being a perfect example. They sell a few hundred thousand copies at best, yet the costs are high. They make a lot of money from costumes, characters, short additional episodes, etc.
@Octane No, I didn't know that. But, hopefully, you know that they spend much more than they did in the 90s, when games cost the same.
@naruball €40 in the 90s, then it was €50 for a good while, last generation we saw an increase to €60 for a lot of games, and most AAA games these days are €70 digital. I wouldn't be surprised if physical copies follow soon.
Plus digital means a larger percentage of the game goes directly to the publisher. And the attach rate for digital is almost 50% for some games.
But none of that matters, because we know that companies spend less on actual development year over year, while their revenue increases as well.
@Octane Your numbers are wrong. You should do some research, especially about the 90s.
And if you're gonna bring up the fact that they cost €70 digital, you're gonna have to address the huge price cuts games see months, if not weeks, after the game is released. They weren't anywhere near as common back in the day. Nor was the average consumer as informed as he is today.
@naruball Are you talking about N64 games? The games whose cartridges cost as much as €30? You were paying mostly for the physical cartridge then you were paying for the actual game. Not a fair comparison.
I fail to see how price cuts affect the discussion. Some games bomb these days (although that isn't a new thing), especially when they implement anti-consumer practices. People vote with their wallets. Publishers in turn lower the price, that's just supply and demand. Or, when sales slow down after a few months, publishers can also drop the price to increase the sales again. That's just basic economics (see: supply and demand).
Regardless of why it happens, it's not my problem when a company drops the price of a game mere months after its release, that's not a reason to implement micro-transactions. Solution? Don't drop the price, like Nintendo does.
@Octane No, I'm talking about ps1 and Dreamcast games. They didn't use cartridges, right? No idea why you keep bringing up Ninty and generalize based on them. It's not the only company that made games or that does well.
I'm sorry you fail to see that. Maybe read the post I replied to? The poster argued that since this one game does so well, video game companies don't need microtransactions, which for most companies, is far from the case.
"Some games bomb these days (although that isn't a new thing), especially when they implement anti-consumer practices. People vote with their wallets."
You mean like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 being a huge success while several Bethesda games bombing despite receiving good reviews? Your comments, for some reason, don't have much to do with facts.
Your basic economics argument doesn't hold much water either. Most first party Nintendo games don't get price cuts, even when they stop selling well. Is that supply and demand or just a company policy?
I suppose you could always advise these companies that don't know any better to stop dropping the price of their games, since if it works for Ninty, it should also work for everyone else.
Anyway, feel free to reply if you want to, but I'm done here. It seems that we're gonna have to agree to disagree.
Activision had a great year based on sales, unlike EA.
Many franchises, including movies, only dream to achieve $1 billion worldwide. I'm not playing CoD since Black Ops 2, but the series is huge, can't deny that.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
@naruball
"You mean like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 being a huge success while several Bethesda games bombing despite receiving good reviews? Your comments, for some reason, don't have much to do with facts."
I have to disagree, star wars is the biggest film franchise right now and with only one game coming out which coincides with the film then its bound to be successful. Its also constantly being pushed into everyones faces on psn as sony have a marketing contract for the game with ea and its regularly in the ads of pushsquare, eurogamer etc etc.
Bethesda has gone big reinventing old franchises and with fallout and the elder scrolls its a pure win. But I dont think that success is down to the fact they are old franchises and more to do with plugging a gap in the market both sci fi and high fantasy epic best in class exploring sims. Regardless of how well reviewed Dishonoured, prey and wolfenstein are, they are in competition with each other and a million other linear shooters and imo people got bored of them last gen and Bethesda dont spend anywhere near the same as EA on marketing. Suffice the lack of sales.
@naruball Hey sorry if I caused offence, was not my intent.
You are right that games do cost more to make now (though we could also go down the rabbit hole of distribution methods being cheaper, technology and code leverage from engines and deals with platform holders having some mitigating impact but let's not). However the argument is that games are too expensive to make is something that is used to justify some shady business practices and I don't agree with that.
The market determines what is and isn't acceptable. Profit is very different from cost. A smaller niche publisher will not make as much profit from their investment as a larger publisher who can utilise their size for better deals etc. You mention Japanese and smaller publishers that don't make billions on a game but a lot are profitable otherwise they wouldn't continue to be made.
You are totally right, gaming is a high risk industry. A couple of duds can bury a studio or even a small publisher and loads of studios went under during the move from 16bit to 32bit, and across every generation. Lots of studios got bought up by bigger publishers, didn't perform and then got ditched or closed.
My original post, though sarcastic, was just stating that games like COD make good profit off base sales alone and make their money back without micro-transacitons and especially the type of micro-transactions that are in this game. I'm not arguing that micro-transactions as a whole are bad for the industry and of course, good DLC or extra content can be good for the consumer and publisher alike. My point is, and remains, that the excuse for big publishers putting micro-transactions into games like this that do sell well because they need to is simply not true.Anyway, thanks for responding and for the debate!
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