Analysts love the way Activision kills franchises

Image: Guitar Hero World Tour box art. Activision.

Following Activision’s announcement that the Guitar Hero brand is over, Industry Gamers spoke to a number of business analysts to discuss the issue. They wanted to find out if Call of Duty might be the next victim of milking.

Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research praised Activision for the way they handled the Guitar Hero franchise, saying “strip-mining franchises is a successful, risk-averse strategy.” He also gave mad props for Activision’s “hit it and quit it model” which he described as “carpet-bombing the market with sequels.”

Just a reminder folks: games are not art, and customers are not worthy of respect.

Other analysts gave more reasoned, less grotesque answers, which you can read by clicking the link below. Internet sensation Michael Pachter, for example, explained that the difference between the franchises is that Guitar Hero was a game people bought once with their console, whereas Call of Duty has a strong and well developed community that keeps momentum for the series going.

Source: Industry Gamers

Ignorant masses purchase Call of Duty: Black Ops in record numbers

It was inevitably going to be big, but no one really knew how big. I’m speaking, of course, of my disappointment at Activision’s staggering success with Call of Duty: Black Ops.

The “new” game, essentially an annualized copy-paste of work done by maltreated former employees, raked in $360 million day one. That’s up from the $310 million Modern Warfare 2 brought in. The monetary figure for Black Ops translates into 5.6 million units sold between the US and UK.

No word yet on how many of the 5.6 million jocks have blasted through the game’s reportedly brief single-player mode, or how many hours will inevitably be wasted leveling up in the game’s online component.

Source: NeoGAF
Image: Adapted from Black Ops Execution by Jason Cartwright under a CC-BY license.

Obnoxious modern video game marketing comes to Wii for GoldenEye

One precious benefit of exclusively owning a console ignored by third party developers is that you can keep blissfully away from their shady and obnoxious business tactics. Unfortunately, with Activision actually trying with GoldenEye, Wii owners get to finally experience the absurdity first hand.

Pre-ordering the game at GameStop will get you an exclusive (until December 31, 2010) code which will allow for invisibility mode in split-screen multiplayer. Pre-ordering at Best Buy means an exclusive (until December 31, 2010) code for multiplayer tag mode. Pre-ordering through Walmart.com or buying at launch at Wal-Mart wll get you an Oddjob themed “Cheater” t-shirt.

No word on how these codes will work. Presumably some kind of online activation will be necessary. At least these codes, which surely would have been in the game for anyone a few years ago, aren’t exclusive forever.

[source]

Treyarch to update CoD multiplayer for Black Ops

Treyarch has announced that Call of Duty‘s newest installment, Black Ops, is getting a multiplayer overhaul. But wait, for those of you thinking “thank god, finally the game won’t reward players for being camping shit eaters,” think again. Treyarch hasn’t decided anything of the sort.

Several new modes have been announced, including an offline mode vs. bots, one more way to hate playing this game. I wonder if the AI will camp like a bastard too?

One good thing about this game is the introduction of CP (CoD Points) used as money to upgrade and unlock new weapons. Much preferred over unlocking as you progress, where you often get items you care very little about. To my understanding, you can spend the points on whatever you want.

But here we are, the money shot, 4 new game modes, 3 of which seem to be 1-shot-kills tomfoolery designed to make you camp and wait for a kill, actively punishing those players out to play the game. Thanks for making sure that the assholes of noobs everywhere are more accessible to every dick on the internet, Treyarch.

July NPD numbers an atrocity

I declared last month that June’s NPD numbers “anger up the blood.” My anger then was nothing compared to now.

July’s numbers for US video games sales are out, and they are disheartening indeed. The 360, that’s right, the Microsoft hate machine, was the best selling system of the month. Even the almighty DS was trumped by the pure marketing evil of the revamped 360.

The software side was even worse. The top two spots on the chart were taken by the 360 and PS3 versions of NCAA Football 11 respectively. Even worse, the super-secret real place seller for the month was that much-talked-about PC game Starcraft II. Activision’s money maching sold 721K units.

My prediction of a surprise Pikmin 3 launch didn’t come true. Here’s a drastically reduced level of optimism for August’s numbers demonstrating only a ray of hope: Nintendo’s back on top.

[source]