Pachter's assertion that the biggest reason for sales declines in the last eighteen months is too many people playing Modern Warfare is surprising. I might have thought that global recession thingamabob would have trumped it.

For his assertion to be valid, I think we'd need to see evidence of high-profile titles in that timeframe underperforming. But the likes of Assassin's Creed 2 and Red Dead Redemption have sold incredibly well.

I feel sorry for all the people who are already paying for X-box Live (which just got a price hike) on top of their internet service, and now are going to have to pay even more just to play specific games. Not to mention the 60 dollars they have to pay up front.

Gaming is becoming an expensive hobby and I'm not sure if people are going to put up with more service fees, especially in a down economy. The masses would likely abandon games that have service fees for games that don't, especially if the game quality is the same.

Now's the perfect time to start adding ads all over your multi-player games ;)

I have to agree with both Johns...there is unannounced recession that is affecting all of us. Gaming really is an expensive, but incredibly funny, interactive hobby. Rent and food come first when money is tight.

The problem is that Pachter and others are right about the basic economics. To many gamers, hours = value. That has been discussed endlessly, more recently regarding Limbo. Gamers will pay $60 for a ten hour game, yet Halo 3 and COD/MoH games are 200 hour games. Therefore, there is a tremendous consumer surplus for the multiplayer focused games, which is a good part of the reason why they are the top selling games of this era. The recession did not stop COD: MW2 from becoming one of the best-selling games of all time. It encouraged that.

Now for Activision, which makes probably more than half of its revenues from World of Warcraft, a monthly subscription game, why do they want to make a game that people play for hundreds of hours, almost endlessly for $60 total? Why is someone going to buy their lesser offerings if they are still playing a ten month old game? Maybe three million players buy map packs, but that is just a fraction of the total sales.

Really, what needs to happen is for more budget titles or simpler titles need to be sold for something less than $60. Games aren't movies, its one thing for all movies to cost $10 a ticket, its entirely another for all games to cost $60.

Sigh. Can we get advice from someone who's more consistent than a coin flip? This is industry spin posing as "analysis." But, then again, that pretty much describes Pachter's entire career.

Another day, another explanation, why the industry is in decline for years now. This time it is multiplayer. How long will th search for reasons go on, until the industry understands, that they are actually loosing customers, because they are in an creative crisis, fueled by sequels, maximum monetarisation of franchises and a concentration on a ridiculous small target group?

The excuses being made for the lower than expected performance of the game industry are become more and more lame.

I believe there are a whole slew of reasons that the market is down for gaming, some of these include either really great game quality vs. very poor game quality, incredibly original ideas vs lack of original ideas, too many games/titles per month, lack of gamer cash at hand, games are quite expensive, sequel-mania, multiplayer, and open world games. There are probably more in there, but it basically comes down to a little story like this. A kid/teen/adult has only so much cash in their pocket and so much time in a day. The kid and teen have less money but more time, the adult has more money but less time. The adult will invest in maybe one long game and a few shorter games per month, while the kids will eat up whatever they can get with their $60 bucks that they earned over the last couple months. The adult can pick up more games, but probably won't because they have less time to play them and the kids dont have the money to buy more than one game a month so they pick the ONE that best fits their interest and will offer the most game time(online multiplayer is high on the list)--the adult(maybe maybe not). So games are dwindled down to the best picks from the start--with 20 new games coming out each month...who has the time or money to play them?? Yeah there are different types of games but all the same most of the time there is at least 2 or 3 games that stick out over the 20 that most people will pick up first--the others will be put off till a price drop or will be forgotten all together(good bye devs). Something that would have an impact on this is say there were two good but shorter games that were $30 a pop rather than 1 for $60---I really enjoy picking up interesting/strange games but sometimes you need to make a choice--and they get left behind. But if you cut the price for games that dont deserve the $60 price point--then you have people willing to pick them up and maybe another game--As much as publishers don't want to cut the price--they must realize that not all games are worth $60 and $70 dollars---I've seen this most apparent in Wii games--you have your $30 dollar games--like Flips Twisted World coming out--intriguing game/though not much hype---the you have another gem like Lost in Shadow that is at a bit higher price $40--then you have your standard first party Ninty titles that never lose their $50 price point--and never seem to decrease whether new or used.

I also forgot one huge influence on the gaming industry--the pretentious gamer. Those that will only play metacritic rated games that reach at least 85, and are AAA titles--every other game is terrible in their minds and will write hater reviews for all other games that don't objectively rate games on various standards.

You may not want movies, but neither do I want shallow experiences. Viruta Cop 1 and 2 only last so long in the face of golden games such as Fallout 3, Half-Life 2, or Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Games today are not terrible, they're just different from that arcade experience we grew up with.