(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); I continue to see so many threads complaining about MW2 and game developers. I made a post in another thread, but thought this might prove to have it's own topic of discussion. I know most of the people on this board are younger individuals and don't have a lot of real world business experience so I thought I'd share my experience with you. Hopefully you'll understand the requests that gamers make and the impact it would have on the company to respond/resolve the requests.

Activision owns IW & Treyarch as well as about 85 other companies.

Business profits & EPS:
Businesses look for profits. Profits are gross revenues (income) minus expenses. ATVI is a public company so any person can own a part of the company. ATVI has to look out for share holders and turn a profit each quarter (quarterly earnings per share or EPS). If ATVI spends too much money on a project then it reduces the amount of profit that project makes. This includes labor, dedicated servers, software, marketing etc.

Console Wars:

Everyone wants to believe their console is superior to another. The fact is that ATVI supports XBOX over PS3. The reason for that is that XBOX accounts for 38% of the revenues (2009 figures) versus PS3 accounting for 26%. The Wii accounts for 26% and PC and PS2 come in on distant lasts. PC is 7% of console revenue and PS2 is about 8%.

More revenue is generated by XBOX so more of the focus is towards that demographic. This doesn't discount the other two main consoles. PS3 net revenues (profit) have increased at ATVI from 2008 to 2009 approximately 26%. Now lets compare XBOX 2008 & 2009 net revenues... XBOX had a 54% increase in revenues. You can see why ATVI would spend more effort and energy building a product for a larger consumer base which generates double the profit. Hopefully this makes sense and you're following.

Conclusion:

A company is looking to turn a profit to stay in business. They will do just enough, but not too much to make their products have a value in the eye of the consumer. If you want to respond about the complaints of the game then stop purchasing the game. Don't purchase any DLC and stop buying ATVI's products. If the product (MW2) has some sort of value to you then purchase it. In the end stop complaining about the issues we all face with the game. Nothing is going to change the fact they're there... That is until the revenues come down forcing ATVI to re-evaluate the value the product has to the consumer. You're not going to see dedicated servers for MW2. The cost is too great compared to the return on investment.

Let me know if you have questions. I tried to keep this as simple and brief as possible. I can launch into a ton of segments on how a public company is run and analysis of that, but I'll save that for the big nerds who are interested.

Linky Dinks:
ATVI's investor relations:
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google finance link to ATVI stock:
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NASDAQ link for SEC filings:
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glad shadow that this helped. If you take a look at the 10k you'll find information on ATVI's revenues & expenses. you'll see the break down of revenues for xbox, PS3, Wii etc as well as royalty revenues. Lots of good info in there, but finding it is another issue.

ok rjive i have a concept for you and i want you to mull this over........and really activision should be thinking about this one too.....you talked about the bottom line and keep earnings up and spending down.....but here is another concept for you rfom...arguably the best lobby system i have seen to date.....now i never really cared much for the game itself but rather purchased it solely for the online playability and the dedicated servers....i think the servers actually made it easier and less time consuming for insomniac to not only monitor and controll the abuse but correct many errors with the game and the online game play....now that said i don't think any dedicated fans will leave cod games "as long as they are kept fairly close in design to what they are now" simply because they don't have dedicated servers but it has been my experience that if a company doesn't start thinking about quality as in the quality of the game play both online and off that eventually some up and comeing company that does will surpase them and leave the shrugging there shoulders at absolutely no proffits rather than just reduced so at what point do they say well ok everyone really wants this maybe we should give it to them before another company comes along with as good a quality game and actually does give it to them cause we can all agree at this point they are rideing on the fact that there isn't another fps shooter out there that can even compete with the quality of game leaveing them the alpha dog and doing what it is they please and still makeing money telling us to deal with it they can't afford it but if they don't give it to us soon when that game comes along i can see players shifting leaveing them scrambling to keep up and trying to do it with less profit margin then they currently have makeing it much much harder to accomplish so why not sink money into it now while the have it rather then later when it is a rat race to keep up and actually don't have it...................maybe that concept is way out in left field maybe i am just a retard but that is how i look at it kinda anxious for your input

It's kinda hard to understand your post without proper grammar and punctuation.

1) COD series doesn't have dedicated servers. This game as well as COD4 and COD5 use a peer to peer network. The servers that connect those peers are provided from Dameonware. Dameonware is also owned by ATVI.

2) I believe that ATVI makes a product that satisfied a lot of consumers. It provides enough of a value that every time I log on there is about 300,000 users playing on PS3. I personally like the game. I have my issues as do others, but each day I log in and play it.

3) I also think more companies will try and build a FPS that is similar to the COD series. ON the playstation we already have that with MAG. It's not COD, but it's another FPS that is trying to claim the throne... Battlefield is another one of those.

ATVI's bottom line is profit. It doesn't mean they don't strive to build products (games) of quality that provide a value for the consumers (gamers). I guess my big point is that the gamers should not forget ATVI is a for profit company. Remember that activision also makes other very popular games such as Guitar Hero. I guess what I'm saying is if they don't sell too many COD games, they others to back it up.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Nice post, very informational. Nominated and thanked.

i really never cared much for grammer but anyways you started to prove my point......i know cod doesn't have dedicated servers i was mentioning resistance fall of man which does and has probably the best lobby system to date cause of it and honestly that is the only reason i purchased the game.....i thought the rest of the game was lack luster and had a hell of a boreing story line to me.........i also said i think if cod keeps there set up the same they have about the best game play out there so i agree on that.....my point was that at some point if they don't shell out some more cash and get the dedicated servers eventually one of these up and comeing games will actually be able to compete with the game play of cod and will have the dedicated servers which could cause some massive problems for cod itself and could end this debate all together cause simply put cod might twitter out and become more of a once was i mean when you look at it i think most of the gameing world would agree that the only area activision really falls short with cod ,and i mean falls short not just the game could use this or that, but gameplay itself falls short is no dedicated servers game play and quality of the game itself is not in question what is however is the concept that not looking to the future and spending the money while it is flowing in is the best state of mind for a buisness......isn't the idea of technollogy to spend the dough and keep yourself more advanced then the competition is.......... not sure how else to say it rather than sacrifice some overall profits now to preserve a continued profit margin maybe slightly lower but continued

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and really any company out there if they are really for profit should be for long term profit rather than short term profit ESP. in todays market where many gamers can no longer afford to buy many of the games they want and instead pick and choose the ones they will purchase then it may come down to dedicated servers or not so if a company has the profit margins to do it.......and i am sure activision has it with cod........then they should reinvest some of that margin in something that will continue the profits not just say ok well we made our money lets hope we keep going unconcerned of the consumers demands

rjive, you are the man, thanks for posting, repped and nominated. Hopefully in the near future you my friend will be promoted. IMO

very true man lol^

you're starting to catch on young grasshopper. You're right on a few points. The downfall of today's companies (not just ATVI - all public companies) is that board meetings are discussing earnings per share or revenues rather than how to make a product better. The perfect example of this is the American auto industry. About 30 years ago GM and others stopped talking about making cars the consumers want... They spoke on how to make next quarter's earnings better. As that is important, I think you lose too much of what it is that actually brings in the revenue... the products.

Relating this to ATVI... competition will become stiffer. Another company will release a game that draws as much praise and excitement as COD4 did a few years ago. Zipper Entertainment tried that with MAG on the PS3. Microsoft already has a few titles that bring in lots of chedda (I.E. Halo). This will continue to happen. that's why I LOVE AMERICA! It's a free market. What does this mean? A free market means that more people will try and take a cut of these profits which will drive down prices and increase competition. More products for you to choose from. An example of this is the cell phone industry. I remember my first cell phone cost me about $500 to purchase plus a huge monthly contract. It only made calls and came in a big ass bag. Now you have smart phones and tons of others that you buy for very cheap price.

The questions/statements that you're asking are the same ones the big boys at ATVI and other companies are asking themselves. Keep in mind they keep profitability in mind when discussing these ideas. Dedicated servers may cost 1 million dollars a year to run and the P2P network might only cost 200k to run. From the company stand point they can "get away" with the lower cost item and still deliever a product that has enough value.

Another issue one needs to take into consideration is the shelf life of these games... they're short. There is another release always coming out. So again the company has to weigh risk VS reward. That risk could be capital risk (how much money they shell out) VS return (how much renvenue/profit). The risk could be many other things as in losing a customer base etc. I think you see the point there.

I'm impressed that you're seeing the light a little bit. Again I'm not suggesting we as a community stop bringing new ideas to the table. I see two effective ways of getting the game fixed. The first is not buying it. Hitting them in the pocket is going to do the most effective and fastest damage. The second is finding hacks and such that require patches. The COD4 god mode forced the company to patch something to keep it sort of a level playing field. They don't want to damage the reputation by having people think of the brand and equating it to a bad experience.



Thank you! Very nice compliment coming from you sir!

i agreed pretty much with the whole statement you just put forth except i see a third solution......ppl need to continue to bitch on the forums i know from a stand point it is tiring to hear and annoying as hell to listen to knowing that it probably won't get solved or fixed anytime soon but i would put money on the fact that they discuss it more cause of all the constant bickering going back and forth in these forums and maybe eventually they will see the benefit they could obtain even beyond just stopping the complaints.....and you mentioned halo and mag....i really don't think either of those games can even come close in compairing the depth and realism that comes from the cod franchise i am still waiting on another game to put forth that kinda effort cause even all the knocking of the server system i could never begin to knock the effort they put into the game itself and they do seem to have made some very good changes to the peer to peer hosting system over the original mw