(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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Good post for those individuals that don't understand. Nominated and repped

You're right that threads, twitter posts and such help give feedback to the developers. If you look at the IW forums you'll see a thousand of the same topics with basically the same complaints. They want and do take that into consideration... I guess my point is think about the profitability first before posting some ridiculous complaint. If you think they're going to completely re-design the game now you're outta your mind.

Halo & MAG were two random games that I thought of while posting. I agree that COD is at the top of the ladder, but there are just as many other games out there that have a nice following and sales figures. The shelf life of a game is short. Not too many people saying, "Man, I need to pick up COD3."

not to keep argueing but after that comment i might just have to go play cod3 been a while

pretty good post dude, thanks for the information

Yeah. I think you got my point that games shelf life is short. Something new is always around the corner so ATVI and other publishers need to continue to build consumers excitement for the next game.



you bet man. Let me know if you have any questions.

with the release of the mappack, I'm bumping this thread to give a little insight to those who are interested. check out the first post.

I'm going to update this once the next 10Q comes out.

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The next 10Q has not come out yet however thought this slide was interesting on the expected growth from ATVI across the consoles. I will update this thread once the Q1 2010 numbers have been released. This probably wont happen for another 2-4 weeks.

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Bump much??