The legions of fans continuing the play the online segments of titles such as Modern Warfare 2, Bad Company 2, Gears of War 2, Halo 3 and FIFA 10 remains the main reason why the global games industry continues to suffer year-on-year sales declines, according to analyst Michael Pachter. Furthermore, he thinks this decline will continue until publishers discover an effective way to source extra revenue from this continued change in gamer behaviour. “We still believe that the biggest driver of the sales declines over the last 18 months is online multiplayer functionality, with an estimated 25m people playing many titles for hours on end,” he told investors. “Based upon statements made by Microsoft earlier this year, it appears that millions of people are playing multiplayer games online for an average of 10 hours a week, making a serious dent in the time available to play other games. “We remain convinced that the popularity of online multiplayer gaming has caused a decline in overall packaged product sales, and we expect this decline to persist unless the publishers change the multiplayer model.”
