Photo: THQInsider / Flickr

We have undying love for all of Valve’s games, as well as everything the company stands for. While the games no doubt speak for themselves, it’s the attitude the company has to video game development and gamers that makes us love the company. And in response to a recent post on gaming industry website Gamasutra, the company showed it had an understanding of gamers shared by too few.

Single player will remain relevant

The insightful and very intelligent folks over at Gamasutra suggested that dedicated single player games were grave-bound, since publishers have trouble making money from them or curtailing their piracy.

While Gamasutra’s proclamation is not completely unfounded, Erik Johnson, who is the project manager of Portal 2, responded saying: ‘I still think the analysis that every product needs to be a competitor in multiplayer, or an MMO, is incorrect; there are a lot of people who want an experience without the stress, so I don’t see that changing.’ Amen!

Stop blaming everything on piracy

And speaking to the piracy factor, he responded saying ‘You brought up piracy being a reason to not do single player, which I think is a pretty crazy analysis on an issue like that.’ Let’s be fair, piracy is everywhere, on every platform, and on every game type. Yes, multiplayer games and servers may have some protocol built in to mitigate piracy to some extent, but stop it completely? Not happening.

Understanding gamers

It’s this understanding of gamers and their needs that has long set Valve apart from its competitors. And with the upcoming Portal 2 being a single player only game, the company sure is putting its money where its mouth is. But I – and likely others – find, just like Mr. Johnson suggests, there are just times I cannot be bothered for the twitch-based stress of a Call of Duty: Black Ops, and would far rather prefer the slow reward of a Fallout: New Vegas or game of the year Mass Effect 2.

On the PC especially, where gamers run the gamut from super hardcore, to folks who just dabble because they have devices capable of running good games, single player gamers certainly have a place. In many ways, we’re willing Gamasutra to be wrong, since the decline of single player games would also be the decline of many people’s way of winding down, as well as eroding nostalgia from an era where multiplayer was a feature, and not a commonality.

What make you of Gamasutra’s ‘single player games are dead’ argument? Are they right, or well off the mark? Oh, and in case you were wondering, the single player-only Portal 2 is scheduled to release early next – and will likely be incredible.

Photo: Activision

Famed video games soothsayer Michael Pachter believes that a Call of Duty subscription service is inevitable, if not imminent, and he believes that up to 5 million gamers will sign up for the service. Cue the Call of Duty MMO calls again.

Soft software sales a concern

NPD numbers for June showed software sales declining 15 per cent over sales during the same period last year. This marked more than three consecutive months in 2010 where less software was sold than in the prior year, prompting analysts and executives at gaming companies to rethink their sales strategies.

Call of Duty subscription a necessity

Michael Pachter, the famous Wedbush Morgan gaming analyst, puts these depressed sales figures down to multiplayer games, which lead to people buying fewer games because they keep playing the same one.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

He believes this reality should force Activision Blizzard to release Call of Duty with an add-on subscription service. In an advisor’s note, he says: ‘We estimate that a total of 12 million consumers are playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for an average of 10 hours per week on the two platforms’ respective networks’, [Xbox Live and PSN] and that this ‘has sucked the available time away from what otherwise would be spent playing newly purchased games’. Pachter then added that they (Wedbush Morgan) think this is a bad thing, and that publishers must figure out a way to recapture revenue from these lost players.

Michael Pachter adds that, ‘We think that it is incumbent upon Activision, with the most popular multiplayer game [Call of Duty], to take the first step to address monetization of multiplayer (gaming)’. He has a point, considering the runaway success the company has with World of WarCraft.

While he readily admits he’s not sure how Activision would go about this, it is clear that the folks at Activision Blizzard are thinking about the problem, too. We’ve wondered if a Call of Duty MMO was on the cards previously, too, considering others rake in the money from Call of Duty online play.

We’ll see.