Industry analyst and 1,000-year-old shaman Michael Pachter has commented on the Infinity Ward situation and the forming of rival studio Respawn. While he believes the majority of consumers won’t care about the recent restructuring, he does think that Zampella and West’s new outfit, Respawn Entertainment, will provide brutal competition.
“I think that it is likely that future games will sell fewer units than in the past, primarily due to increased competition from Respawn, DICE and EA games that will likely be in the same or similar genres,” he claims.
Pachter seems to believe that game sales work the same way as World War II rationing, in that there are only so many to go around and the existence of new games will have a direct impact on the sale of others. He demonstrated this theory when he claimed that Borderlands was going to sell badly because Dragon Age was launching soon after. He was incorrect.
I don’t quite understand his train of thought and, personally, I don’t think Respawn will have an effect on the future of Call of Duty. One studio cannot take sales magically away from a rival studio’s game simply by existing, as much as I’d like to see Activision get taken down a peg or two. This market is ruled by those who make the names, and Call of Duty is a name that will keep selling, no matter what the competition.
Until Activision itself drains the market and whores the franchise out too hard.
Pachter: EA, DICE and Respawn will impact future Call of Duty sales [Joystiq]
