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Michael Patcher is off his gourd.
tiefighter25
Member Posts: 937
Are you familiar with Michael Patcher?
He's the much quoted industry analyst who "informs" investors on the state of the industry and future trends.
When SWTOR announced FTP, he predicted that SWTOR would have 50 million monthly players.
He most recently stated that the Nitendo WiiU is already obsolete, because the PS4 will render hyper-realistic graphics at 240 FPS.
He also estimates the upcoming EA title Fuse to sell 5 million copies.
This is the guy everyone seeks to quote for industry trends.
Can we agree he is part of the problem with the Industry, and speculative trading in general?
(No links, do your own Google-Fu.)
Comments
Ooopsie.
*Not exactly a stellar 600th post.
I sure as hell agree with you. I see the guy as nothing but the modern day equivalent of a snakeoil salesman, or similar to one of those so called "psychics" you used to see on the Carson show in the 70s.
And who cares if you made a slight mistyping in the guys name. I say from now on we just call the guy Michael Sphincter and leave it at that.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
50 million was a tough sell, but did get a few eyebrows raised and some distant chuckles.
Just for perspective, if about 24 million or so people have ever played Warcraft before as of a couple years ago, Pachter's number would be twice the amount of people who ever tried WoW, whether they hated it or loved it. That's quite a sales pitch.
24 million comes from WoW peak of 12 million [1.5 yrs ago], when Blizzard stated, "More people have played and quit WoW than are currently playing."
I guess pachter was just relying on how many potential Star Wars fans existed, and not so much people who were willing to play, or how those who had already quit felt about SWTOR. Word of mouth gets a game off the ground, and if the word on the street is negative, making it suddenly positive would require an extraordinary spin.
An Asian release like WoW did might have gotten some results, but the cost of new voice packs in other languages doesn't seem very likely.
In any event, maybe he also didn't take into account how SWTOR isn't really F2P. It's a limited free demo, with freemium cashshop / P2W / gambling box type stuff / advancement unlocks, etc. My prediction for Pachter: Such a system would scare more players away than attract them.
PS Tie: You can change the thread title if you edit your first post.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Haha, you should take what Pachter says with a grain of salt because, (in the words of Wyclef and that singer chick) anything can happen. He predicts so many things with such conviction that he'll convince you he's right and he has to do that because it's his job or else no one is going to talk to him if he's all like "errr... I think... err... it may actually.... errr.... I don't know.... errr". No one wants to talk to that kind of person. People want conviction with their daily prediction and he delivers that.
This is not a game.
Your basic objection is that corporations tend to seek profits by rubbing their own version of soothsayers and wishing?
Or are you offended that he probably makes far more money than you do?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Yeah that's why most people recognise names such as Charles Manson, Heaven's Gate and Jim Jones.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
What's was the point of the OP again? Oh, right.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I like Pachter. He is realistic about the job he does and admits that he gets as much wrong as he gets right. There are also areas of expertise that he is more informed about. Im pretty sure that he does not usually concern himself with mmos or nintendo. Gamers seem to think that his word is some sort of gospel to companies, its not. Its just another take on the buisness.
Oh and of course lets not forget that theres a counltess number of people doing the same job as him. He gets the hate, because hes good infront of a camera and got his own show.
No. His point was that he felt the man must be cracked because he makes such outrageous financial predictions. And that people who listen to such over the top speculation are possibly to blame for the current state of the industry. And he explained his reason for holding such an opinion. Where as you just sniped him with a rather childish insult that he only dislikes the man due to envy over his salary.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
I'm sensing a bit of double-standard here, given you rah-rah! for "off his gourd".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
@Icewhite
OP has a valid point, I'm not sure why there needs to be any kind of insults. If you disagree and would like to present your side then do so.
@OP
I agree with you, many of the analyst used by the industry now seem to have lost touch long ago. It's become more about telling many of these big wigs what they want to hear rather than advising.
Better, thank you. Don't even know who the hell this pachter guy is :shrug:
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Some "analyst" predicting 50 million players in SWTOR is trolling his clients and everyone else.
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MBA and two law degrees. Doesn't sound like a recipe for mental illness.
Assume he picked a game to thumbs-up that the op must particularly loathe, prompting this entire thread. :shrug:
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Id like to know where he pulls those numbers from. Somewhere dark and smelly I suspect.
What, if any expertise in gaming does this guy have? None. So why do people listen to him... GAH
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
I like mr. Pachter,
His speculations aren't always the best, but often he's right on target.
That being said, he is the 'Master of random numbers' ;-)
Oh my, it's that dude? He's nuts. Every video I've seen of him has made me think he has no frickin' idea what he's talking about.
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>
No, he hasn't "burnt" any game, platform, or whatever I like.
I just think he is one of the three; nuts, sensationalistic for quotes, or somehow trying to rough shod manipulate the market.
As to his credentials, he was asked by his law firm to leave, so he got the business degree.
Even then, how this makes him an expert on video game trends, not sure he took that class.
I wouldn't expect a nobel prize winning chemist to predict how well the Halo franchise will perform no matter how smart he is.
The SWTOR prediction, expecting any game that peaked at 2 million players to increase its playerbase 25x just by changing monetization methods? To the point of nigh every mmorpg player playing it? If WoW went FTP, would he predict that 500 million would pick it up?
He does give guidance to mutual funds that command $100 million - $1 billion dollars in assests. He has also told them to be bullish on EA since 2007. Even after the last EA earnings call, he stated that EA was being too conservative, and should expect great things in the near future.
I brough up his Fuse prediction, because the EA partnered title is a brand new, and rather generic looking co-op shooter IP. Insominiac's last high selling title, Resistance 3, a game with an established IP, sold 1.2 million units.
He has flip-flopped several times on the WiiU.
As to latest PS4 comments, they are outlandish.
First off the tech specs are rather underwhelming, for both the PS4 and the new Xbox. Both are less powerful then a current gen mid-range gaming PC.
Then when you consider that the human eye couldn't begin to process 240 FPS, why even come up with that number?
He's recently back pedaled on his PS4 comment, saying that since the PS4 will be 4 times more powerful then the PS3, it "could" render games 4 times faster, thus the 240 FPS.
However, he stated that the graphics would be improved to "hyper-realistic" levels. This pretty well shows that he doesn't have even a basic understanding of how gaming hardware and software work.
So yeah, Captain Wall Street is a saint, and I'm the bad guy here.
If anything it just proves that metrics are not the key to predictions .. you have to get dirty and know the game, it's model, and the fanbase to gauge it's success.
Just because Ragnarok or Perfect World had 50 million (or so) F2P accounts, doesn't mean it's true for every game.
I think Pachter made that original statement before EA put all the cruddy restrictions on SWTOR to make it an undesireable freemium craptastic game. By the time the potential fan displeasure set in, Pachter probably already forgot about what he said and was busy on something else.
Pachter just didn't understand human preferences, and going to college to learn statistical analysis won't teach you that. ..
TieFighter: I don't think many see you as the bad guy. It's just people defending their game against insurmountable odds, lashing out at anything they can to silence the inevitable truths.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.