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Purely in terms of individual game sales, is it a mistake to have Halo MP seperate and free?

Stuart360

Member
I say 'purely in terms of game sales' as fincancial wise, they are probably going to make an absolute kiiling from MTX with the MP being free. In fact i wouldnt be surprised if Infinite is the biggest money making Halo because of that.

I know many of you, for varying reasons, care a lot about game sales. For me, i dont really care, I care more about the game being good, and the game making enough dough to keep going. But many of you probably will be looking at individual game sales as a success barometre, regardless of how well financially the game actually does.

So with that in mind (sales numbers), is it a mistake to release the MP seperate, and have it F2P?
If you think about it, MP is a huge part of Halo, and it being free and seperate means many gamers probably wont be buying the Infinite campaign, and under usual circumstances, they wuld of had to in the past.
Likewise the game is also launching on Gamepass for both console and PC, which will eat into its sales numbers considerably.

In reality, Halo Infinite as a whole COULD potentially end up the biggest money making Halo, while at the same time could potentially have 'only' like 3 or 4 mil sales long term, if you get me.

I could see in the future this kind of split release happening more and more. So do we need to clarify a new way of looking at games like this, or are we soley going to look at pure game sales, and clarify the game as a 'flop'?, even if it does end up being the biggest money making Halo yet, which it could potentially do in todays MTX driven gaming world.
 

Helghan

Member
There are people that only buy Halo for the MP and never touch the SP. I can imagine that they won't cough up $60 to play the SP. So, yes, this will effect sales numbers, but like you said Microsoft won't care because they'll get way more money through MTX
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
I didn’t touch Halo 5’s campaign. The Bungie campaigns were good. I only play the MP nowadays, and will probably spend £50 on season passes/MTX for Infinite.

I think overall they will make more money now it is F2P but I expect the single player component to sell pretty poorly, maybe 2m across Xbox and Steam.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Maybe they want to focus on microtransactions and/or seasons or whatever for MP, so they provide it free.
 

Stuart360

Member
There are people that only buy Halo for the MP and never touch the SP. I can imagine that they won't cough up $60 to play the SP. So, yes, this will effect sales numbers, but like you said Microsoft won't care because they'll get way more money through MTX
Yeah thats the way i see it really, but i was talking more about how gamers as a whole will view Infinite. If it only sold 3 or 4mil (whihc is possible with the MP being seperate and free, and the game being on Gamepass), are poeple going to judge it as a flop, even though the potential is there for the whole Infinite package to be the biggest grossing game in the series, while also potentially having the most users of any Halo in the past.
If you get me lol. Its a weird situation really if you think about it.
 

nush

Gold Member
In shooters I prefer campaign to multiplayer. So as a consumer if I can buy a campaign version of a game AND it's cheaper then I'm happy. It will be interesting to see how this split plays out in terms of profitability.
 

Kev Kev

Member
Yeah that sounds plausible. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes. I think people are going to be playing a lot of that multiplayer, as long as it’s solid and fun. Even if they say they aren’t going to play it, they will lol. The beta or whatever that was had really great impressions so it’s looking promising so far.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Will it affect sales numbers? Absolutely. They'll be drastically lower than the other halos, no question. If I didn't have game pass I probably wouldn't buy it since all I care about is the multiplayer. It'll likely have the most players in franchise history though, and it'll probably make the most money out of all games in the franchise, and that's what matters.
 
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Stuart360

Member
Definitely.

I don't think it's a mistake though, they'll most likely make a lot more money this way (through MTX etc.) than they would have through individual sales.
Yeah i mean i think thats how its going to be, in fact i think its a given. Its just going to be yet another thing on here thats beyond tedious when certain people just look at 3mil sales or whatever, and call the game a flop, Halo is dead, Microsoft are about to shut down Xbox, etc. The usual tedium. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

Robb

Gold Member
The usual tedium.
I dont think that would change even if Infinite sold 20M physical copies tbh. In that case Xbox folks would just use it as a brag in some PS threads and PS folks would just find another excuse beyond Halo that Xbox is bad. The cycle continues either way.
 
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Yeah i mean i think thats how its going to be, in fact i think its a given. Its just going to be yet another thing on here thats beyond tedious when certain people just look at 3mil sales or whatever, and call the game a flop, Halo is dead, Microsoft are about to shut down Xbox, etc. The usual tedium. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
If Halo doesn't do well on UK boxed charts, Microsoft can shut down Xbox for good. Everyone knows that.
 

Godot25

Banned
I say 'purely in terms of game sales' as fincancial wise, they are probably going to make an absolute kiiling from MTX with the MP being free. In fact i wouldnt be surprised if Infinite is the biggest money making Halo because of that.

I know many of you, for varying reasons, care a lot about game sales. For me, i dont really care, I care more about the game being good, and the game making enough dough to keep going. But many of you probably will be looking at individual game sales as a success barometre, regardless of how well financially the game actually does.

So with that in mind (sales numbers), is it a mistake to release the MP seperate, and have it F2P?
If you think about it, MP is a huge part of Halo, and it being free and seperate means many gamers probably wont be buying the Infinite campaign, and under usual circumstances, they wuld of had to in the past.
Likewise the game is also launching on Gamepass for both console and PC, which will eat into its sales numbers considerably.

In reality, Halo Infinite as a whole COULD potentially end up the biggest money making Halo, while at the same time could potentially have 'only' like 3 or 4 mil sales long term, if you get me.

I could see in the future this kind of split release happening more and more. So do we need to clarify a new way of looking at games like this, or are we soley going to look at pure game sales, and clarify the game as a 'flop'?, even if it does end up being the biggest money making Halo yet, which it could potentially do in todays MTX driven gaming world.
Depends. I'm sure Microsoft will have "buy a campaign" or "subscribe to GamePass" option in multiplayer of Halo Infinite and since game is F2P this screen will be shown to many people and plenty of them will probably buy it.

Separate clients is great idea in my opinion. You can tune things in campaign without worry it will break multiplayer and also you can delete campaign if you don't want to play it anymore.

Halo Infinite is in great position. Their primary competitors are launching full price without campaign (Battlefield 2042) or with full priced multiplayer (Vanguard). And reception from community in terms of multiplayer is great so now it is about great release and player retention. If 343 will be successful, I think Microsoft will be pleased and they won't care about potential missing sales because of F2P nature of multiplayer.
 
Yeah i mean i think thats how its going to be, in fact i think its a given. Its just going to be yet another thing on here thats beyond tedious when certain people just look at 3mil sales or whatever, and call the game a flop, Halo is dead, Microsoft are about to shut down Xbox, etc. The usual tedium. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
I don't think we will see any sales numbers. I think we we will see somtheing like "Halo reached 5 million players" from Micrsoft and here we will see the same procedure as always: "Those are all 1 dollar Game Pass people that uninstalled after 5 minutes".
 

Aion002

Member
It won't matter... Probably.

To fight against Warzone, Fortnite and Apex, being a f2p is a must.


Microsoft will probably get a lot more money from micro transactions this way, while the majority of players that would buy Halo will still do it for the SP or play it on Game Pass.

In my opinion Microsoft is doing the right thing.
 
I dunno, anyone can get a month or week Game Pass trial quite easily if they wanted to play the campaign for free. At worst just pay for a month? So in a way I feel like it doesn't matter anyway.

For multiplayer to succeed they really want as many people as they can get for it to grow and get their money from microtransactions.
 
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ManaByte

Member
In the age of Fortnite you can't afford to hide a major MP game behind a paywall.

Warzone is bigger than the core CoD MP due to it being free.
 

Warablo

Member
It's really weird. People buy Halo for the multiplayer and campaign co-op, yet they are launching multiplayer for free and separate. Plus no co-op campaign at launch.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
I believe MS did the math, and the result was that removing the paywall and reaching a wider potential audience for DLC/MTX will bring much more profit in the long term. Wasn't there a rumor that Infinite is actually planned as a 10 year project?

The SP will most likely suffer, 60$ for just the campaign no one except die-hard fans cares about, and on top of that you can get it for 10$ via GP.
 
Microsoft is looking at the money F2P and GaaS games make. The goal is to make those and couple them with a monthly fee to access the games. The amount they get from actual box sales becomes comparatively unimportant.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
I believe MS did the math, and the result was that removing the paywall and reaching a wider potential audience for DLC/MTX will bring much more profit in the long term. Wasn't there a rumor that Infinite is actually planned as a 10 year project?

The SP will most likely suffer, 60$ for just the campaign no one except die-hard fans cares about, and on top of that you can get it for 10$ via GP.
There are dozens of us.

I barely touch the MP and purely in it for the SP.
 

Concern

Member
I wasn't a fan at first but I see how it makes sense. Arena shooters have really died out while cod became the frontrunner for fps. Providing people a chance to jump in free could lure in new potential fans who might want something different or just lost interest in military shooters.

Add that with the battle passes and think it will do alright.

As far as story goes. For me it all died with Reach. 343 are too incompetent to make a good story imo.
 

REDRZA MWS

Member
Nah. MTX + Gamepass (if there's some Gamepass exclusive MTX or whatever) will easily outweigh the sales loss.
MS doesn’t care if you buy it retail price, only play free mp and buy skins and season passes, or whether you subscribe to game pass for it. It’s all Benjamin’s baby.
 
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Crew511A

Member
As far as story goes. For me it all died with Reach. 343 are too incompetent to make a good story imo.

I'm just curious if they ever developed any kind of road map for the franchise. For instance, when Cortana went rampant and seemingly "died" at the end of H4, was it in the cards at the time for her to come back as a super villain in H5? In H4 was there ever any plan to incorporate Blue Team in H5? If so, why not hint at it, instead of making Spartan Palmer the seemingly future of the franchise?

I'm getting Disney Star Wars vibes here. I think the only way Infinite's campaign can be saved is to retcon the crap out of H5, or just come out and say it was a weird dream Chief had in cryo sleep. I dunno. The only thing worse in terms of lore screw ups I can think of is "the choice" at the end of Gears 5. Someone wasn't thinking about the future there.
 

Concern

Member
I'm just curious if they ever developed any kind of road map for the franchise. For instance, when Cortana went rampant and seemingly "died" at the end of H4, was it in the cards at the time for her to come back as a super villain in H5? In H4 was there ever any plan to incorporate Blue Team in H5? If so, why not hint at it, instead of making Spartan Palmer the seemingly future of the franchise?

I'm getting Disney Star Wars vibes here. I think the only way Infinite's campaign can be saved is to retcon the crap out of H5, or just come out and say it was a weird dream Chief had in cryo sleep. I dunno. The only thing worse in terms of lore screw ups I can think of is "the choice" at the end of Gears 5. Someone wasn't thinking about the future there.


Idk but I surely would have liked to see where Bungie would have took the story from 3. I wasn't a fan of the new enemies in 4 either (the fallen?).

The choice thing in Gears is retarded. I never finished it but I saw both endings and didn't like either ending.
 
Pure "game" sales? Yes!
Overall sales of the campaign as DLC? No

You can advertise the paid campaign to 10m+ MP payers. Some will buy it.

Overall revenue will also be higher.
 

Fbh

Member
I mean yeah, in terms of sales it will definitely be affected. $60 for the campaign only (which they seem to have zero confidence in based on how little they have shown) and you can get it on Gamepass.
Wouldn't be surprising if it's the lowest selling game in the franchise.


But as you said, if they do the MP right they can make a ton of money through mtx. So even if it ends up being the lowest selling in pure sales numbers, it might still be the most profitable and financially successful one.
 

Andodalf

Banned
Sales numbers don’t matter at all. If your company is chasing sales numbers you’re a decade behind the curve
 
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