Pachter also presented an interesting view of Activision's iconic console franchise. "Call of Duty, I'm calling it a failure," said Pachter; a surprising statement about a game which generated $500 million on its first day at retail and over $1 billion in just 15 days. "I know the game sells billions of dollars. Activision did a bad thing with Call of Duty from a profit perspective. They trained gamers that you can buy a game and play it all year, ten hours a week, forever, and you never have to pay again. You just wait for the next Call of Duty. I promise you there are plenty of people, numbering in the millions, who play one game, which is Call of Duty, and they never stop. That's just like the people who play World of Warcraft and never stop, yet the World of Warcraft guys are paying $180 a year, and the Call of Duty guys are paying $60. So who's got a better model? This multiplayer thing being free was a mistake. I don't think anybody ever envisioned it would be this big. It's a mistake because it keeps those people from buying and playing other games."

Activision has already tried to generate recurring revenue for the franchise with Call of Duty Elite, but after running it that way for several months, the company decided to make it free for all Call of Duty players, and return to selling the DLC separately rather than providing it as part of the subscription. That doesn't mean that Activision is done with the idea of recurring revenue for console games, though, according to Pachter. "Prediction: The next Bungie game will be single-player only; the multiplayer aspect of that game will be subscription only," Pachter asserted. "Activision's going to try it, because they're greedy pigs, and they're bold."