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Bobby Kotick is the Worst Man in Gaming

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Storm Rider:
Check this interview out, it's insane.

The overall theme of the presentation was how making the most profitable third party publisher depended on creating "a company culture infused with skepticism, pessimism, and fear."


--- Quote ---When he wasn't promoting the company's games or technology, Kotick was celebrating its laserlike focus on the bottom line. He pointed to changes he implemented in the past as being particularly beneficial, such as designing the employee incentive program so it "really rewards profit and nothing else."

"You have studio heads who five years ago didn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO's office pretty regularly," Kotick said.

He later added, "We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
--- End quote ---

Considering Activision's recent habit of pumping out yearly sequels regardless of quality and bundling as many games with overpriced peripherals as possible, it's not really surprising to find out he has this sort of management style. What's really shocking to me is what obvious contempt he has for the creative process of making video games, to the point where he would actually say things like this on the record. It isn't covered in this article, but I saw in a different summary of the same presentation that Activision properties are so locked into the yearly-sequel demand that any ideas for any game that can't be put in on time and on budget are cut and saved for the inevitable following sequel.

Of course, now that EA is actually fostering good, healthy relationships with developers under Riccitello, they're having financial problems while Activision rakes in the cash.

KvP:
Over at yon Obsidian, an independent game developer, some of the staff weighed in on the comments about a week ago.


--- Quote from: Matt Rorie, PR guy and former Gamespot dude ---In this kind of economy I can see his point. You shouldn't be going to work for a publisher with the expectation that you're going to be playing video games all day; you should be trying to make money.

Which isn't to say that there shouldn't be fun benefits to working at a publisher, but in the end your goal is to deliver products that make a lot of money for your shareholders.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote from: JE Sawyer, Fallout: New Vegas Project Lead ---"During a 45-minute presentation today at the Deutsche Bank Securities"

This explains the motivation for every single thing he said.
--- End quote ---

Industry perspective!

Ikrik:
Oh man, don't even get me started on Activision.  Here's some more.

1.  When they merged with Vivendi they dropped almost every single one of their games: 50 Cent, Wet, Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend and a few others.  All these games were picked up but they dropped them because they didn't have the potential for yearly sequels.

2. Bobby Kotick hates new IPs.  New IP's don't normally sell well.  

3.  Modern Warfare 2 is 10 pounds more expensive in Europe than a normal game is.  It's still selling like crazy.  When asked about game prices Bobby Kotick said "I would raise them higher if I could."  

4. Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition: $120, Tony Hawk Ride: $120, Guitar Hero 5: $200, DJ Hero: $120.

5. After they realized that Brutal Legend wasn't something like Guitar Hero they refused to fund any more money on it.  When they dropped it EA decided to pick it up.

6.  After EA picked it up and Brutal Legend started getting heavy attention, Activision attempted to sue Double Fine Studio.

7. Bobby Kotick doesn't even play video games and has never played a video game he has produced.  He sometimes tries to deny this.

8.  There's a quote of him saying that his goal was "to take the fun out of making video games."

9.  Bobby Kotick couldn't care less about you.  At all.  The only thing he cares about less than videogames is you.  

That's been boiling inside me for quite some time.  After I heard a lot about Kotick and what he's been doing I've decided to never pick up an Activision product ever again.  Not as long as Bobby Kotick is in charge.  

The one really sad thing though is that Bobby Kotick made over 15 million dollars last year.  So he can say whatever he wants because, for the next little while, people are going to buy Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk.

JD:
Man I don't even remember the last Activision game I bought.

Alex C:
I just don't understand the "a company culture infused with skepticism, pessimism, and fear," part. Oh, I understand that at times the gaming industry has had a lot of overlap and shared history with things like the dotcom boom, and so there's been some spectacular failures and wastefulness in the industry's past. Stories of guys playing around with nerf weapons on the company dollar abound. I mean, shit, we've all heard about Romero and Ionstorm Dallas. So I can understand why someone would want to send the message to shareholders that he runs a tight ship that will be ran like a business rather than a retreat. But at the end of the day, there's a million ways he could have span that message so he didn't sound cartoonishly evil but he didn't.

As for the other stuff, honestly, it doesn't hit me as really that bad. Making money has never been the same thing as making people happy.

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