Kotick is at it again!

     We might as well write a weekly article called 'Kick Kotick in the scrote,' but hes practically doing our job for us.  In a recent interview with Edge magazine, Kotick said EA was doing it wrong by re-naming acquired independent developers:

     "The core principle of how we run the company is the exact opposite of EA," he says. "EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida’, ‘EA Vancouver’, ‘EA New Jersey’, whatever. We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that’s what makes them so successful.' We don’t have an Activision anything - it’s Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer."  - Edge

     Ahem.  I think were forgetting someone.  Some company that Activision owns that they will never ever let anyone forget.  Wait.  It'll come to me in a moment...

     Oh yeah...

      That's right, Activision Blizzard.  Foot in mouth, but still annunciating clearly, Kotick went on to say:



     "That, to me, is one of the unassailable rules of building a publishing company. And in every case except for two, the original founders of the studios are still running the studios today. The only thing that we try to do is to provide a support structure to make them more successful. If you do a really good job - and a lot of our studios do - you get to pick what is, in my view, the most difficult thing to pick in the industry: to make original intellectual property." - Edge

     And now, my last two carefully aimed kicks to the wedding tackle:  First, 'in every case except for two, the original founders of the studios are still running the studios today(West and Zampella, the former heads of InfinityWard, creators of the COD franchise).  And second 'the most difficult thing to pick in the industry: to make original intellectual property.'  Original, eh?  Like endlessly re-releasing the same titles over and over (were on the seventh COD, btw).

Kicks delivered, mission accomplished.   See you next week Mr. Kotick!

Read Edge's full article here.

Posted by SLG_J

Kotick called out by ex bungie exec

 Original post @ Eurogamer

"  Ex-Bungie executive vice president Peter Tamte has attacked Activision CEO Bobby Kotick for his recent claim that Bungie was, "probably the last remaining high quality independent developer."

Speaking in an open letter to Kotick published on Kotaku, Tamte, now president of Atomic Games, said, "You were quoted saying that Bungie is the last remaining high quality independent developer. As a former executive vice president of Bungie, I need to tell you: If this is true, you're screwed.

"Activision and every other big publisher have grown by acquiring independent developers. The industry needs a constant supply of new independent developers to buy because they're the ones creating innovative games that become franchises. 

"Gears of War. Portal. Borderlands. None of these games re-hashes the same old formulas," he continued. "They innovate. And, they're made by independent developers, of course.

"As an independent developer, Atomic can't spend its way to big sales like Activision can. We have to innovate. So, if you're confident Activision can innovate without independent developers, this is your opportunity to prove it." 

It's been rich pickings for Kotick-watchers of late. The Activision boss recently made headlines for voicing his intent to charge gamers for extended cut-scenes, while also claiming the much maligned Tony Hawk: Ride board was his favourite peripheral. 

 

Atomic Games announced Breach in March. It's a multiplayer FPS heading to PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.  "

Posted by SLG_Rady

Bobby Kotick vs. The (Online) World

 Yesterday, Bobby Kotick announced Activision's supremacy with one breath, then trash talked every independent game developer(except Bungie) in the next.  Today(according to his press release for the America Merrill Lynch Media, Comms and Entertainment conference), Activision doesn't really compete with other online gaming companies anymore, stating instead that Facebook is their biggest competitor.

"Our competitor online [is] Facebook in some respects. Even though they don't create content, they provide it. There are a lot of new social gaming companies that are emerging and take mindshare - not from our consumer, [because they're] a different demographic. But there's the potential that some of the social games will start appealing to our consumers so we're making a lot of investments in that area." -  CVG.com

Some relevant stats on the companies Activision no longer competes with online are necessary here, such as PSN's 50 million registered users, or the fact that Microsoft's Xbox Live made $600 million in  a single year due to players paying so they could play Modern Warfare  2 online(delicious, delicious irony).  But well done.  Its really not hard to be the biggest video game producer when your not competing against other video game companies.  Speaking of the merger with Vivendi, Kotick went on to say:

"There [was] so much built-up expertise at Blizzard when we did this merger - that we're now applying to Call Of Duty, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero - that we otherwise wouldn't have had access to. That puts us in a much better position than many of the very console-dependant companies we used to compete against." - CVG.com

Never mind that the whole Activision vs.Infinity Ward, the studio behind the Modern Warfare franchise, or the recent flop of a Tony Hawk game(no offense Mr. Hawk, they screwed you royal), or even that Guitar Hero is in its fifth iteration.  Considering any game they release not solely on PC just feeds their rival companies(the ones there not competing against, don't forget), Activision can't seem to win for loosing.