Activision Hate Understandable, But Unfair, Says Social Media Guru

[acosn]

I don't like them because they're in the best position anyone can hope for. They have the constantly revenue stream from WoW,

That's not true, if what the guys at Blizzard are to be believed - that they have complete autonomy or something.

Sad thing is, there's a company that's not doing anything productive with an ever-growing mound of money either.

That's not how a corporation works.

All that money isn't going right back into the company.

 

[Mantonio]

Understandable? Yes.

Unfair? Not at all.

Why can they not take into account that Activision actually are that bad?

Is it really such an elephant in the room?

 

[Wayward Sean]

It must be nice to brush off any criticisms by saying, "It's not fair, I'm so perfect, but everyone's against me!" Perhaps if people are disenchanted with you, there's a reason. Instead of paying someone to make a statement about how our issues with their company are unfounded and psychologically childish, perhaps they could listen to the complaints, try to fix the problems, and then see if the anger continues. I don't really need to state my dislikes for the company since most people share my unhappiness, but suffice it to say, if Activision were to read through gamer forums and try to fix even a couple of the complaints, the hating would probably diminish (regardless of company size).

Also, just saying, I don't like Activision and haven't for a long time, and until now I did not realize that they were the largest game developer.

 

[Bags159]

I don't hate activision because they're big. I hate activision because they make shit games. They absolutely ruined CoD, nowadays it's just a half-broken FPS staggering about waiting for it's SP to finally drop off and it's sales to plummet.

Are you implying that Call of Duty was ever good?

I don't love Activision, but I can't say I hate them. Reactions towards Activision are always fun to read, though.

Call of Duty 4. It is the ONLY game on my top five of all time to have multiplayer, and it got there despite me never playing said multiplayer.

Ahh, so you just have really low standards then? I personally believe it had a really bland art direction and story, but to each his own I guess. However, at that point isn't the franchise already being whored out? I mean that was the fourth in the series.

 

[Dastardly]

Unfortunately, the difficulty with better communication, he said, was getting gamers to listen and not reject Activision's efforts with a "knee-jerk" reaction. "Activision could be giving orphan kids prosthetic limbs," he said. "And you'd still have haters who say they're building a cybernetic army for their own nefarious purposes. Some people are going to hate because hating is more fun."

Great. Activision clearly believes all orphans are amputees, or that all amputees are orphans.

I like that the guy isn't necessarily defending Activision. He's just saying that a lot of the bad press, or more particularly the tone of that bad press, is unwarranted and sensationalized. I can agree with that.

People irrationally hate Kotick the same way MovieBob irrationally hates Transformers--it's not the hatred that is irrational, but the degree and scope of that hatred, and its resistance to reason.

 

[maantren]

The issue is that commercial success and artistic quality are not always the same thing, and that in order to be so big Activision will prioritise what they think will give them commercial quality - and that might involve artistic quality, but not neccessarily.

It is exactly the same thing as any other successful publisher out there is doing. Activision just somewhat sucked at maintaining the fairy tale of that their management cares more about games than about money.

And in the end: it's just more fun to envision an evil corporation on the brink of world domination, led by Satan in human guise.

Thank you for bringing sanity to this thread. Activision - like EA, Sony, and Microsoft (though not necessarily like Valve, for various reasons)- is a large corporation ultimately driven by shareholder return. By most measures they're very good at this, especially because they don't operate like sensitive game dev 'artists' when it comes to commercial decisions. When Bobby Kotick was talking about 'taking the fun' out of game dev, he was speaking to investors and was essentially saying that he wanted to minimize the fly-by-night project management practices that see so many games go off the rails. In other words, as Kargathia says, doing exactly what every other successful publisher with a brain is also trying to do.

You can hate Activision all you want - they may or may not be a nice place to work, and may or may not be milking their franchises too much - but the Evil Empire stuff just seems childish IMO.

Cheers

Colin

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

I don't hate activision because they're big. I hate activision because they make shit games. They absolutely ruined CoD, nowadays it's just a half-broken FPS staggering about waiting for it's SP to finally drop off and it's sales to plummet.

Are you implying that Call of Duty was ever good?

I don't love Activision, but I can't say I hate them. Reactions towards Activision are always fun to read, though.

Nope those are Activision/blizzard games but you know that.

 

[maantren]

Also, in re Valve: remember that Valve is privately held and effectively doesn't have external shareholders. In other words, they don't answer to anyone financially. This makes a HUGE difference in how you can run a company. All the other big players have to factor in public shareholders or people like Vivendi.

Cheers

Colin

 

[Antari]

Its very simple. You hired on Bobby Kotick. And we all hate you now. Why is there so much confusion on this issue? Bad press comes with bad business decisions. And yes, he is the man at the top, its his responsibility to set the company's direction.

 

[KuwaSanjuro]

Remember they're not just Activision, they're Activision-Blizzard. Blizzard are one of the best devleopers for the PC, because they have all the money the two companies make together to fund games like WoW, StarCraft II and Diablo III.

 

[Findlebob]

Activision please! I'm Sorry!!

Wish i could unsee that.

 

[JDKJ]

snip

Do explain how it works then. Just saying I'm wrong isn't informative in the slightest.

Be careful what you ask for -- you might get it. Around here, positions rarely get stated with any more sophistication than: "You're wrong because you're a frickin' [fill in the blank] fanboy and a dildo-head!! And because I said so, damn it!!"

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Wow.

That was really horrible and childish. In my head I kind of imagined his with a stroppy face crossing his arms. 'The only reason you don't like us is becuase we're not the underdog' You just keep telling yourself that love. /pat I bet his mummy tells him he's special too.

It's not that you just fail or anything...

 

[Vrach]

Funny...you'd think they were reading from the same script...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106177-Activision-Hate-Not-Based-in-Reality-Says-Activision

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.266044-Activision-Co-Founder-Says-Anti-Activision-Sentiment-is-A-Little-Bit-Strong

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.277291-Activision-Were-Still-the-Same-Fun-Bunch-of-Guys

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.270192-PAX-East-2011-Activision-Doesnt-Run-Internal-Studios-With-Iron-Fist

I wonder who wrote that script...

Call of Duty: PR Ops

Their awesomeness at creating the same crap over and over is not limited to game development

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I don't hate Activision because it's large. Good for them! I hate Activision because they crank out mediocre games on an assembly line like Model-Ts.