Activision Hate Understandable, But Unfair, Says Social Media Guru

[Korolev]

I read the interview and his "bobby" manifesto. He's an employee of Activision so OF COURSE HE WILL SUPPORT ACTIVISION. If he doesn't, he gets fired. So why trust a single thing he says?

Having said that, Activision are no more evil than any other publisher. They're just larger. You think EA, Sony, Microsoft, Square Enix, or any other big publisher wouldn't do exactly the same thing if they had the chance? Of course they would!

Bobby is a business guy. He's not your friend. He doesn't care about you. No businessman with a brain in their head would honestly care about the consumer. They all SAY they do, but they don't. Of course Kotick would love to raise prices. He wasn't joking - any business person, and I do mean ANY business person would LOVE to be able to raise prices as high as they wished. Kotick, however, knows he can't. That's why he said "If it was up to me", because at the end of the day, it isn't up to him - the market sets the price.

I don't like Activision, but I don't hate them anymore than I would any other business. Their job is to make profit. I fail to understand why so many people rage against them. It's not like Activision is raising the price of water or food or education or any necessities. How can they be evil, when the products they distribute and make are so very, very trivial to the health and safety and financial standing of the public? If a water company jacked up the prices of water to an unreasonable level, that WOULD be evil, since water is a necessity. Video games are not necessities, by any stretch of the imagination - they're electronic fun programs. Kotick might be greedy (all business people are), soulless (again, all business people are), but evil? Come on. He's not evil. If you think Kotick is evil, you obviously don't live in the real world.

Mexican Drug Lords? Evil.
Weapons smugglers? Evil.
Despotic tyrant overlords? Evil.
KKK members? Evil.
Fascists? Evil.
Robber Barons and plutocrats? Evil.
An F-ing VIDEO GAME PUBLISHER CEO WHO RAISED THE PRICE OF A GAME? Seriously? You're gonna call that evil?

Activision are greedy. All business are. Kotick is not my friend. I never expected him to be. He will try to raise prices as much as he can. If he does so, then I will not buy his games, and I will let the market sort out the price.

But do I hate him? Hah. You might as well ask if I hate the head of Corning Glass or Canon.

 

[thebreadbinman]

I don't have activision BECAUSE they're big,
I hate them because of HOW they got big:
Making the same shitty game every year.

Same goes for EA Sports.

 

[Dexiro]

They buy out great franchises and run them into the ground, It's perfectly fair that I hate them.

Give back Spyro and Crash at least and I'll be happy.

 

[JDKJ]

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...

Fail how? You can't mean in the business sense of fail because Activision Blizzard ranks first among game publishers in relative earnings (way ahead of both Take-Two and Electronic Arts). If you mean in a creative sense (i.e., they publish crappy rehashes of past titles over and over again) then that's not a "fail" as far as they're concerned. That actually the secret of their business success.

 

[Toraxa]

I love the whole statement. It's only going to bite them in the ass. Essentially, his whole point boils down to "We don't really suck. You're all just too stupid to realize you're jealous of us and dislike us entirely because we're the best."

Insult us, pretend we're dumb, that'll really get us on your side.

People dislike Activision because they have shown repeatedly that they're going to raise prices, find gimmicks to charge people for, and let quality slip until franchises are no longer bringing in money, and then they're going to drop them, possibly their studios, and use whatever money they save to buy out and practically enslave new studios. Heaven forbid we gamers not like to see giant mega-corporations take a "slash and burn" approach with our hobby of choice.

 

[jpoon]

Fuck these script readers, Activision still doesn't deserve peoples dollars. Don't buy into their canned shit games!

 

[LogicNProportion]

*Looks to Imperial Stormtrooper posters. Looks to Space Marine miniatures. Looks to goddamn Big Boss.*

Yes, we all root for the underdog. /sarcasm

No, the fact of the matter is that company or no, your practices have killed a lot of good developers and have released a TON of shit...shit as in poo.

And let's not forget Bobby Kotick, the man himself, who can't help but seemingly troll gamers everywhere with every statement he makes. You could create a new Chaos God with the amount of hate and rage Bobby Kotick can generate with a mere utterance. However, the existing Chaos Gods don't want anything to do with him, so they leave all that emotion on the front door.

He turns Slaanesh off.
Makes Tzeentch go lolwut.
Khorne int oa whimpering pansy.
And he makes Nurgle feel dirty...

I have proven my point...in my mind.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

This article paints gamers as idiots, unable to form educated opinions of their own. Activisions bad press isn't about hating the big guy. It's about horrendous ethics, piss poor treatment of developers, and their products, and a smug jerk in charge who callously makes offhand remarks flaunting it all.

Also Activision would never give prosthetics to orphans unless they were powered by $60 batteries that died and needed to be replaced 2-3 times a year.

 

[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...

Fail how? You can't mean in the business sense of fail because Activision Blizzard ranks first among game publishers in relative earnings (way ahead of both Take-Two and Electronic Arts). If you mean in a creative sense (i.e., they publish crappy rehashes of past titles over and over again) then that's not a "fail" as far as they're concerned. That actually the secret of their business success.

It doesn't matter what they think of themselves or thier business practices. His point was that gamers hate them becuase their not the underdog. That isn't true, it's becuase as you put it 'they just rehash the same game.' Fella needs to be honest with himself he's convincing no one.

 

[DoctorPhil]

Amrich does make a good case: It is very easy to think of Activision as an evil empire, and Kotick as some fiendish despot, just because of the publisher's size and success

I never hated Activision for their size and success, hated Kotick for being an arrogant dick and the company for repeatedly and mercilessly screwing over their customers.

We need more CEO's like the guy from Tripwire, nerdy, ex-modders who make games because they enjoy them and so treat their community and fans with a degree of respect.

Activision got big and successful by repeatedly and mercilessly screwing over their customers and Kotick's an arrogant dick because he's sittin' on top of a big, successful company.

Thank's for agreeing with us, we do indeed have reason to hate them according to you. After all, they're mercilessly screwing over their customers and Kotick's an arrogant dick like you're saying.

 

[dsawyers9]

All this is, is the same thing with music or movies. Games are no exception from the greedy cause. What do I mean by this?
1. I'm an indie punk band, I put out a few singles, people love it. I claim I'm an Indie Punker, but my next album I change my music to what is mainstream and I make millions off my tours, because CD's don't make crap for profit. What happened? Well, I need money and I want to be filthy rich and never have to work after 2-3 years of this crap. LOL at capitalism.

2. Activision: Call of Duty series. I played my first WW2 game from the Medal of Honor Series on the PS2. I got it for X-Mas and I played the hell out of it. I paused and stopped playing a mission because I wanted to listen to the music of the level. It hit home how horrible it must have been to be a soldier in WW2 in Germany. That was a great game. I played the first CoD game: CoD MW on the Xbox. Great game.

Now I noticed two things:
1. CoD has started to fall apart, the last 2 games sucked more than ever. That's right, I didn't like MW2 for Online play.
2. The underdog is no more for FPS games. About the only game series which is an underdog is Serious Sam and even then it could be doubtful. I love that series. CoD however, I do not.

I don't hate Activision for what it puts out, I hate them like I hate sony: they're sue happy. They have the money and they push and push until you're out of money and guess what, their lawyers will win. This isn't their fault, its our judicial system. Things need to be brought to an end quick, not stretched out for years because the other side wasn't prepared or is finding loopholes.

 

[pneuma08]

This guy is dismissing the complaints out of hand. He says nothing of the terrible and destructive relationship it maintains with its studios and the franchises it controls. These reactions are not "knee-jerk".

 

[MightyMole]

Oh my gosh, you're so right! How could I be so misguided! I was wrong to think that Activision's business model was making mediocre sequels for quick cash ins. Its unfair of me to expect a gaming company to actually develop a game worth the $60 I'm expected to pay, and not just release some cruddy expansion pack. What a fool I've been! Excuse me while I go pre-order Call of Duty 10, Tony Hawk 12, Guitar Hero 9, Spiderman 6, Spyro the Dragon 5, and Prototype 2. I can't wait to experience the same games I've experienced 10 times before... Again!

/sarcasm

Screw you Activision

 

[JDKJ]

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...

Fail how? You can't mean in the business sense of fail because Activision Blizzard ranks first among game publishers in relative earnings (way ahead of both Take-Two and Electronic Arts). If you mean in a creative sense (i.e., they publish crappy rehashes of past titles over and over again) then that's not a "fail" as far as they're concerned. That actually the secret of their business success.

It doesn't matter what they think of themselves or thier business practices. His point was that gamers hate them becuase their not the underdog. That isn't true, it's becuase as you put it 'they just rehash the same game.' Fella needs to be honest with himself he's convincing no one.

I dunno. I kinda like the "haters gonna hate" argument. Can you tell? It has a certain Kanye West-esque ring to it that appeals to me.

 

[DoctorPhil]

I don't hate Activision for what it puts out, I hate them like I hate sony: they're sue happy. They have the money and they push and push until you're out of money and guess what, their lawyers will win. This isn't their fault, its our judicial system. Things need to be brought to an end quick, not stretched out for years because the other side wasn't prepared or is finding loopholes.

It's basically extortion.

 

[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...

Fail how? You can't mean in the business sense of fail because Activision Blizzard ranks first among game publishers in relative earnings (way ahead of both Take-Two and Electronic Arts). If you mean in a creative sense (i.e., they publish crappy rehashes of past titles over and over again) then that's not a "fail" as far as they're concerned. That actually the secret of their business success.

It doesn't matter what they think of themselves or thier business practices. His point was that gamers hate them becuase their not the underdog. That isn't true, it's becuase as you put it 'they just rehash the same game.' Fella needs to be honest with himself he's convincing no one.

I dunno. I kinda like the "haters gonna hate" argument. Can you tell? It has a certain Kanye West-esque ring to it that appeals to me.

If he was honest about why they hate them then I'd go for that sure, but hes just made himself sound like a whiny child making up stupid reasons.

 

[JDKJ]

Amrich does make a good case: It is very easy to think of Activision as an evil empire, and Kotick as some fiendish despot, just because of the publisher's size and success

I never hated Activision for their size and success, hated Kotick for being an arrogant dick and the company for repeatedly and mercilessly screwing over their customers.

We need more CEO's like the guy from Tripwire, nerdy, ex-modders who make games because they enjoy them and so treat their community and fans with a degree of respect.

Activision got big and successful by repeatedly and mercilessly screwing over their customers and Kotick's an arrogant dick because he's sittin' on top of a big, successful company.

Thank's for agreeing with us, we do indeed have reason to hate them according to you. After all, they're mercilessly screwing over their customers and Kotick's an arrogant dick like you're saying.

You left out the "big and successful" part I said couldn't be easily divorced from the other parts.

 

[RaikuFA]

Activision aren't evil, they're just shit.

They are the company who recently said they will not be investing in any new IP's and instead go on to start making FIVE call of duty products at once. They treat gamers as cattle, not people.

Activision, you are but a shell of what you once were and are now as bad as the company you originally spawned from.

thank you!!!

/thread

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

Ah, yes, the best way towards a better image is honest conversation.
Such as a conversation that consists of you constructing made-up reasons why people hate you, while not even adressing ONE substantial complaint that people usually bring forth against you.

Reminds me of the last honest conversation I had with my girlfriend. She was shouting at me for sleeping for her sister and I told her to calm down, because her problem is obviously simply that my **** is too large for her.