Eric Hirshberg said:
"I think that sometimes people misperceive that as somehow being risk-averse, and yet we?re taking some of the biggest risks in new genres and new business models and new IPs than anybody."
Good use of PR speak here.
Protip: Anytime you see the words "I think..." preface a public statement, the speaker is covering their own ass.
It's not a guaranteed tell for falsehood, but it's a very common one and one of the oldest tricks in the book.
(politicians use this -all the time-, along with the "memory" qualifier so they can change their story if someone finds evidence that disproves it. It even works in legal testimony!)
Case in point, without those two magical words, his "opinion" would become a statement, and a very FALSE statement at that; a total lie in this case. In the context of such an argument, Activision is by far *THE SAFEST* most conservative AAA Publisher in the business right now.
Pray tell what "new genres", "new business models" and "new IPs" he's referring to?
Because none of Activision-Blizzard's biggest breadwinners fit any of those criteria. Not even remotely.
Article said:
Hirshberg cited Skylanders as an example of a risk, saying the franchise is not only a new IP, but a new genre of play that was still unproven 18 months ago.
Wow.
This isn't even, "Grasping at straws", it's "Grasping at nothing".
Activision, just because you're scalping parents by charging for individual characters in your new Spyro series doesn't suddenly make the content of the game incomparably original. Underneath that disgusting marketing scheme, it's still Spyro the Dragon.
Oh, and claiming that Skylanders is a new "genre unproven 18 months ago", who the hell are you trying to fool?
3rd person platformers/brawlers are not "new" or "unproven".
Rewind even a decade and you will still be stumbling all over them.
To use an analogy, this would be like if Pepsi-Cola took plain old Root Beer, changed the label to "Old Timey Fizzy Drink" and then claimed how it's a COMPLETELY new and original
flavor of soda.
Hirshberg said:
"I think Bungie is a pretty special group of creative people and they?ve had a very good track record of games that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful," Hirshberg said. "[You] can see the ambitiousness of the concept and in order to bring that concept to life it?s been a big investment.
"It's a partnership that takes both an Activision and a Bungie to bring to life."
What is this other than a plug for Destiny?
And please stop wanking your company's "relationship" with Bungie like it's something special, because it's not.
Bungie created Halo under Microsoft for a solid decade. I fail to see what changed besides who signs their checks.
Fuck, Destiny even looks like Halo.
TL;DR:
Activision's corporate PR goon lies through his teeth to make his company look better under the pretense of refuting a bad reputation. A reputation they rightly deserve.
