Well, I have mixed opinions about all of this. On one hand I think some aspects of this are fundementally ridiculous to begin with. When we're dealing with a design team that is claiming that that expected to be handed hundreds of millions of dollars for creating a bloody video game... well, that's a ridiculous expectation. It gets to the heart of things that John Funk and myself periodically argue about back and forth about the greed of the industry and how much these guys are taking home, and what that says about the profits, and the high prices that we're seeing as consumers. For all arguements about how prices "haven't really raised in years", $60 is a decent chunk of change, one that they claim is needed because of the rising expenses in making games, but here we are seeing that one of those expenses are employees expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
HOWEVER despite how that might read, the bottom line is that within the cosm of the deal itself, if Bobby Kotick/Activision promised that money, the people who did the work have every right to receive it. The sheer ridiculous, staggering amount of money, being demanded by game coders (admittedly en masse) being an issue. If this is a bit differant from how it sounds and most of this money is going to only a handfull of people, well that's actually worse when it comes to the sheer insanity of the situation. Whether it's a couple hundred people walking away with a few hundred thousand dollars apiece, or a couple of guys collecting a couple hundred million apiece, the simple fact that anyone expects a payday like that for making video games is ridiculous.... especially seeing as the burden for covering those paydays falls on me, the consumer, after all in the end those paydays are covered by the price I'm being charged for the games.
As far as Bobby Kotick's attitude goes, I think it comes down to a corperate version of realpolitick which is actually respected by some (though not by us sheeplike consumers). It's just rare to see it used so openly in the media, though I get the impression that's something that "hip" big wigs are doing nowadays (sort of like some of Sony's "gaffs"). It's similar to the whole "I'm such a cool white guy, I can get away with calling black guys the 'N' word", which Howard Stern originated. The basic point being that Bobby Kotick is showing that he can act this way, but his product is so valued and needed by an "addicted" consumer base that it doesn't matter because he can sell games like "Modern Warfare" anyway.
To some extent I think it's a throwback to the 1980s "Mega-Corperation" mentality that spawned various "Dark Future" concepts, "Cyberpunk", and of course movies like "Wall Street" with it's famous "Greed is good" speech and what that meant in the context of the movie.
Interestingly we're already seeing closed corperate cultures, in a few places corperations can even act almost like private nations on their own property. Every once in a while you see a bit of news that has people saying "OMG, Cyberpunk 2020 (or Shadowrun) is here" if they are big enough nerds. Right now we have big companies forming Private Military Contractors as one of their many holdings. The next step is of course going to be when we see these groups being used more aggressively on the holdings of corperations in the third world (and to expand their influance) we see a bit of this already, but nothing all that overt. The real doomsday will be when say a corperation like Sony actually has the power to go to someplace like the UK, and declare it's own holdings old school San Francisco "Police Special" type districts and flagrantly violate the gun control laws of the rest of the nation while running their own internal court systems for employees complete with jails and the death penelty.... we're a long way from that, but you know what they say about baby steps, people talk about "Skynet" whenever someone does something cool with computers... well this one is actually closer though it's not happening as fast as some speculative fiction thought it would.
... the point of this rant is that Bobby Kotick is pretty much a sign of the times. Whether he falls eventually or not, the bottom line is that he's demonstrating his abillity to publically act like a cutthroat businessman with little or no respect for his employees or customers (other than what money they bring in) and still succeed at least for a time. The thing is I don't doubt his honesty in what he says and how he acts, it's just that the stuff he says is the kind of thing typically only said behind closed doors to other people in business with you in one way or another, hence the analogy to how Howard Stern has acted. He can be offensive and get away with it because he's Bobby Kotick, and even if hated people are STILL going to buy his products... and so far he's right. Looking at all the "Modern Warfare 2" addicts, when part 3 comes along does anyone think people are not going to buy it because of Bobby Kotick? The most you might hear is "I hate that guy, but I'm going to line his pockets anyway". Until that changes he's going to keep right on doing what he does.
HOWEVER despite how that might read, the bottom line is that within the cosm of the deal itself, if Bobby Kotick/Activision promised that money, the people who did the work have every right to receive it. The sheer ridiculous, staggering amount of money, being demanded by game coders (admittedly en masse) being an issue. If this is a bit differant from how it sounds and most of this money is going to only a handfull of people, well that's actually worse when it comes to the sheer insanity of the situation. Whether it's a couple hundred people walking away with a few hundred thousand dollars apiece, or a couple of guys collecting a couple hundred million apiece, the simple fact that anyone expects a payday like that for making video games is ridiculous.... especially seeing as the burden for covering those paydays falls on me, the consumer, after all in the end those paydays are covered by the price I'm being charged for the games.
As far as Bobby Kotick's attitude goes, I think it comes down to a corperate version of realpolitick which is actually respected by some (though not by us sheeplike consumers). It's just rare to see it used so openly in the media, though I get the impression that's something that "hip" big wigs are doing nowadays (sort of like some of Sony's "gaffs"). It's similar to the whole "I'm such a cool white guy, I can get away with calling black guys the 'N' word", which Howard Stern originated. The basic point being that Bobby Kotick is showing that he can act this way, but his product is so valued and needed by an "addicted" consumer base that it doesn't matter because he can sell games like "Modern Warfare" anyway.
To some extent I think it's a throwback to the 1980s "Mega-Corperation" mentality that spawned various "Dark Future" concepts, "Cyberpunk", and of course movies like "Wall Street" with it's famous "Greed is good" speech and what that meant in the context of the movie.
Interestingly we're already seeing closed corperate cultures, in a few places corperations can even act almost like private nations on their own property. Every once in a while you see a bit of news that has people saying "OMG, Cyberpunk 2020 (or Shadowrun) is here" if they are big enough nerds. Right now we have big companies forming Private Military Contractors as one of their many holdings. The next step is of course going to be when we see these groups being used more aggressively on the holdings of corperations in the third world (and to expand their influance) we see a bit of this already, but nothing all that overt. The real doomsday will be when say a corperation like Sony actually has the power to go to someplace like the UK, and declare it's own holdings old school San Francisco "Police Special" type districts and flagrantly violate the gun control laws of the rest of the nation while running their own internal court systems for employees complete with jails and the death penelty.... we're a long way from that, but you know what they say about baby steps, people talk about "Skynet" whenever someone does something cool with computers... well this one is actually closer though it's not happening as fast as some speculative fiction thought it would.
... the point of this rant is that Bobby Kotick is pretty much a sign of the times. Whether he falls eventually or not, the bottom line is that he's demonstrating his abillity to publically act like a cutthroat businessman with little or no respect for his employees or customers (other than what money they bring in) and still succeed at least for a time. The thing is I don't doubt his honesty in what he says and how he acts, it's just that the stuff he says is the kind of thing typically only said behind closed doors to other people in business with you in one way or another, hence the analogy to how Howard Stern has acted. He can be offensive and get away with it because he's Bobby Kotick, and even if hated people are STILL going to buy his products... and so far he's right. Looking at all the "Modern Warfare 2" addicts, when part 3 comes along does anyone think people are not going to buy it because of Bobby Kotick? The most you might hear is "I hate that guy, but I'm going to line his pockets anyway". Until that changes he's going to keep right on doing what he does.