Amended Infinity Ward Lawsuit Details Activision's "Police State"

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

My feelings on the subject? "Secret interrogations" is probably an exaggeration. Withholding the bonus in order to force them to rush MW3? Sadly, I can see Activision doing that. However, I have no idea what the truth actually is, so I'll just have to wait and see.

Of course, the fact that people are attacking Kotick for being the average CEO for the most part doesn't help. Blame the PR people, not Kotick, for his statements. Except the whole "subscriptions for CoD multiplayer". That is pretty damn idiotic and greedy.

 

[Drexlor]

Considering that this is Activision, this wouldn't surprise me one bit.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

At this point it feels like Bobby Kotick is just some actor that Activision hired to direct all the ire and hate away from the REAL CEO who is actually making all these popular decisions. I mean the stuff he says and does is so blatantly stupid and arrogant.

Like the fake Shingas in the Night Angel Trilogy! But in all seriousness,I'm behind Respawn all the way, I hope they get themselves the Modern Warfare brand and make a better game.

 

[phoenix352]

was never a fan of activision.
all this legal mambo jumbo doesnt concern me, acti screwed its employees and thats that.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

Kotick, first horseman of the Apocalypse? Only time will tell.

 

[imgunagitusucka]

Kotick or No Kotick, I would think that 'interrogations' are an exaggeration of the simple fact that Activision wants to know how progress is going over it's most profitable game franchise.

After all, if Activision was actually running such a 'police state-like' environment, don't you think that Infinity Ward employees -- or anyone else working for Activision -- would have left quite a long time ago?

Obviously this wasn't going on during the run of the mill, day to day work of making a video game. The "interrogations" started when activision suspected the IW heads were breaching their contract and looking for a new publisher...EA for those not paying attention. Now IW is a shadow of it's former self, and the Call of Duty franchise pretty much lies in the hands of treyarch. Nicely played activision.

 

[Darth_Dude]

epic snip

I'm more interesting in why you have 3500 posts, have been here for 3 years and are a premium member and you still don't have an avatar?

 

[Darth_Dude]

I go out of my way not to give Activision-Blizzard, Vivendi, or whatever you want to call them a single cent. Now that I quit WoW over Real ID, I think they are seeing a grand total of 0$ out of me.

Lok'tar!

You quit over Real ID? You know that they scrapped that right?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

This is Bobby Kotick we're talking about. The man who said he wanted to "take all the fun out of making video games."

And the same guy who said he wants to make MW2 into a pay-to-play game.

If the gaming industry was a person, Bobby Kotick would be a cigarette. There's simply nothing that man can do that's good for the industry, and if anything he'll piss all over the industry if it'll line his pockets. Oh wait... he kinda already did that to Guitar Hero... >.>

 

[Miumaru]

Let us hope this leads to the fall of Kotick. Viva la revolution!

 

[Mysnomer]

When you have a goose that lays golden eggs, you probably shouldn't subject it to interrogations or withhold it food until it lays another one.

You just keep feeding it and give it its space and it'll keep doing its thing.

I'm sorry, but the irony of this just has to be pointed out:

Story:
"A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it. Then, they thought, they could obtain the whole store of precious metal at once; however, upon cutting the goose open, they found its innards to be like that of any other goose."

Morals:
* Greed destroys the source of good.
* Think before you act.
* Those who want too much lose everything.

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 they expected to be handed hundreds of millions of dollars for creating a bloody video game... well, that's a ridiculous expectation.

Remember, this is the best selling videogame in the history of videogames. As in, ever. And that's in units moved, not sales. Also, I expect the lawsuits pound of flesh is inflated to cover lawyer fees and lost work time while formulating the lawsuit.

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.

I doubt that the average developer expects such a payday, but these guys are on the warpath and after revenge, and happen to be dealing with a politically safe target, it would be stupid and disappointingly naive not to take advantage of that. Also, as it was factored out, these guys aren't getting more than 10 million per person, so you complaints about "a few people get hundreds of millions" are a bit overblown.

PS: I enjoyed your insight on the attitude of Kotick.

 

[narwhalman218]

If this is true I feel we have only scratched the surface of a bigger issue.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

And these are the guys who it's ok to trust RealID with?

Seriously?

 

[Brad Shepard]

At this point it feels like Bobby Kotick is just some actor that Activision hired to direct all the ire and hate away from the REAL CEO who is actually making all these popular decisions. I mean the stuff he says and does is so blatantly stupid and arrogant.

I think we got the next plot for MW3! (Or Assassin's creed 3, which is what i thought at first)

 

[imgunagitusucka]

Kotick or No Kotick, I would think that 'interrogations' are an exaggeration of the simple fact that Activision wants to know how progress is going over it's most profitable game franchise.

After all, if Activision was actually running such a 'police state-like' environment, don't you think that Infinity Ward employees -- or anyone else working for Activision -- would have left quite a long time ago?

Obviously this wasn't going on during the run of the mill, day to day work of making a video game. The "interrogations" started when activision suspected the IW heads were breaching their contract and looking for a new publisher...EA for those not paying attention. Now IW is a shadow of it's former self, and the Call of Duty franchise pretty much lies in the hands of treyarch. Nicely played activision.

Actually, I would say it was nicely played. Depending on how the lawsuit plays out, they will have made $500 million (or what's the estimate now, $216 million?) that they 'should' have paid out (and let's be honest, that's a lot of money).

As for losing Infinity Ward, well I have to say that in my opinion Treyarch has made better Call of Duty games (ignoring, of course, Call of Duty 3).

Now I believe what happens next -- and how this ultimately plays out -- is all in the hands of EA. If you want my prediction as to what will happen, you can read it here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.211016-Activision-EA-IW-and-RE-My-Prediction].

Firstly, the only other COD game treyarch has made besides cod3 is W@W. COD 1,2,4 and MW2 all did better critically and commercially than W@W, which was shit by the way. Also saving a few hundred million bucks at the cost of the money printing machine that IW call of duty games are, is idiocy. As with microsoft trying to make halo games without bungie, activision trying to make COD games without IW will fail.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I can't believe some people are actually taking the side of the publishers because "million dollar bonuses are absurd for people who make video games".

No one honestly deserves a million dollar bonus ever, really. But I'll tell you one thing: if Bobby Kotick is going to take home 10+ million dollars this year for doing his job, why shouldn't the creative people who actually produce his games receive similar type compensation? When you sell enough copies of a game to generate ONE BILLION DOLLARS in revenue, I think 200ish million of that going to the people who made the fucking game isn't too outlandish - especially when you read about the conditions for game makers in today's industry. The hours these people work are absolutely insane, and it IS work.

 

[Baldr]

All this doesn't matter, they are going to settle on a much, much smaller number that will never be released to the public. They better thank their lucky stars that this is taking place in California, any other state and they wouldn't get a dime from Activision.

At the last poster: Most large studios have gone to more mainstream tech workforce that work normal hours, working insane hours is a rarity now.