PAX East 2011: Activision Doesn't Run Internal Studios With Iron Fist

[SaintWaldo]

Professions under even the appearance of duress are of reasonably doubtful veracity. They have to know this. Yet they still feel the need to dog and pony.

Methinks and protests and ladies and yada yada yada...

Smell test, failed.

 

[hansari]

Now lets hear the opinions of former Bizarre Creations developers and others that have left Activision in the past...

This really doesn't get us anywhere...there's just too little transparency in the video game industry...

 

[happyelf]

Why was this reported as news when it's clearly promotional material? I guess it's about the same as running cutscene promos and such, but it's clearly not presenting itself as such and I find that misleading.

 

[Sylocat]

Wow, the people whose paychecks Activision controls are saying nice things about them. What a shocker! I guess that thing with Infinity Ward was just a big misunderstanding, and they have perfectly good reasons to spend more on lawsuits than games [http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Activision+Lawsuit], and it's pure coincidence that every studio they buy immediately starts churning out cookie-cutter sequels.

Oh, and in case you've all forgotten: Raven just laid off a quarter of their staff.

 

[Nurb]

*COUGH* bullshit! *COUGH*

Everything that Kotick's been quoted saying has proven otherwise

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Ok to be honest you never say thing like "I want to take the fun out of making videogames". I mean there is taking thigns out of context and then there are things you just don't say. Maybe it isn't that bad I don't know for sure but he needs to keep his mouth closed sometimes. Although must be a slow day in the news room.

 

[Sean Strife]

These are all lies! Lies and propaganda!

We need somebody to hate, to make ourselves feel better. Don't take that away from us.

Hate BioWare, then. They seem to be showing their true colors as of late.

...if you don't want to hate them, you COULD always hate Zynga, given their past business practices. As for me, while Kotick can be a bit of a douchebag, I did support them by buying Blur. Damn shame Bizarre Creations went under, though.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

I call bullshit. Those representatives of various developers under the Activision banner were more than likely saying those things because their jobs were on the line.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Tell that to IW, oh wait. They don't exist anymore.

 

[Jumwa]

Nobody with more sense than emotion would say something negative about their boss, or even a former boss.

In the small world of game development there aren't a lot of options for who to publish your game. Not to mention ticking off the largest and most powerful one of them all likely would be a poor choice.

Not only that but it might make future employers less willing to work with you if they think you might trash on them publicly. Or they might see YOU as the trouble maker because of your ill feelings towards your employer and your inability to let-go even after leaving.

Any theories about them being paid to say this or the odd panel discussing this delightful PR topic aside, what else would you expect them to say about their current or past employer?

 

[Doclector]

I seem to remember them trying to steal many studios IP including, oddly, a paintballing title baring it' creators name, Suing Tim-schafer and trying to make Brutal Legand a Gitar Hero title and utilising multiple studios to turn out music games at an alarming rate.

I guess if this is true then the lack of new IPs and general fall in quality is really the fault of multiple developers all suffering from the same coinicdenal problem who just happen to be part of the mega-publisher? I don't buy it.

I have to agree, the way activision operates is just too damn contradictory to what's being said. Maybe they don't treat their workers as bad as we think, but it simply doesn't change what's in plain sight, and that's a company which looks for franchise potential in games, sucks every last bit of money out of it, and when it's no longer profitable enough, dumps it and it's creators like they never did anything for em.

 

[Jumwa]

I hate to sound negative, but to add: why does the Escapist post these sorts of things without any thought or analysis?

It's far too close a mimicry of the mainstream news media who posts PR press releases verbatim.

This isn't even some games promotional material, it's just employees of a company giving corporate PR completely divorced from the products.

 

[Syntax Error]

This still isn't enough to make Bobby Kotick any less of a jerk, nor Activision itself from being an ass to Infinity Ward.

 

[Delusibeta]

These are all lies! Lies and propaganda!

We need somebody to hate, to make ourselves feel better. Don't take that away from us.

Hate BioWare, then. They seem to be showing their true colors as of late.

...if you don't want to hate them, you COULD always hate Zynga, given their past business practices. As for me, while Kotick can be a bit of a douchebag, I did support them by buying Blur. Damn shame Bizarre Creations went under, though.

...

I blame Activision for Bizarre going under, for sending Blur out to die and completely failing to give Bloodstone any publicity, hence I'm going to say you're wrong.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

I wouldn't bite the hand that feeds either.

Especially since that hand would sue.

 

[Natdaprat]

These are all lies! Lies and propaganda!

We need somebody to hate, to make ourselves feel better. Don't take that away from us.

Hate BioWare, then. They seem to be showing their true colors as of late.

...if you don't want to hate them, you COULD always hate Zynga, given their past business practices. As for me, while Kotick can be a bit of a douchebag, I did support them by buying Blur. Damn shame Bizarre Creations went under, though.

That is a damn good point. There's plenty of heartless game developers out there! BioWare seems to be selling out to the consoles (making their RPGs very simple), and Zynga are destroying the game industry by diverting attention to social games. Activision, you will have friends in hell.

 

[Sean Strife]

These are all lies! Lies and propaganda!

We need somebody to hate, to make ourselves feel better. Don't take that away from us.

Hate BioWare, then. They seem to be showing their true colors as of late.

...if you don't want to hate them, you COULD always hate Zynga, given their past business practices. As for me, while Kotick can be a bit of a douchebag, I did support them by buying Blur. Damn shame Bizarre Creations went under, though.

That is a damn good point. There's plenty of heartless game developers out there! BioWare seems to be selling out to the consoles (making their RPGs very simple), and Zynga are destroying the game industry by diverting attention to social games. Activision, you will have friends in hell.

Well, not so much Bioware selling out to consoles as it is the way they've been carrying themselves with the negative reviews Dragon Age II has gotten (ie; like total douchebags), and Zynga's not so much destroying the game industry as it is just promoting very shady business tactics (ie; scamming their customers to raise their company to the top of their industry and being unapologetic about it).

It's amazing how far Bioware's come: last year, they were in the finals of March Mayhem with Valve. This year, I don't see them making it very far. If they make it out of the first round, second round will probably be the end of the line for them.

These are all lies! Lies and propaganda!

We need somebody to hate, to make ourselves feel better. Don't take that away from us.

Hate BioWare, then. They seem to be showing their true colors as of late.

...if you don't want to hate them, you COULD always hate Zynga, given their past business practices. As for me, while Kotick can be a bit of a douchebag, I did support them by buying Blur. Damn shame Bizarre Creations went under, though.

...

I blame Activision for Bizarre going under, for sending Blur out to die and completely failing to give Bloodstone any publicity, hence I'm going to say you're wrong.

I'm not saying Activision's a saint. I'm just saying if the hate towards Activision is unwarranted, there ARE other companies who warrant the hate.

 

[Baresark]

No one thinks he runs the internal studios with an iron fist... they get six freakin' years between releases... he clearly isn't iron fisted. But that isn't a reason to not like Activision. We hate Activision for Activision, not for Bobby Kotick. We do, however, hate it when he makes stupid public statements about the industry and acts like they are fact and not his opinion.

 

[Natdaprat]

These are all lies! Lies and propaganda!

We need somebody to hate, to make ourselves feel better. Don't take that away from us.

Hate BioWare, then. They seem to be showing their true colors as of late.

...if you don't want to hate them, you COULD always hate Zynga, given their past business practices. As for me, while Kotick can be a bit of a douchebag, I did support them by buying Blur. Damn shame Bizarre Creations went under, though.

That is a damn good point. There's plenty of heartless game developers out there! BioWare seems to be selling out to the consoles (making their RPGs very simple), and Zynga are destroying the game industry by diverting attention to social games. Activision, you will have friends in hell.

Well, not so much Bioware selling out to consoles as it is the way they've been carrying themselves with the negative reviews Dragon Age II has gotten (ie; like total douchebags), and Zynga's not so much destroying the game industry as it is just promoting very shady business tactics (ie; scamming their customers to raise their company to the top of their industry and being unapologetic about it).

It's amazing how far Bioware's come: last year, they were in the finals of March Mayhem with Valve. This year, I don't see them making it very far. If they make it out of the first round, second round will probably be the end of the line for them.

The glorious thing about hate is you can hate for whatever reason you like. Sometimes, you don't even know why you hate. Activision I dislike at times, but overall, they've brought me some good games and hopefully some more. They're not quite the devil, not yet. That doesn't mean I like them.

Well yes, lately there's many reasons to dislike BioWare. For one, their stories are all the same and are riddled with clichés. They are just told extremely well. And with Dragon Age 2, they changed a game that wasn't broken, simplified the combat and filled it with so many video game clichés I got bored. This annoyed a good chunk of gamers. The negative/mediocre reviews mostly confirm this. I wouldn't be so sure to predict how well they do in March Mayhem, there's still a lot of fanboys out there.