Infinity Ward apparently does not fear the wrath of their supreme overlord Bobby Kotick, because the company subtly poked a little fun at the Activision CEO at a recent Modern Warfare 2 event.
There are some brave souls at Infinity Ward, I have to admit. If they're willing to rib Bobby Kotick - even in the most barely noticeable and super-subtle way - they've got to have some hearts of iron.
You might remember earlier this week when Mr. Kotick decided to make himself even more transparently hate-able by saying some pretty crazy stuff during a presentation at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference. He made clear that he has designed his company to treat employees so that it "really rewards profit and nothing else," which okay, dude's running a business, so that's not surprising. But then Kotick said some somewhat creepy stuff, describing how he maintains a company culture that is grounded in feelings of "skepticism, pessimism and fear."
Kotick thinks that's appropriate considering our current economic condition, but what ever happened to a happy worker is a good worker?
I'm guessing the folks at Inifnity Ward (otherwise known as I-Dub) are happy enough, because they don't seem to be skeptical, pessimistic or fearful, certainly not of Kotick. During a presentation at a Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer press event, community manager Robert Bowling showed off the game's custom class selection menu, which included three classes he possibly created named Skepticism, Pessimism and Fear.
Fear, apparently, carries an M4A1, a rocket launcher, two flash grenades, Tactical Insertion and Perks for increased melee distance, easier Killstreaks and "full resupply from dead enemies."
Do you see this, Bobby Kotick? These people are not afraid. At least until you give them a personal phone call and scare the living bejeezus out of them, they are not afraid.
More Fun To Compute: They hid the message in a game which is one place that Kotick would never look as he has no interest in games at all. They are safe.
That actually makes sense. Those guys at I-Dub, so clever.
More Fun To Compute: They hid the message in a game which is one place that Kotick would never look as he has no interest in games at all. They are safe.
Exactly what I was thinking. They won't get caught. Kotick only cares about money, he could care less about the actual game or its content.
More Fun To Compute: They hid the message in a game which is one place that Kotick would never look as he has no interest in games at all. They are safe.
Exactly what I was thinking. They won't get caught. Kotick only cares about money, he could care less about the actual game or its content.
Those guys are simply geniuses. Not only do they hold the most powerful franchise of Activision, but they also mock at Kotick as if he's just another big company CEO who fills his pockets and survives on take-aways. Oh, wait ...
I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
Clearly it's shuriken. If they're having dual wielding desert eagles, why not have ninja-wannabes?
Bayonet-spear, or dual wield spears, or rocket launcher full of shurikens and spears and I'll buy this game. Anyway my bet-on-Duke sense just kicked in after reading about these dual wield desert eagles. I'll buy it anyway.
Deviluk: I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
That is because it'll ruin competitive gaming. If you want to zoom out play custom maps which allow it.
I suppose when you're responsible for one of the three products that keeps Koprick in new suits you can afford to be cheeky.
Random thought, back in the day Atari's game studio worked on ruthless principals of keeping it's developers constantly over worked and giving them as little credit and pay as possible, whilst leaving their jobs under constant threat. They churned out masses of crap at an enormous rate and were the biggest publisher in gaming. Then some of their higher up developers decided they'd had enough of constantly living in fear of abuse from the bosses so they quit. After they'd quit they formed an independent studio with the intention of giving everyone including the customers a fair deal, they called themselves Activision. Funny how things change.
ha. Really they shoudl make all the enemy's faces become his with a few fips of a joystick and taps on the buttons, aka. through a cheat you get to shoot kotick in game. That would be sweet! I would buy the system and game and everything for that opportunity.
Deviluk: I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
Blizzard is a subsidery of ActivisionBlizzard which Kotick is the CEO of.
Deviluk: I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
Blizzard is a subsidery of ActivisionBlizzard which Kotick is the CEO of.
Pretty sure Blizzard has free reign over everything that goes on within their offices though. Fairly certain someone (Funk?) mentioned that in a previous thread mentioning Kotick/ActiBlizz/Blizzard.
bjj hero: Anyone else drooling at the perk description?
Drooling in hopes they will remove perks and make the game balanced again?
No chance. Also they are balanced if everyone has access to them. The only perk you see on all of the time is claymores and that is more of a weapon pick.
bjj hero: Anyone else drooling at the perk description?
Drooling in hopes they will remove perks and make the game balanced again?
No chance. Also they are balanced if everyone has access to them. The only perk you see on all of the time is claymores and that is more of a weapon pick.
...which gets ruined if they impliment a similar Rank Up system like they had in MW1 and which was used by Treyarch in WaW.
You know, where you don't start off with every perk/weapon already.
Meaning that imbalanced perks do bugger up the game for those who are rank 1 against those who are rank 55.
Dunno if they are keeping the rank system for MW2 but honestly I don't see them getting rid of it.
Deviluk: I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
Blizzard is a subsidery of ActivisionBlizzard which Kotick is the CEO of.
Pretty sure Blizzard has free reign over everything that goes on within their offices though. Fairly certain someone (Funk?) mentioned that in a previous thread mentioning Kotick/ActiBlizz/Blizzard.
It's kind of complicated, as I understand it.
Blizzard is owned by Vivendi. Vivendi and Activision merged, with Vivendi as the majority shareholder, and former Activision boss Bobby Kotick at the helm. So technically, it was Vivendi acquiring Activision and not the other way around. Blizzard is a bit of a special case, as Vivendi largely left them to do their own thing - for one thing, they're completely self-published. Look at WotLK, and the ActiBlizz logo isn't anywhere on there, it's all them.
As far as I can tell, Blizzard is still largely autonomous, if only because Vivendi had the sense to leave them alone and let them do their own thing and Vivendi is still technically in charge. Activision, meanwhile, got to start calling themselves Activision Blizzard.
Either way, it's a complex situation, and I'm not 100% confident on this, but I'm fairly sure it's how everything went down.
Those perks sound even more cheap and unbalancing than Modern Warfare. Oh how I miss when COD wasn't full of little kids and you couldn't get kills by grenade spamming over buildings, noob tubing across the map, using cheap perks and all that ghastly crap. The game doesn't even look any different, and it's being charged at over full fucking price.
I still play Counterstrike, and I'd rather play Counterstrike. Counterstrike will always be remembered, people forget about COD as soon as the next reskinned, outdated generic pile of shit made for the masses gets released.
Deviluk: I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
Blizzard is a subsidery of ActivisionBlizzard which Kotick is the CEO of.
Pretty sure Blizzard has free reign over everything that goes on within their offices though. Fairly certain someone (Funk?) mentioned that in a previous thread mentioning Kotick/ActiBlizz/Blizzard.
It's kind of complicated, as I understand it.
Blizzard is owned by Vivendi. Vivendi and Activision merged, with Vivendi as the majority shareholder, and former Activision boss Bobby Kotick at the helm. So technically, it was Vivendi acquiring Activision and not the other way around. Blizzard is a bit of a special case, as Vivendi largely left them to do their own thing - for one thing, they're completely self-published. Look at WotLK, and the ActiBlizz logo isn't anywhere on there, it's all them.
As far as I can tell, Blizzard is still largely autonomous, if only because Vivendi had the sense to leave them alone and let them do their own thing and Vivendi is still technically in charge. Activision, meanwhile, got to start calling themselves Activision Blizzard.
Either way, it's a complex situation, and I'm not 100% confident on this, but I'm fairly sure it's how everything went down.
I'm pretty sure that's how it worked/works.
Regardless, has there been any legitimately convincing evidence that the merger has changed the way Blizzard makes its games?
Deviluk: I dont know why this guy is such a dick. You can care for games, and make profit, just look at Blizzard, or any of the first-party devs.
Although I did read about Starcraft II and the Blizz guys seemed to think that its too good to be given to us mere mortals who may not appreciate it fully. "You're not allowed to change the camera angle! We made it to look like this!"
Blizzard is a subsidery of ActivisionBlizzard which Kotick is the CEO of.
Pretty sure Blizzard has free reign over everything that goes on within their offices though. Fairly certain someone (Funk?) mentioned that in a previous thread mentioning Kotick/ActiBlizz/Blizzard.
It's kind of complicated, as I understand it.
Blizzard is owned by Vivendi. Vivendi and Activision merged, with Vivendi as the majority shareholder, and former Activision boss Bobby Kotick at the helm. So technically, it was Vivendi acquiring Activision and not the other way around. Blizzard is a bit of a special case, as Vivendi largely left them to do their own thing - for one thing, they're completely self-published. Look at WotLK, and the ActiBlizz logo isn't anywhere on there, it's all them.
As far as I can tell, Blizzard is still largely autonomous, if only because Vivendi had the sense to leave them alone and let them do their own thing and Vivendi is still technically in charge. Activision, meanwhile, got to start calling themselves Activision Blizzard.
Either way, it's a complex situation, and I'm not 100% confident on this, but I'm fairly sure it's how everything went down.
I'm pretty sure that's how it worked/works.
Regardless, has there been any legitimately convincing evidence that the merger has changed the way Blizzard makes its games?
Not that I've seen. If Activision were behind things, they'd probably be shooting for less than a decade between sequels (as with SC2 and probably Diablo 3).
...which gets ruined if they impliment a similar Rank Up system like they had in MW1 and which was used by Treyarch in WaW.
You know, where you don't start off with every perk/weapon already.
Meaning that imbalanced perks do bugger up the game for those who are rank 1 against those who are rank 55.
Dunno if they are keeping the rank system for MW2 but honestly I don't see them getting rid of it.
There is no chance they will dump the leveling. Look at how many people prestige over and over. It's a real draw for some people.
It's a pain in the arse at low level but at least they give you a good selection of weapons to start. I't picks up quick. I was happy as soon as I got UAV jammer.
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Infinity Ward Pokes Fun at Bobby Kotick
Infinity Ward apparently does not fear the wrath of their supreme overlord Bobby Kotick, because the company subtly poked a little fun at the Activision CEO at a recent Modern Warfare 2 event.
There are some brave souls at Infinity Ward, I have to admit. If they're willing to rib Bobby Kotick - even in the most barely noticeable and super-subtle way - they've got to have some hearts of iron.
You might remember earlier this week when Mr. Kotick decided to make himself even more transparently hate-able by saying some pretty crazy stuff during a presentation at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference. He made clear that he has designed his company to treat employees so that it "really rewards profit and nothing else," which okay, dude's running a business, so that's not surprising. But then Kotick said some somewhat creepy stuff, describing how he maintains a company culture that is grounded in feelings of "skepticism, pessimism and fear."
Kotick thinks that's appropriate considering our current economic condition, but what ever happened to a happy worker is a good worker?
I'm guessing the folks at Inifnity Ward (otherwise known as I-Dub) are happy enough, because they don't seem to be skeptical, pessimistic or fearful, certainly not of Kotick. During a presentation at a Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer press event, community manager Robert Bowling showed off the game's custom class selection menu, which included three classes he possibly created named Skepticism, Pessimism and Fear.
Fear, apparently, carries an M4A1, a rocket launcher, two flash grenades, Tactical Insertion and Perks for increased melee distance, easier Killstreaks and "full resupply from dead enemies."
Do you see this, Bobby Kotick? These people are not afraid. At least until you give them a personal phone call and scare the living bejeezus out of them, they are not afraid.
[Via NeoGAF, Joystiq]
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