Well I was wondering what kotick would do to counter his anti-game ads position. This is dumb and greedy, just like kotick!

"Breaking news! Bobby Kotick is a greedy bastard!"

It's not like I'm not upset about this, I'm just not surprised either.

HAHAHAHAHHAHA WHY WOULD I PAY DOUBLE THE PRICE FOR IDENTICAL CONTENT OH WAIT LOL XBOX LIVE

Jarrid:
Does anyone else hear the Imperial March play in their head everytime they read the name Bobby Kotick?

No for some reason every time I hear "Bobby Kotick" I hear Russian national anthem...

I have no idea why...

Kotick would charge you for the air you breathe while you play if he could.

I'm sorta ambivalent about this, but mr. Kotick really should work on his wording. My first initial impression was that he said "People like these movies so much, that from now on, we'll sell them separately. If you want your SC2 cutscene, you better fork over some dough.".

Almost fell into an unthinking rage there.

When he says "remove", does that mean that the cutscenes are actually gone from the game unless you buy the game+movie bundle? Because his quote was either that or a rather poor choice of words: it's kinda the undercurrent of what hes saying.

This is what Hideo Kojima should be doing...

It looks like Kotick is trying to reduce the Cost : Content ratio of games even further. I'm surprised the man even bothered putting on a PR release all those months ago if all he was going to do was piss all over that goodwill.

Nevermind that the gaming industry I once knew will be naught but a dead husk in 5 years when mandatory-subscription gaming takes over, turning most (if not all) big titles into World of Warcraft money machines while offering absolutely no real lasting power in return.

But it's shit like this though that makes me saddest of all, because I know that there are a lot of assholes out there who will gladly pay that 20-30 bucks (2-5 times the going rate of any Hollywood movie in theatres) for the movies.

The market adjusts itself. As long as people are willing to give more and more for less and less, they have nobody to blame but themselves. They have no right to complain because that's precisely what they agreed to.

EDIT: I have detected some ambiguity in Mr Kotick's statement.
Is he saying that he wants to strip out the cutscenes in games (as in, remove the content from the game completely?) and sell them to the gamer at a premium?
Or is he just suggesting to resell the movies (copying them out of the game) as a stand-alone product?

Because as worded, he could mean either.

I do not approve of removing the cutscenes from a game and charging admission to see them.

I think the cutscene-to-film thing has potential though, see: Shenmue: The Movie for a good (and probably the only) example of this.

Although if you must, package it with the game or some sort of special edition. I ain't paying extra on the side for something that's already there.

Jack and Calumon:
That seems lazy and an excuse for money grabbing. I could watch the cutscenes on Youtube if I wanted to. Also, the gaps where the gameplay was will be around.

Blizzard did this before? Oh... well... Blizzard like money too.

Calumon: I like cake and money. Can I have a money cake?

I'm guessing if he manages to do this though there'll be a ton of either soundless WMG-raped custscenes, or terms of use violation removals. Nom nom nom money.

Because it's just way to hard for me to install Fraps and record every single cutscene in a game. Even easier, I can go to YouTube and watch the cutscenes on the channel of someone that recorded them themselves. Yeah, not a good idea Kotick.

lapan:
So, the games itself will not have cutscenes anymore and whoever wants to watch them has to pay? I myself do not like this and wouldnt buy such uncomplette games. Though i know many people who just dislike cutscenes in general and will probably like their new cutscene-less games.

No, they would still be in the game. It's just if you for some reason REALLY liked the cut scenes, you could buy them as a standalone item to watch whenever you wanted.

I have the internet. Why would I ever want to buy a game's cutscene?

You know, I'm starting to get the impression that Activision may be trying to milk their fans for every cent they can get...

I guess Bobby-boy thinks that developers make the gamer, and not the other way around. I can see this kind of thing being included in collectors edition or something, but as a standard feature? pffft - there is absolutely no game mechanic/play worth $60 with zero story/narrative.

SC II and MW 2 probably got him thinking about this, since so many gamers just jumped right into multiplayer and never even touched the single player campaign.

Anyway, Bobby, bring it on. Try and sell Diablo III (or Blizzards new MMO) with no narrative, and I will have absolutely no problem not buying it - simple as that.

lapan:
So, the games itself will not have cutscenes anymore and whoever wants to watch them has to pay? I myself do not like this and wouldnt buy such uncomplette games. Though i know many people who just dislike cutscenes in general and will probably like their new cutscene-less games.

No, they are copying the cut scenes and making them into a movie. Notice the term copy, not cut.

Blizzard has done this before. The WCIII super-ultra hardcore-box set had a DVD of all the cut scenes included (along with a cool map of the world (of Warcraft) and an interesting book of beta sketches).

Hell, I still have my WCIII DVD. Not like I ever watched it other than to figure out what it was.

I'm not sure why people are upset here. Choice of words aside, he's simply talking about marketing a game's cutscenes as a movie, not totally removing them from the game. It's not entirely unprecidented:

MGS3's collector's edition came with a DVD of the cutscenes as a movie.
Preordering Xenosaga 2 got you a DVD of Xenosaga 1's cut scenes as a movie.
I've seen bootlegs out of hong kong for the cutscenes for Final Fantasy 10, and online fan projects for the metal gear series and kingdom hearts (probably more).

People buy TV shows that are in syndication so they can watch what they want when they want to and I can see some people doing the same for games depending on the scene and the circumsances of getting it. Do I really want to play through half of Kingdom Hearts to re-watch a scene near the end of it, or re-play something teidious (say episode 3 of MGS4) to watch the cut scenes after it? Youtube? Copyright law. 20 - 30 dollars? Exactly how many hours of cutscenes are we getting? A lot of game cinematics (especialy for story based games) run longer than the typical 90 minute movie run time.

This will only work for some games. They need to be story based and well scripted. I don't see much from Activision that fits. Call me when Square Enix has the same idea.

I would be willing to buy the cutscrenes from certaing ames if they where setup for HD video and sound.

I own the Blizzard one already and when we have a one of our parties I play it and a few other HD game trailers on the big screen when its not in use.

You get alot of us myself included stopping to watch certain ones no matter how many times we seen it before.

Here's a few questions I have for Kotick:
1. Would these cutscenes actually be removed from the game? In other words, if I bought the game I would get no cutscenes? Lame.

2. How do you intend to make the cutscenes flow without the intervening gameplay? I know just watching the cutscenes from Armed and Dangerous is still funny, but they lose some of the context. Likewise with games like FF X, Timesplitters: Future Perfect, and many others.

Seven Deadly Sins:

1.Lust
2.Gluttony
3.Kotick (formerly known as Greed)
4.Sloth
5.Wrath
6.Envy
7.Pride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwDzavJIIzI - $15.00 Click Here -> [BUY]

Kotick obviously looking over Blizzard's (presumably) massive CGI budget and wondering how he can claw some of that money back.

A important part of the storytelling these days is during player-controlled scenes. Just the cutscenes would make a pretty disjointed movie, if the veiwer didn't know the plot.

So this would be just for the uberfan who already owns the game, but don't a lot of games have a 'replay cinematics' option in their menus?

Well they should.

Does he have an editing suite on the Death Star?

TsunamiWombat:
Why not just use Blur to make ACTUAL movies...?

Im with you its the only way well get a good starcraft movie and in the long run itll make more money for them so lets just hope they make a movie......

Jarrid:
Does anyone else hear the Imperial March play in their head everytime they read the name Bobby Kotick?

No. They have too much self-respect to associate themselves with the likes of him.

How long until an angry nerd attempts to assasinate Bobby Kotick?

The most important question has been left unclear:

will they cut those scenes from the vanilla games?

If yes, then worst stupid dick move since the merger.

If no, then no harm done and more power to Activision, supposing gamers will still buy this anyway.