| (Pages: 1, 2) | |
That has to be one of he harshest attacks of character outside of politics I have seen in awhile. However, I actually find myself agreeing, seeing as Activision unjustly dropped Brutal Legend for seemingly no reason other then it couldn't make a good sequel. | |
Well in the end it is a result of taking capitalism to an extreme. Passion does not matter, nothing matters aside from the amount of wealth produced. It is true that since activision has become as large as EA we do find that gamers are torn between which monolith they should hate more because of the bad business decisions made by each company. It is only as of late that EA finally started producing NEW content and experimenting and on Activision's front we see them doing what EA did in the past, generating the same games and dropping experimental titles because they might not sell well. Activision has really dropped the ball with a lot of games that despite them saying will not sell very well or cannot be made into a sequal, they have been made into a sequal without them. Take for example of the developer From Software, they are producing another Tenchu game which Activision originally produced and it was a top hit from the Playstation days. Now it is getting its 6th game now and considered the 4th in terms of sequals. Honestly it does not surprise me that some people are able to get so far and the only thing they do want is money. All it takes is one interview to find out if he truly has a passion for gaming or a passion for his investors. | |
I'm glad someone finally said it. No, it isn't cool that Starcraft 2 is being broken up into separate games. It's annoying that making a sequel to Call of Duty every year means that the quality is uneven. Stop selling Guitar Hero expansions and just do like Rock Band does with DLC. | |
Brutal and harsh, but succinct and mostly accurate. | |
Yeah... but in the end, isn't it up to us, the consumers, to decide what we spend our money on? If wave after wave of sequels and spin-offs with repetitive gameplay succeeds, it's because enough people buy into the concept. But considering this, I think that a change is slowly but surely coming to the videogame world. It seems that people are starting to get sick off the "more of the same" type of games, and independent developers are beginning to get more attention for their innovative gameplay. | |
It is unfortunate, but the CEO probably loves his job, whatever it entails, because of the cash he gets. | |
...That...smile...I couldn't even finish the article. Just...the smile, man, the smile. | |
True, true, 100% true. Ever since he dropped Brutal Legend you know that he only cares about the money. | |
Does anyone else think he looks a lot like Tony Blair? | |
Carpetbagger? Didn't they used to say that about people around the 1860s? I think you can be pretty confident that the phrases you use are outdated when the first time I heard about it was in a history textbook. Seriously, I've never hard anyone use that phrase. And that picture is creepy. | |
But it is a good old fashioned southern term. Imagine saying that in a sterotypical southern accent. Just makes me smile and laugh for some reason. "That Kotick is a carpetbagger!" EDIT: "Boys we have a carpetbagger around here!" | |
Is it just me or does the way that guy smiles really make you want to hurt him? I always wondered why they dropped Ghostbusters, Still seems incredibly stupid to me. | |
Where I grew up, 'carpetbagger' is about the most insulting thing you can call someone without using an outright obscenity. Ben Kuchera is from Kentucky, which is close enough for the term to still be seen as derogatory. In any case, a word meaning 'opportunistic and exploitative outsider' seems to fit here. | |
Well we northerners need to look in textbooks to be exposed to that sort of talk. We also seem to have managed to think up better insults than ones that are 150 years old, but... | |
I really have no interest in getting into a puerile language debate, but do you have a more evocative word to describe the man as accurately as 'carpetbagger' does? Until 'Halliburton' or 'Blackwater' starts rolling off tongues with the kind of frequency and venom heard during Reconstruction, I think the choice is apropos. | |
Gee, so you're saying he's running a company to get rich. Um...Duh? | |
I'm just joking, carpetbagger's as good as any other word to describe someone, even if I have to think back to some rather unpleasant times (8th grade SS) to remember what it means. | |
the funny part about this is it's one of the reasons why activision games suck so much when you try and nickel and dime and squeeze the charmin dry, you don't make a profit you actually lose money and do bad as for using old words and terms, i think it's great not everyone does it and it's a bit refreshing. too many ppl tend to use the wrong words and frankly have a bad vocabulary | |
Look into his eyes...You can see a distinct lack of a soul. | |
applauding The best kind of truth is the kind that burns more than the morning after a bad one night stand... | |
No one's expecting a CEO to take a vow of poverty, but there's "getting rich by building a good company" and there's "getting rich by strip-mining the place and pissing off all your customers". The former means that there's a chance there'll be a company still there after he leaves, the latter, not so much. -- Steve | |
Young girl tilts her head to the side and smiles, it's cute. | |
I completely agree, I've been seething with ill will towards Kotick since I read that interview with Forbes. I said this when they became Blizzard-Activision, and I will say it again...they are the new EA. | |
I've learned my lesson: NEVER AGAIN BUY A FREAKING TREYARCH COD GAME. I was only mildly intrested in it, even after being in the beta, but I now know that it is not worth giving Activision and Treyarch my $60 so they can go out and make even useless, copy-cat sequels. | |
I wish I got paid as much as that guy! It would be hard to care about you all when I am on my 70foot yaught in Barbados... | |
Hey. As long as when I wake up tomorrow, there are still aging white guys making too much money by taking advantage of people who like things they don't care about and barely understand. Because the day that stops being the case, we're all going to have to stock up on the canned goods and seal the door to the vault. The status-quo may not be pretty, but it beats the certainly hideous unknown. That's why change is always wrong. Vote Republican! | |
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyymmmmmmmmmm There have been alot of bitching back and forth this week, and all I can really say up to this point is this; Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! | |
No way a CEO wringing money out of products his company produces without really caring about his customers? Are we supposed to be surprised? Bitch all you want its not going to change anything because people will still be buying thier games. | |
Carpetbagger fits perfectly especially being a Southerner the only thing worse then that is ethnic slurs even then just barely. | |
Pretty sure it was a northerner that moved to the south right after the civil war to take jobs of those who were crippled/dead. Also he's a Douchebag what happened to Brutal Legend? GHOSTBUSTERS? C'mon that looked awesome! | |
Can I say your avatar crossed with this post made me bust up laughing? | |
This man Ben Kuchera is made of epic and WIN. *claps* | |
I think he looks more like Billy Crystal back in Soap | |
It's just sad the general public will keep buying the crap he shovels out. | |
| (Pages: 1, 2) | |
Extra Punctuation
MovieBob: Intermission
Experienced Points
First Person
Exploding Barrels
Miracle of Sound: Encore
Special Attack
Loading Time
Backchat
Drinking Games
Escape to the Movies
Escapecraft
Escapist News Wrap - Premium
Escapist Podcast
Feed Dump
GinxTV
Jimquisition
LoadingReadyRun
Mahalo
Meatbag and Co
Media Sandwich
Miracle of Sound
No Right Answer
Pro-Gamer Gauntlet
Reviews
Space Janitors
Tales from the Table
The Big Picture
The Escapist Presents
The Retro Show
Trailers
Unskippable
Zero Punctuation
Max Payne 3 Review
Company of Heroes 2
XCOM Enemy Unknown
Black Ops 2
Diablo 3 Review
TERA Review
Firefall Beta Preview
Starhawk Review
Critical Miss
Name Game
Activision CEO Is A "Carpetbagger"
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick may have earned acclaim for building the company into the world's biggest videogame publisher, but Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica says he's a "carpetbagger" whose interest in the industry begins and ends with the money.
In a biting commentary, Kuchera wrote that during his time covering videogames, he's "never been anything less than impressed with [industry executives'] passion and love for the business they work in." From the top dogs at major players like Nintendo and Sony to people at the developer level, he said, "I'm happy to report that almost everyone who works in the business loves what they do."
Yet Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is a different story. Kuchera points to Kotick's "very brazen" desire to squeeze every last dollar out of every Activision title he can, from the intense exploitation of franchises through annual sequels (and disinterest in games that cannot be easily sequelized) to the division of Starcraft 2 into three separate titles and even the monetization of Battle.net. "That's why I find Bobby Kotick so distasteful," he wrote. "The man is a carpetbagger."
He also noted that after years as the industry bad-guy, Electronic Arts has apparently passed the mantle to Activision. "At least with EA, the franchises mostly stay the same year after year," he wrote. "Activision's tend to age poorly, like wine made from rancid grapes. This is a company that looked at Ghostbusters and decided it wasn't interested because Harold Ramis most likely wouldn't write a sequel every 10 months."
"Kotick doesn't play his games, and it shows," he continued. "This is a guy who looks at the balance sheets of World of Warcraft and wants more, more, more... and it's doubtful he even knows the name of Azeroth."
The catalyst for Kuchera's outburst appears to be the recent Forbes article on Kotick in which Rock Band was described as "a shameless knockoff of Guitar Hero." Anyone who pays attention to the industry will be aware that Rock Band was actually created by Harmonix, the original developer of Guitar Hero that was replaced by Neversoft after Activision bought out Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane. Despite the series' skyrocketing popularity, he asserted, the games has been noticeably inferior since the change in developers.
The Call of Duty series, which Activision moves between developers Infinity Ward and Treyarch in order to maximize output, comes in for even harsher criticism. "I can't imagine what it's like [for Infinity Ward] to give Call of Duty to Treyarch between games," he wrote. "It must be like leaving a child you love dearly with an abusive aunt six months out of the year."
Kuchera's comments stand out because unlike most industry criticism, this is aimed not at Activision but at Bobby Kotick himself. EA honcho John Riccitiello may not be anyone's Gamer Dude of the Year, but I don't recall him ever taking personal heat like this, either. "The idea of looking at those beady eyes every time I write about the man gives me enough incentive to hope for someone - anyone - to come in and love the children that Kotick wants to beat until they work harder," Kuchera wrote. "Until then, the company will have to be happy with a nearly infinite cash stream, delivered by a man who seems to proudly refuse to handle a controller."
Permalink