EA and Tim Schafer (and the world) vs Activision

[Kerrby]

At first there was the whole legal drama over Activision dropping Tim Schafers game 'Brutal Legend' and EA picking it up which resulted in months of court battles. Then everything was fine, until Tim Schafer did an interview attacking Bobby Kotick. Thus began the war.

14th July, 2010 - Schafer attacks Bobby Kotick.

When asked in an interview with Eurogamer whether Kotick can really be blamed for wanting to make as much money as possible, Schafer replied: "Well, he doesn't have to be as much of a dick about it, does he?"

"I think there is a way he can do it without being a total prick. It seems like it would be possible. It's not something he's interested in."

Schafer went on to say that Kotick's attitude to games was harming the industry, comparing his methods to constantly trying to make the cheapest bar of soap possible.

"He definitely has that that kind of widget-maker attitude," said Schafer.

"I don't think he's great for the industry, overall. You can't just latch onto something when it's popular and then squeeze the life out of it and then move on to the next one. You have to at some point create something, build something."

"He could go to an industry that makes more money. Ball bearings... Something that suits his passions more. Weapons manufacturing?"

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=255745

27th September, 2010 - Bobby Kotick fires back.

"Tim Schafer. The guy comes out and says I'm a prick. I've never met him in my life - I've never had anything to do with him," he told Edge.

"I never had any involvement in the Vivendi project that they were doing, Br*tal Legend, other than I was in one meeting where the guys looked at it and said, 'He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game. We're going to cancel it."

"And do you know what? That seemed like a sensible thing to do. And it turns out, he was late, he missed every milestone, the game was not a particularly good game..."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=266761

27th September, 2010 - Tim Schafer fires back at Kotick.

"It's sad is that instead of just insulting me personally, he goes after the product of my hard-working team - a group of people he almost put out of work a while back," Schafer said.
"But what's even sadder is that it took him two months to think of a comeback."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-27-schafer-hits-back-at-kotick

27th September, 2010 - Kotick calls out EA and says it is suffocating their studios. lolwut? So much pot, kettle, black going on from Activision here.

"The core principle of how we run the company is the exact opposite of EA," he says. "EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida’, ‘EA Vancouver’, ‘EA New Jersey’, whatever. We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that’s what makes them so successful.' We don’t have an Activision anything - it’s Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer.

"Virtually all of our studio heads are serious, responsible people," he explains. "They want to make great games, they want to do it the right way, and I think one of the benefits we have [with] being a big company is that we don’t have the same pressures of, 'Oh, we have to have it out for this particular quarter.' There’s not a studio at this company that will tell you: 'Activision is forcing us to get the game out.'

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/kotick-ea-is-suffocating-studios

28th September, 2010 - EAs VP of Communications attacks Kotick.

Jeff Brown, EA's vice president of communications, didn't hold back when asked for comment, slinging mud at Activision's Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft franchises in the process.

"Kotick's relationship with studio talent is well documented in litigation," Brown said, referring to Activision's latest lawsuit with developer Infinity Ward over the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise and previously with Double Fine over Brutal Legend.

"His company is based on three game franchises – one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick's own hubris."

http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/112/1123641p1.html


LMAO at the last comment by EA .

Ice cold but so true, lets see what happens next.

 

[Ochre]

EA goes bang

one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick's own hubris."

you could make a case that all three refer to CoD

 

[mickelboy182]

Still quite surreal to be on EA's side... Seriously, Activision are a blight on gaming.

 

[FGMPR]

I will never forget EA killing Origin, Westwood and Bullfrog, but they have improved remarkably as a company in the last few years. Their "EA Partners" program, that begun with Crysis, has been a fantastic thing for gaming in particular, with independent developers keeping their independence, whilst receiving solid financial backing.

I still cringe when I think of Blizzard being tied to that mob. They're philosophies are as different as you could imagine. One milks series to their demise, whilst the other is willing to can games years in development, if they are not up to their high standards, in order to keep their reputation as probably the best developer in the world.

They must be embarrassed to be associated with Kotick and Activision sometimes.

 

[HBK619]

Still quite surreal to be on EA's side... Seriously, Activision are a blight on gaming.

It is definitely a MASSIVE turnaround. Years ago everyone would've been "who are Activision?" "EA are terrible" etc.

Come this generation EA have turned their company around like absolutely no other. They're more human, more willing to give new IP a go and they seem to have incredible relationships with their development companies - in-house or otherwise - While we're seeing Activision not only milk every franchise they have to the point of over-saturation (we're going to see potentially 3 CoD's in the next 2 years!) and they're also planning to ruin online gaming by bringing in subscription gaming. They are EA of past years, in it for the money and the money only and not really taking notice of market trends and what the gamer does want.

Hopefully it's just a matter of time before Kotick eats himself to explosion ala Monty Python or maybe someone can get retribution in some way or another.

I will never forget EA killing Origin, Westwood and Bullfrog, but they have improved remarkably as a company in the last few years. Their "EA Partners" program, that begun with Crysis, has been a fantastic thing for gaming in particular, with independent developers keeping their independence, whilst receiving solid financial backing.

I still cringe when I think of Blizzard being tied to that mob. They're philosophies are as different as you could imagine. One milks series to their demise, whilst the other is willing to can games years in development, if they are not up to their high standards, in order to keep their reputation as probably the best developer in the world.

They must be embarrassed to be associated with Kotick and Activision sometimes.

I can't understand how any good developers are choosing to head to Activision. Makes the Bungie deal that much more confusing when they sign a 10 year exclusivity deal with them. They must've absolutely sweet talked them something shocking, you just hope that they have read the fine print over so many times they have it memorised because it can come back to bite them in the arse the way it did for the IW bosses and obviously did for Schafer. And I was reading the other day (mainly because I wasn't as interested in this game franchise as much as others, so I'm sure plenty already know this) that the same sort of situation happened with Guitar Hero and the creative team behind it getting screwed, they jumped to EA and out of it was Rock Band which has gone on to not only better Guitar Hero but taking the entire genre to a level that nobody can compete with. That is 3 BIG names in the gaming industry all getting screwed over by the one company yet people still come back to them?!

There's only a few publishing firms at the moment that seem to not really restrict their developers to the point that a company like Activision have and it is most definitely showing with the quality of titles produced under those Publishers and EA are definitely up there with the leaders.

The problem is though that people do keep buying Activision titles (I am even guilty of buying the superb Transformers game) and the titles (apart from GH - very big decline - and Tony Hawk - on death row) do keep doing good enough numbers.

 

[Kerrby]

http://www.destructoid.com/footage-...ivision-ceo-it-s-called-rock-band-88034.phtml

Kotick getting owned by some chick. Starts 10 seconds in.

Kotick: We have a new product coming out in the fall called Guitar Hero World Tour, which is the first time you'll have multiple instruments -- drums, mic, bass, a different guitar ...

Swisher: It's called Rock Band, I think.

Kotick (after a slight pause): We're calling it Guitar Hero World Tour.

 

[Ant_]

It is definitely a MASSIVE turnaround. Years ago everyone would've been "who are Activision?" "EA are terrible" etc.

Activision has been a well known brand since the 80's, I had Atari 2600 Activision games. Not defending their antics btw.

 

[grrofunger]

it was all about activision on the atari 2600

 

[grrofunger]

activisions finest hour

 

[Noppo]

There’s not a studio at this company that will tell you: 'Activision is forcing us to get the game out.'

Wait, aren't they forcing Infinity Ward to make Modern Warfare 3?

 

[Ochre]

Wait, aren't they forcing Infinity Ward to make Modern Warfare 3?

yeh, but they just fire anyone who says that

so they do force them to get games out, but dont let them tell you that

 

[Glenno23]

Bobby Kotick is the reason people hate Activision

Their games aren't really that bad

Everyone bags the COD series since MW1, but the fact is, they have been very smart in their marketing campaigns for the games and have pushed them to insane numbers. Kudos to them for this successful ploy.

MW2 was caned by a lot of people (and it has its faults) personally, i love it, and its still played by a shit load of people online. MW2 is the biggest selling game of all time, MW1 is one of the most critically acclaimed (and most loved by gamers) games of all time and Black Ops MP is looking awesome

Black Ops pre orders are making MW2 look like a back water game. My store is already 25% ahead on pre orders over what MW2 was by launch. There's 7 weeks to go!

COD games are not horrible, they are very good games. Why wouldn't Activision milk them? I used to bag Halo for the fact they were getting milked, but fact is, they make money for the company that creates them and helps fund other projects and keeps share holders happy. Thats business in a nutshell.

COD is a different beast to GH and Tony Hawk though

At least the developers of COD are making (decent) changes, TH and GH have gone backwards real quick, but Activision don't care. They won't lose maoney on these. As long as they make a small profit, they'll have your COD's, WOWS and Diablo 3's to bring in the insane amount of dosh...

Maybe Activsion should put more time into these titles that are slipping, maybe change developers and get some fresh ideas?

I'm not defending Activision or anything, as a lot of their processes are a little wrong morally, but the bottom line is its about the bottom line. These days games cost so much to make, they have to make sure its a hit to get their money back and then some

Plus think of all the people are employed to make these games, the bbigger and more succesful they become, the more people can work in the industry. And thats a good thing.

 

[FGMPR]

The most ironic thing about this all is how Activision were formed in the first place. A bunch of Atari programmers were sick of Atari's treatment (They are just employees, employed to write code, not artists was Atari's position), and decided to form their own company where the people who made games were given the rights they felt, as designers and programmers themselves, they deserved.

And now it has come to this:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=266952?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS

"Activision devs 'have to earn' new IP - Kotick".

The studios that fall under the Activision banner are like workers on the production line, pumping out an endless line of COD/Tony Hawk/Guitar Hero crap. This really is EA from a few years ago with a lining of human garbage that goes by the name of Robert Kotick.

He often laughs and jokes about how much he is hated by the gaming community in interviews, but that will be his downfall after he's milked CoD to the point that people just won't buy it anymore, just like Tony Hawk's x skater.

 

[HBK619]

Bobby Kotick is the reason people hate Activision

Their games aren't really that bad

Everyone bags the COD series since MW1, but the fact is, they have been very smart in their marketing campaigns for the games and have pushed them to insane numbers. Kudos to them for this successful ploy.

MW2 was caned by a lot of people (and it has its faults) personally, i love it, and its still played by a shit load of people online. MW2 is the biggest selling game of all time, MW1 is one of the most critically acclaimed (and most loved by gamers) games of all time and Black Ops MP is looking awesome

Black Ops pre orders are making MW2 look like a back water game. My store is already 25% ahead on pre orders over what MW2 was by launch. There's 7 weeks to go!

COD games are not horrible, they are very good games. Why wouldn't Activision milk them? I used to bag Halo for the fact they were getting milked, but fact is, they make money for the company that creates them and helps fund other projects and keeps share holders happy. Thats business in a nutshell.

COD is a different beast to GH and Tony Hawk though

At least the developers of COD are making (decent) changes, TH and GH have gone backwards real quick, but Activision don't care. They won't lose maoney on these. As long as they make a small profit, they'll have your COD's, WOWS and Diablo 3's to bring in the insane amount of dosh...

Maybe Activsion should put more time into these titles that are slipping, maybe change developers and get some fresh ideas?

I'm not defending Activision or anything, as a lot of their processes are a little wrong morally, but the bottom line is its about the bottom line. These days games cost so much to make, they have to make sure its a hit to get their money back and then some

Plus think of all the people are employed to make these games, the bbigger and more succesful they become, the more people can work in the industry. And thats a good thing.

Because oversaturation of a product ends up tiring people out of it. Personally I've already hit the stage where I cbf buying more CoD's and I've only bought 2 of the last 3! Eventually it will hit the other gamers.

It may all be about the money, but there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't act far better than they do. EA have and they're proving to not only have changed their ways to go for what the fans want but they also give the developers freedom to not only express their creative imagination but they don't restrict them like crazy and they are creating some of the most consistently high quality games that we've ever seen.

Not to mention as a company you HAVE to look forward otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of IP's that are old and decrepit and nothing really new to build a franchise on that will rival what we've seen before. It's not all about the current bottom line that Activision seems to look way too much at, it's about making plans for the future too, milking titles constantly does nothing for future innovations.

It also very much so comes down to not only gamer satisfaction but worker satisfaction. Nobody wants to work in a stressful, low morale and shitty work environment where you have so many restrictions placed on you that you can only go as far as creating an in the box idea and never be allowed to bring what you want.

Right now CoD is the only title that is just marginally bringing more to the table with it's annual iterations. But we're also at the 4th iteration of the one series this gen (7th overall since 2003!), it's going to slow down fast in terms of 'innovation'. On top of that, do you really think IW and Treyarch will want to be making CoD's beyond 2 or 3 more years? (In fact it was the very reason that IW had been constantly making CoD's and they wanted to break out that led to the entire fiasco with their bosses). I know that they have Sledgehammer coming in to pick up the series in some way or another but we can't even speak of the quality there. A quality dev is needed should the CoD series continue doing what it is as well.

GH and Tony Hawk will only remain profitable for a very short time going on current trends too. They're no longer the behemoths they once were and the sales have declined hard and fast. From a high of 4.5mil (units) for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 down to a low of under half a million units for several of the recent titles. Guitar Hero is much the same, a high of 4.6 million units with GH3 down to under a million sales for GH5. Milking these series can only go so far and CoD will hit it's peak soon enough too, there weren't a lot out there saying "Tony Hawk will be a dead in 10 years" when it was at it's peak and firing.

Gamers get tired of it and while CoD is riding high on the wave of FPS love right now, it won't be too long before it starts to dip.

 

[Glenno23]

Because oversaturation of a product ends up tiring people out of it. Personally I've already hit the stage where I cbf buying more CoD's and I've only bought 2 of the last 3! Eventually it will hit the other gamers.

It may all be about the money, but there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't act far better than they do. EA have and they're proving to not only have changed their ways to go for what the fans want but they also give the developers freedom to not only express their creative imagination but they don't restrict them like crazy and they are creating some of the most consistently high quality games that we've ever seen.

Not to mention as a company you HAVE to look forward otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of IP's that are old and decrepit and nothing really new to build a franchise on that will rival what we've seen before. It's not all about the current bottom line that Activision seems to look way too much at, it's about making plans for the future too, milking titles constantly does nothing for future innovations.

It also very much so comes down to not only gamer satisfaction but worker satisfaction. Nobody wants to work in a stressful, low morale and shitty work environment where you have so many restrictions placed on you that you can only go as far as creating an in the box idea and never be allowed to bring what you want.

Right now CoD is the only title that is just marginally bringing more to the table with it's annual iterations. But we're also at the 4th iteration of the one series this gen (7th overall since 2003!), it's going to slow down fast in terms of 'innovation'. On top of that, do you really think IW and Treyarch will want to be making CoD's beyond 2 or 3 more years? (In fact it was the very reason that IW had been constantly making CoD's and they wanted to break out that led to the entire fiasco with their bosses). I know that they have Sledgehammer coming in to pick up the series in some way or another but we can't even speak of the quality there. A quality dev is needed should the CoD series continue doing what it is as well.

GH and Tony Hawk will only remain profitable for a very short time going on current trends too. They're no longer the behemoths they once were and the sales have declined hard and fast. From a high of 4.5mil (units) for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 down to a low of under half a million units for several of the recent titles. Guitar Hero is much the same, a high of 4.6 million units with GH3 down to under a million sales for GH5. Milking these series can only go so far and CoD will hit it's peak soon enough too, there weren't a lot out there saying "Tony Hawk will be a dead in 10 years" when it was at it's peak and firing.

Gamers get tired of it and while CoD is riding high on the wave of FPS love right now, it won't be too long before it starts to dip.

I totally 100% agree that Activision could go about it a better way

No-one may have seen Tony Hawk coming to such an abrupt halt, but TH was never the biggest entertainment launch in history and never had the marketing that they do these days.

There are too many 10-15 year olds out there that will buy the game for it to die like GH and TH have. Activision don't care who buys the game, as long as it sells, and the fact is those 10 years olds who have it now, will probably play it until they're 18

Activision have it set for COD for sometime

New IP's from Activision would be great, and i think its good that they need to earn it. You can have all the new IP's in the world, but it means squat if its a shit game

Gamers won't purchase it and dev's will lose their jobs

 

[Kerrby]

Well recently there's been quite a few developments which make EA look the bad guys, and suprisingly Activision is the good guy.

With the whole Infinity Ward vs Activision saga, the head bosses Lampard and West were withhelding the payments that Activision owed IW from their own staff. They were doing this so they could get out of a contract and not have to work on Modern Warfare 3. Not only this but West and Lampard were constantly in contact with EA, spilling all the secrets and backstabbing Activision. To top it off, when the trailer for Treyarch's new COD came out West told the guys at IW to release a trailer for the MW2 map-pack to be released to steal away all the thunder as they "hate Treyarch".

--------------------------------

Anyway moreso the reason I bumped this was about how EA are trying to win over DD by withholding their games from Steam. NFS: Hot Pursuit came to Steam one month after launch. Dead Space 2 currently remains nowhere to be found except at the EA Store and retail (both at a $60 base price).

Now, Dragon Age 2 appears on Steam one day after the Signature Edition cutoff date, also at a $60 price point (shared with the EA Store, D2D, and retail, but the Impulse version remains $50 for whatever reason). The Signature Edition included an additional party member and his associated content (like the Stone Prisoner with DA:O) as well as the game soundtrack, for preorders placed up until January 11th.

They're also going to be charging $7 for the DLC that didn't make it onto Steam.

Tony, and others, the deal with Steam was not available in time for the Signature Edition offer. I know this will not prevent you from thinking this was a big conspiracy, but the deal was not finalized in time for the Signature Edition. However, we are pleased to now have a deal in place with Steam for Steam users such as yourself. You did have the option of pre-ordering through a physical retailer or otehr digital retailers. If you chose not to, that was your decision. As such, comments accusing us of "ripping off" people are not welcome here and will be considered spam with all implied penalties associated with posting spam on these forums.

As for The Black Emporium, Fadeshear and the Lion of Orlais, the Black Emporium is available for all new copies of DAII, so that does include Steam. Fadeshear and Lion of Orlais are also available on Steam as long as you pre-order. They are only available as pre-order items and will not be available once the game launches, but they are available on Steam until teh game ships.

Sorry. To the best of my knowledge, eeh Exiled Prince and the Soundtrack will be available for Steam users as DLC.

This part is just pathetic:

As such, comments accusing us of "ripping off" people are not welcome here and will be considered spam with all implied penalties associated with posting spam on these forums.

Censorship at it's finest.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/5701402/1



NFS: Hot Pursuit - one month late on Steam, insistance that no Steam version was even planned
EA Create - not coming to Steam
Dragon Age 2 - this kerfuffle
Dead Space 2 - not coming to Steam
Darkspore - apparently not coming to Steam
Mass Effect 3 - apparently not coming to Steam

For a minute, EA were the good guys. Now they're fighting against Activision and Ubisoft for biggest dog of the gaming industry.

 

[FGMPR]

EA are being a bunch of greedy ****s and are asking for a bigger cut than the one that Valve give's everybody. Not even Activision have a problem with Valve's cut, and yet EA do. They've probably cracked it with BC2 being in the top 10 for the past year, but so has Call of Duty.

If EA think they are hurting Valve more than they are hurting themselves by leaving or delaying their games on a big chunk of the PC market, then they need to lay off the crackpipe. No one publisher has the power to dictate terms to Valve. All they are doing right now is cutting their nose to spite their face.

 

[Kerrby]

**** me, is it be a dick day in the gaming world?

Bethesda, developer of Fallout 3, contended that there is "no other license" included in the deal, and that any Fallout-branded MMO made by Interplay cannot feature any assets from the established Fallout universe, such as characters, settings or storylines. Interplay later called Bethesda's interpretation of the agreement "absurd."

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/32411/Bethesda_Interplay_Is_Wrong.php

>License the Fallout IP to make an MMO
>Cannot use anything related to Fallout other than the name "Fallout".

WHAT!?

>Bethesdas face

 

[Kerrby]

Oh and no more story from today, Capcom shamelessly rips off 'Splosion Man.

Gameplay footage: [youtube]oOWlwo9dXh8[/youtube]

It's not even attempting to be subtle, they just said "Make 'splosion man" and did it.

Twisted Pixel aren't happy either (indie developers of 'splosion man'.

Not sure what to say about MaXplosion. Pisses me off. Guess we're just gonna have to make a better iPhone game than them. Shouldn't be hard.

https://twitter.com/#!/mrwilford/status/24994038725738497

Twisted Pixel CEO on MaXplosion:

Best part is, we originally pitched @Splosion_Man to Capcom and they said no.

https://twitter.com/mrwilford/status/24994771051220993

EDIT:
Capcom aren't even trying to hide it.

Unbelievable.

 

[Ant_]

Wow looks identical.

 

[HBK619]

Oh and no more story from today, Capcom shamelessly rips off 'Splosion Man.

Even more interesting Exploding characters now.

New PSN title called Explodemon coming in a couple of weeks. A lot would think this is also another 'Splosion Man rip off. However, it is not the case.

[YOUTUBE]E4avuT6S9oQ[/YOUTUBE]

Quick little recap on Explodemon's history from the devs blog.
Source: http://www.onebitbeyond.com/

- The game was started in Nov 2005
- We got an XBLA slot in April 2008.
- When funding fell through, we lost the slot in Oct 2008.
- Development of Splosion Man started in Dec 2008.

In May 2009, for the final time in the Saga, we entered green light procedures with four publishers (one of which it was our fourth round of discussions with!). One particular publisher wanted it on PS3, 360, Wii, DS, iPhone and PSP for March 2010, with multiplayer modes for each. As a small developer that was pretty scary, but we thought that there were ways that we could deal with that, so we continued discussions. Finally, perhaps, maybe, possibly, we were going to see the success we had so been craving? Ha!

By the time discussions reached their peak, it was early July 2009. We’d been unfortunately unable to progress much with our tiny team since the public reveal. By contrast, Twisted Pixel were starting to release footage of ‘Splosion Man, with their projected release date announced as being for XBLA’s Summer of Arcade. As the decisions came in from the publishers, a pattern started to emerge.

Publisher 1: No. The reason: ‘Splosion Man.

Publisher 2: No. The reason: ‘Splosion Man.

Publisher 3: No. The reason: ‘Splosion Man.

Publisher 4: No. The reason: ‘Splosion Man.

It's pretty amazing how close some developers ideas can be, I bet Twisted Pixel thought that Splosion Man was a first, when it turns out that Curve had it thought up almost 6 years ago.

While it doesn't wipe Capcom's slate clean, it does maybe allow for some leeway in that they MAY have not completely ripped it off after being found wanting with Splosion Man's rejection.

 

[Kerrby]

y pst n00b

 

[Kerrby]

post* ithink

 

[HBK619]

y pst n00b

post* ithink

...what?