Activision: EA has lost its way.

That_Guy

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41072/Activision-EA-has-lost-its-way

Bobby Kotick launches vicious attack against publishing rival, says it has been “struggling for a long time”

Outspoken Activision publishing boss Bobby Kotick has in an interview with Edge magazine launched a scathing assault on rival EA, blasting the way it treats owned developers and claiming that no-one actually wants to work for the company.

“The core principle of how we run the company is the exact opposite of EA,” Kotick explained. “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 the 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. That, to me, is one of the unassailable rules of building a publishing company. And in every case except for two, the original founders of the studios are still running the studios today.

And referencing his early days in games development where he briefly worked for EA, Kotick continued: “I’ve been an oppressed EA developer! The thing is, it doesn’t work that way – that doesn’t work. EA’s DNA isn’t orientated towards that model – it doesn’t know how to do it, as a culture or as a company, and it never has.

As well as his attack on EA’s developer relationships, Kotick also had some choice words about the fundamentals workings of the company.
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Koch

“EA has a lot of resources, it's a big company that’s been in the business for a long time – maybe it’ll figure it out eventually,” he continued. “But its been struggling for a long time.

“The most difficult challenge it faces today is: great people don't really want to work there. It’s like, if you have no other options you might consider them. They have some – the team that makes Madden is a really great team, it’s been able to manage, capture and keep some good people. But we have no shortage of opportunity to recruit out of EA – that’s their biggest challenge.

“Its stock options have no value, its lost its way. And until it has success and hits, and gets it enthusiasm back for the company, its going to have a struggle getting really talented people which is going to translate into less than great games.”

I love this article... Especially the big advertisement for Medal Of Honour at the side of it.

grimm2005

That's funny, I think it's quite the opposite. EA have gotten a lot better at letting studios be independant with their developers programs where companys like Valve, Double Fine and Harmonix get to do their own thing and EA just publish it.
Activision on the other hand like to control their companies (just look at the whole IW fiasco) and are getting a lot worse than EA when it comes to releasing the same re-branded stuff year after year (COD, GH games) and a lot of the developers seem to be moving over to EA (Double Fine, most of Infinity Ward under the Respawn Entertainment banner).

Retr0gamer

EA used to buy up good studios and gut and destroy them. They've since changed from a company whose games I had no interest in to a company taking risks on new franchises like Mirrors Edge and Dead Space which I enjoyed immensely. Ativision are like the EA of old, just look at what they did to infinity ward.

Gunmonkey

Yeah, Eurogamer has a ton of quotes from Kotick, apparantly they are from the newest copy of Edge.

Standard Kotick protocol guys: roll eyes and go "Sure Bobby, whatever you say!!"

johnny_ultimate

I used to hate seeing the EA logo on games, but strangely I now find it much more reassuring! Having gone out of their way to publish 'gamer's games' - Mass Effect / Bioware stuff, Brutal Legend, Dead Space to name a few I can see in front of me - they've done a lot to win me and I'm sure many others back over. They still churn out their popular franchises like FIFA, but at the same time they seem willing to give their talented developers the time to create something better. For allowing a Dead Space sequel even in the face of relatively poor sales, I am forever grateful.

Plus, and this is what it all boils down to, Rock Band kicks Guitar Hero up the plastic peripherals.

Professey Chin

Oul Bobby needs to loosen the nipple clamps.
EA are bitchslapping them up and down when it comes to games and dev partnerships

Cuddlesworth

it’s Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer

Two re-skinners and a shell of a once great developer. Who does he think he is kidding? No mention of Blizzard too. Is that because they own more of your company then you do them Bobby? Without Blizzard and a particular subbed game Activision is dead. And what's more worrying for them is the fact that 70% of their revenue comes from one very fickle source.

gizmo

Looks like he also had a go at Tim Schafer. I find it highly amusing how they can look at a game like Brutal Legend and not think it's good, yet rave about a piece of **** like Tony Hawk Ride. Oh wait, doesn't one of them come with a horrifically overpriced peripheral? Love of games my ass. :rolleyes:

rizzla

Kotick is a dick.

Where's the quivalant EA partners publishing? Letting devs keep their IP's and just helping them out.

Really like EA as devs and publishers. Activision not so much.

tman

EA have allowed Criterion seemingly free reign of what they do with the NFS franchise, and for that they have my respect.

Activision have done nothing of the sort recently!

Burning Eclipse

There are a lot of reasons to have respect for EA games. Peter Moore is a great one for example Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Brutal Legend, etc. as many have pointed out already on this thread. These games would not happen under Activision imo.

Activision are a bunch of assholes. Kotick is an outstanding business man, but unfortunately comes across as a douche. He knows this; Kotaku ran a piece on him earlier in the year to try combat this negative public image.

Sierra Oscar

Activision never fail to impress me with their arrogance.

KilOit

That guy is really out of touch, if fans like EA well then developers like them, nobody likes this guy and sooner he out of Activision the better for their sake.

quad_red

He's like a ****ter Michael O'Leary.

Overheal

Is he still hung up on Spore DRM?

NTMK

WTF Activision attacking EA about Dev relationships have they forgotten about their current legal battle with former workers of Infinity ward

EA have improved so much since moore got involved and activision just mass produce the same **** year in year out

dreamers75

Wow people defending EA.


Somewhere in EA land people are high fiving. lets not forget Fifa 11,manager version, coca cola cup version ,u7 ddsl version are all coming out now along with every other sport they own.

EA have made some decent games but also own the whole regurgitated ****e side of ti

Krieg

If someone started a thread with that opinion, I would be reporting it to the admin for trolling.

Bobby Kotick = Troll

johnny_ultimate

dreamers75 wrote: »

Wow people defending EA.


Somewhere in EA land people are high fiving. lets not forget Fifa 11,manager version, coca cola cup version ,u7 ddsl version are all coming out now along with every other sport they own.

EA have made some decent games but also own the whole regurgitated ****e side of ti

And the fact that they've committed to quality products alongside their annual money spinners is admirable.

manic mailman

grimm2005 wrote: »

That's funny, I think it's quite the opposite. EA have gotten a lot better at letting studios be independant with their developers programs where companys like Valve, Double Fine and Harmonix get to do their own thing and EA just publish it.
Activision on the other hand like to control their companies (just look at the whole IW fiasco) and are getting a lot worse than EA when it comes to releasing the same re-branded stuff year after year (COD, GH games) and a lot of the developers seem to be moving over to EA (Double Fine, most of Infinity Ward under the Respawn Entertainment banner).

I agree with this, which is why I'm worried about Bungie's future...

L31mr0d

News just in... boss thinks his company is hot sh!t on a silver platter, thinks rivals company is a cold turd on a paper plate.

Additional shocking revelations to come, researchers discover the Sun is hot.

Kersmash

Krieg wrote: »

If someone started a thread with that opinion, I would be reporting it to the admin for trolling.

Bobby Kotick = Troll

he does look like he should live under a bridge alright.

Cuddlesworth

L31mr0d wrote: »

News just in... boss thinks his company is hot sh!t on a silver platter, thinks rivals company is a cold turd on a paper plate.

Additional shocking revelations to come, researchers discover the Sun is hot.

News just in, boss said it to the press. Seriously, its a business. You don't go out and smack talk the industry players. As another business dealing with Activision I would weigh up what I know.

They are being sued by majority of their second largest developer who had left to form a new company. The details of the case are listing blackmail and extortion through the withholding of payment.

Their largest developer, majority shareholder and producer of 70% of their revenue treats the publishing arm with disdain and Bobby is according to industry sources banned from entering the premises.

CEO has been quoted many times with a amazing variety of stupid comments.

We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

"I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."

"The best of all margins – the 25 per cent operating margin business – has the potential as we can see with World of Warcraft to be a 50 per cent operating margin business."

"really rewards profit and nothing else." (Concerning Kotick's incentive program for Activision employees)

-- San Francisco Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference 2009


"If you think about the success that we've had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise" (Concerning Call of Duty franchise)

-- Financial Call February 2010


"Long-term focus and commitment to providing superior returns to our shareholders."

"And Tony, you know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further."

-- Activision Blizzard Q2 2009 Earnings Call (transcript)


"First, right now we are ahead of our plans to realize the benefits of the combined company, especially our key profit and profit margin objectives."

"Why don’t we start with the Vivendi Games businesses -- there were a lot of different projects and businesses that we identified as not likely to achieve the profit margin potential that we look for."

"With respect to the franchises that don’t have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming $100 million plus franchises, that’s a strategy that has worked very well for us."

"And again, our strategy, narrow and deep, focus on properties that will sell to a very broad consumer base on the console -- those are strategies that seem to work well."

"there will continue to be opportunities for us to exploit the PC platform in ways that we haven’t yet."

"It’s harder to attract development talent to projects that are more speculative in the long run, and so what we found is that if you have a [need] for innovation in existing franchises, that’s a recipe for margin expansion and you still need to have production of new original intellectual property, but you need to do it very, very selectively"

So, would you do a deal with him?

Helix

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

And the fact that they've committed to quality products alongside their annual money spinners is admirable.

as is the fact that their annual money spinners are all brilliant for the most part