09-28-2010, 05:57 PM
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Earlwolfx on XBL
OVR: 35
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: 315
Posts: 9,834
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Activision/ EA Crapfest 2k10
Activision Fires the First Shot:
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Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, believes that the publisher's success is due to allowing studios to retain their autonomy and personalities, rather than creating internal studios like EA. Speaking during an exclusive interview in issue 220 of Edge (available from UK newsagents tomorrow), Kotick says that EA is struggling to attract the best people due to unattractive working practices.
"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.
"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. The only thing that we try to do is to provide a support structure to make them more successful. If you do a really good job - and a lot of our studios do - you get to pick what is, in my view, the most difficult thing to pick in the industry: to make original intellectual property."
Asked whether he thought that allowing so much autonomy resulted in additional risk, Kotick feels that Activision is confident in the abilities of its studios and that the strategy poses no risk at all.
"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.'
"We get in business with people who are responsible, they’re creative, they want to make great games. The incentive schemes that we’ve devised all reward success. But there’s not anything that is a 'Hey, you have to get the game out on Thursday.'"
Though EA is coming round to Activision's approach with its 'city state' structure, Kotick believes that the publisher is underestimating its ability to change.
"The thing is, it doesn’t work that way - you can’t be a floor wax and then decide that you’re going to become a dessert topping," he says. "That doesn’t work, it’s your DNA. [EA’s] DNA isn’t oriented towards that model - it doesn’t know how to do it, as a culture or as a company, and it never has... Look, EA has a lot of resources, it’s a big company that’s been in business for a long time, maybe it’ll figure it out eventually. But it’s been struggling for a really 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 option, 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. It’s lost its way. And until it has success, and hits, and gets that enthusiasm back for the company, it’s going to have a struggle getting really talented people, which is going to translate into less-than-great games." |
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http://www.next-gen.biz/news/kotick-...cating-studios
Out of all the people within EA to compliment, he chooses Tiburon. Take that snobby Operation Sports Posters!
EA, Your turn, GO!
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Electronic Arts has fired back at Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick after interview comments made about EA in Edge magazine were published this morning. Kotick said EA isn't allowing its studios to have an identity and said talented developers don't want to work there.
Jeff Brown, EA's vice president of communications, didn't hold back when asked for comment, taking aim 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."
Activision acquired the World of Warcraft franchise after the company merged with Blizzard parent company Vivendi Games in 2007. With Guitar Hero, Activision stated last year it was reducing the number of music titles released in calendar 2010 in anticipation of a declining market.
There has been little to no effect from the lawsuit with Infinity Ward over Call of Duty to Activision's bottom line, however. Modern Warfare 2 has sold over 20 million copies worldwide to date, and Activision is planning on marketing its latest title, Call of Duty: Black Ops, with the publisher's largest game launch this November. |
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http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/112/1123641p1.html
Dont ya just love it when Billionaires bitch and moan about eachother. Just for the Record, I think Kotick is way off base here, EAs model for Publishing games is the gold standard for video games right now. There is a reason why Valve, Bioware, and, Dice choose EA to publish there games.
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My dog's butt smells like cookies
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