EPTA short history of Activision Blizzard or how... - Page 45
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Sylv
Canada26 Posts
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Half
United States2554 Posts
On September 29 2010 07:40 Red Alert wrote: this is a little naive to say, don't you think? Do you really think Vivendi bought activision and then said "OK GUYS DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BLIZZARD WE DON'T CARE". Or do you think that they may be really good at keeping their name out of it? Bottom line is that Kotick's job is to appease Vivendi. If he's not doing what they want, then they'll get rid of him. No, your naive because you have no fucking clue how large business operate. Exec are not babysitters. When you control dozens of Cinema, Film, and Video Game publishing and other entertainment enterprises, you do not have the time nor the specific knowledge to make detailed business decisions on behalf of any of them. | ||
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Red Alert
United States119 Posts
On September 29 2010 10:01 Half wrote: No, your naive because you have no fucking clue how large business operate. Exec are not babysitters. When you control dozens of Cinema, Film, and Video Game publishing and other entertainment enterprises, you do not have the time nor the specific knowledge to make detailed business decisions on behalf of any of them. What are you talking about? Vivendi controls 7 companies, Activison Blizzard being the third largest. All of their companies below Activison Blizzard are incredibly small, so they are really managing 3 large companies here. Not dozens. | ||
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Gnial
Canada907 Posts
Don't like their employment practices? Their employees are protected by all the same statutes that other employees are protected by...so why should programmers get special sympathy? If programmers are worried about being treated badly by activision, they can choose not to work for that company...if there aren't enough programmer jobs out there to avoid activision, then they can join the millions of other people out there who have to retrain to get better employment. If activision's employment standards are as horrendous as this OP makes it out to be, then they will scare off talented employees, the quality of their games will suffer relative to the companies that have the talented people, they won't make as many sales, and they will make a lower profit. It doesn't take an MBA to figure that out, and I'm sure the Activision execs are fully aware of that. God, I've gotta stop now because I could write a 100 page paper on how business works, and how ultimately it is the consumer which decides what companies they want to support through purchasing products, and how they want industries to be regulated by advancing and supporting new legislation. If you are all actually 'disgusted' by this OP, preserve your dignity and values; DON'T BUY THE SC2 EXPANSIONS, and go join your local labor party. | ||
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alaska2014
1 Post
And this Kotick guy, he just got lucky with the guitar hero fad, selling extra songs/ guitar equipments and all that spin offs. There is no way you can use the same trick on any other stuff without being a complete nonsense. It is disgusting when they try to block the mods so they can grap a profit from them . They don't even know how precious it is to have a customer group that trying to set up a community behind a game, in fact they don't value the gamers at all. And I don't even want to discuss whats happening in the management there. "Jason West and Vince Zampella get fired, they were replaced by internal Activision Publishing employees (who worked for Procter & Gamble and Nestle before)." The plain fact is that these guys have no sense about gaming, and now they are spreading this cancer--this "exploit theory" in the gaming industry through Blizzard, one of the best in the industry, yes this is going to be effective and will most likely become a trend. It is going to be nasty. | ||
Musoeun
United States4324 Posts
The article is here, for the curious. Best line: "If all you want is for Activision-Blizzard to make money - any money - then they could fire Kotick and hire a desk lamp, because Blizzard was an unstoppable cash-generating dynamo before Kotick ever sat down in the CEO chair." | ||
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KenNage
Chile885 Posts
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tomatriedes
New Zealand5356 Posts
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DragonDefonce
United States790 Posts
On October 08 2010 16:18 tomatriedes wrote: This is why I'm skeptical when people say Acti-Blizzard really cares about keeping BW alive. Does anyone really think a douche like Kotick would care about the BW scene? Not enough money in it for the likes of him. Honestly, in 3 years, a lot of the people playing sc2 will drop out, and it will be slightly bigger crowd than the ones who played BW. Then they will realize they can't make money off of it, and they are gonna stop caring about it. GSL isn't going to last a very long time like sc1 proscene. | ||
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FecalDecal
China49 Posts
As someone who works in the online game industry I can tell you that it certainly isn't as glamorous as a lot of gamers think it is. We're still ruled by the outdated 20th century business models and execs who can only understand the word "profit". | ||
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NicolBolas
United States1388 Posts
We're still ruled by the outdated 20th century business models and execs who can only understand the word "profit". And what words should your executives understand? American corporate culture is very bad at long term thinking; that's a valid complaint. But saying that profit is all they care about... of course it is! They're leaders of a corporation; the purpose of a corporation is to make money. Honestly, is this hard to understand? Executives of public corporations are in fact legally required to maximize profits. That's right; if the board of executives thinks that the CEO has passed up obvious avenues of profit, they can sue him. This is generally done in cases of gross negligence or malfeasance, but the option exists. Do you think that Valve came up with Steam out of the goodness of their hearts? Do you think Blizzard made WoW because they were bored and wanted to make an MMO? This is how companies work; they do things that make money. | ||
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Red Alert
United States119 Posts
On October 08 2010 17:29 FecalDecal wrote: As someone who works in the online game industry I can tell you that it certainly isn't as glamorous as a lot of gamers think it is. We're still ruled by the outdated 20th century business models and execs who can only understand the word "profit". Outdated, you say? So then what is the modern way to go about this? Preferably with some examples of this method producing good games. | ||
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deltamal
Canada23 Posts
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/8169-Experienced-Points-Age-of-Kotick Here's a good section at the end: Another thing to remember is that getting rid of your CEO is usually a negative thing for a publicly held company. It hurts the stock price and makes the board look bad, so there are reasons they might hang onto Kotick even if the board was unhappy with his performance. The point is, the fact that he has a job isn't proof that he's any good at it or that someone else couldn't do a lot better. Activision deserves more for its fifteen million bucks. So do gamers. | ||
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naveedx983
United States58 Posts
It is frustrating that an industry that has always been propped up by it's community, is also working harder and harder to exploit that community. | ||
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epik640x
United States1134 Posts
I don't care for hats and the like, but hey some people are enjoying them so by all means. | ||
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Protein
United States132 Posts
Thanks for the post! I refuse to feed this company anymore. Edit: Just to add - When I played the campaign I felt betrayed by the fact that their initial claim that "there was too much content to fit into one game" was bullshit. Most of the missions were filler and a lot of the content that felt "necessary" to put in felt forced just to get to 28 missions. On top of that, the story, in my opinion, was bad and the dialogue was shit. I felt that I had been lied to, which aggravated me. The cross-realm playing, and the fact that soon, they will charge you for a name change (which is outrageous) as well as their many other money-making schemes, only enhances my anger over the game. Add all that frustration to the fact that really, if you open your eyes, the multiplayer experience isn't that good and you have one gamer who has decided to stop. What makes this game good is the community and not the game itself. They have used their name to create a far superior online community compared with the community associated with other online games. Starcraft II alone is not that impressive. Most people are ready to defend it solely because it's Starcraft/Blizzard. Blizzard has changed. | ||
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Tdelamay
Canada548 Posts
On October 08 2010 20:12 NicolBolas wrote: And what words should your executives understand? American corporate culture is very bad at long term thinking; that's a valid complaint. But saying that profit is all they care about... of course it is! They're leaders of a corporation; the purpose of a corporation is to make money. Honestly, is this hard to understand? Executives of public corporations are in fact legally required to maximize profits. That's right; if the board of executives thinks that the CEO has passed up obvious avenues of profit, they can sue him. This is generally done in cases of gross negligence or malfeasance, but the option exists. Do you think that Valve came up with Steam out of the goodness of their hearts? Do you think Blizzard made WoW because they were bored and wanted to make an MMO? This is how companies work; they do things that make money. Blizzard probably had this thought when they created World of Warcraft "We could create this amazing games that we're sure players will love. Money will follow" I don't think Blizzard focus so much on how to make money, but on how to make a good game. The money just naturally follows, and they know it. | ||
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Red Alert
United States119 Posts
On October 09 2010 02:10 epik640x wrote: Pretty cool that Valve hasn't caved to a buyout offer from a huge corporation. I don't care for hats and the like, but hey some people are enjoying them so by all means. Blizzard has always been owned by a major corporation. | ||
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Legace
Sweden342 Posts
I'm at the point where this asshat probably could do anything and I wouldn't raise an eyebrow about it. I don't know what's more amazing, the fact that he doesn't try to hide the fact he's an assclown or the fact he still has a job. Quite frankly, he must be a PR-consultants worst fucking nightmare, everything this fudgepacker does seem to upset pretty much everyone. What really pisses me off about Bobby is the fact that between his sessions of clubbing baby seals and killing the unborn, he seems to be trying his hardest to utterly burn Blizzards name into the ground and he is doing a damn good job. Bobby Kotick would have made a damn fine SS-officer. | ||
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