He’s not being an especially effective wrestling heel shielding the creatives or whatever by putting his foot in it every second press release
‘Oh gee thanks for not just denying our workplace culture was/is bad but also moaning about unions. That really takes the heat off so we can focus on making games’
the financial guy always takes the hits for the creative guy. the financial guy is always seen as the "bad cop" and the creative guy who makes the super-cool software is the "good cop".
The creative guys want to make cool games, the financial guys want to abuse human psychology to make money, the financial guys do the things that make them take hits, only weird nerds like you believe that its those evil creatives out there to do bad things with those notoriously humanitarian financials out there taking all the blame.
Kotick wants people focusing their anger on him and not the creatives who work for him. This is why he said many years ago... "i am going to take the fun out of making video games". He wants the spotlight on him so his creatives have the latitude and freedom that anonymity brings. Kotick is just playing a role. You believing it is real is just playing into Kotick's choreographed game.
"Creatives" only have the freedom that the financial psychopaths at the head of the company let them have. Which isn't very much freedom, and often requires creatives to dilute and poison there vision to insert insidious monetization to abuse people into spending more money so the financials can jerk it to their bank accounts. I hope to god that you aren't counting the game monetization specialists as creatives by the way, that'd be a pretty stupid thing to do.
On July 01 2022 09:44 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Creative Director of Blizzard, Rob Pardo left in 2014. As soon as his non-compete clause expired he formed Bonfire Studios and announced its opening in September 2016.
We are coming up on 6 years and zero games have been made. Not even a single piece of concept art released about a future game. No news of any kind about any future game.
How long can the studio continue with no revenue? The longer they go and the more money they borrow the more beholden they are to their financial benefactors.
I'd love to get a job at Bonfire. I can spend a year discussing the philosophy of game making with the staff. We'll have meetings and discussions... dialogue... focus groups. Powerpoint slide presentations. it'll be great. I can do all that stuff. I want to be in charge of "company culture". Just don't ask me to make a game.
On July 22 2021 15:18 Zambrah wrote: Fuckin' cowards, can't even properly own up to their shit, too busy being pissed off that their absurdly disgusting is being outed. God its been hard to be a Blizzard fan for a while now and I think this officially makes it impossible for me. Reading the documentation on this stuff is utterly nauseating. Stuff coming out on twitter is also horrifying.
I don't think its all that clear cut. The investigative lead, Jeanette Whipper, got canned. Two of the people under her got moved off the case due to conflict of interest rules. I'm not sure how much hard evidence there is.
There is hard evidence California's DFEH messed up big time though.
They are financed by Riot Games so money shouldn't be an issue
watching Bonfire Studios make nothing is like "Waiting for Godot" except it is happening in reality and not some post modern bizarro world existential drivel.
Lol what did these guys do to you to make you hate them so much? Did you try to get a job with at one of these studios at some point and they turned you down?
i'm laughing not angry. good to see you laughing as well. Bonfire Games is theatre of the absurd. I must say, ATVI did an impressive job getting great productivity out of Rob Pardo.
On June 01 2023 22:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: He's a lunatic. One would think one of the PR people that had to have read that would have recommended not saying such things. Never mind the fact that this interview was posted the day before a well known, but still damaged, IP is set to launch.
nah, i don't think he is mentally ill. i think he is over 65 and his career is winding down. he had a great run.
On June 01 2023 22:29 Zambrah wrote: Heres someone worth hating saying insane bullshit because hes a sociopathic monster!
the financial guy always takes the hits for the creative guy. the financial guy is always seen as the "bad cop" and the creative guy who makes the super-cool software is the "good cop". It is a paradigm that has been going on since 1979 when Activision was born. The "good guys" were David Crane, Bob Whitehead and the other creatives. No one gets inspired by the legal and accounting teams doing all the admin work in the background. Everyone gets inspired when David Crane can make a game like Pitfall for a Console with incredibly limited power.
Kotick wants people focusing their anger on him and not the creatives who work for him. This is why he said many years ago... "i am going to take the fun out of making video games". He wants the spotlight on him so his creatives have the latitude and freedom that anonymity brings. Kotick is just playing a role. You believing it is real is just playing into Kotick's choreographed game.
Kotick's yapping is basically a pro wrestling promotional interview.
Multiple devs from Team 4(the Overwatch team) coming out and saying that Kotick regularly disrupted their progress by forcing them to work on his own pet projects which would end up abandoned certainly doesn't sound like him taking a hit for the creative guys.
But of course you are going to claim that this is all part of the act as well and Kotick is acting as their scapegoat while not having actually disrupted them correct?
Its the mindset that assumes a perfect meritorious capitalist society and works backwards from there, Booby is rich therefore what he does has merit in all ways!
On July 01 2022 09:44 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Creative Director of Blizzard, Rob Pardo left in 2014. As soon as his non-compete clause expired he formed Bonfire Studios and announced its opening in September 2016.
We are coming up on 6 years and zero games have been made. Not even a single piece of concept art released about a future game. No news of any kind about any future game.
How long can the studio continue with no revenue? The longer they go and the more money they borrow the more beholden they are to their financial benefactors.
I'd love to get a job at Bonfire. I can spend a year discussing the philosophy of game making with the staff. We'll have meetings and discussions... dialogue... focus groups. Powerpoint slide presentations. it'll be great. I can do all that stuff. I want to be in charge of "company culture". Just don't ask me to make a game.
On July 22 2021 15:18 Zambrah wrote: Fuckin' cowards, can't even properly own up to their shit, too busy being pissed off that their absurdly disgusting is being outed. God its been hard to be a Blizzard fan for a while now and I think this officially makes it impossible for me. Reading the documentation on this stuff is utterly nauseating. Stuff coming out on twitter is also horrifying.
I don't think its all that clear cut. The investigative lead, Jeanette Whipper, got canned. Two of the people under her got moved off the case due to conflict of interest rules. I'm not sure how much hard evidence there is.
There is hard evidence California's DFEH messed up big time though.
They are financed by Riot Games so money shouldn't be an issue
watching Bonfire Studios make nothing is like "Waiting for Godot" except it is happening in reality and not some post modern bizarro world existential drivel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvnA8Vtf3rA
Lol what did these guys do to you to make you hate them so much? Did you try to get a job with at one of these studios at some point and they turned you down?
i'm laughing not angry. good to see you laughing as well. Bonfire Games is theatre of the absurd. I must say, ATVI did an impressive job getting great productivity out of Rob Pardo.
On June 01 2023 22:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: He's a lunatic. One would think one of the PR people that had to have read that would have recommended not saying such things. Never mind the fact that this interview was posted the day before a well known, but still damaged, IP is set to launch.
nah, i don't think he is mentally ill. i think he is over 65 and his career is winding down. he had a great run.
On June 01 2023 22:29 Zambrah wrote: Heres someone worth hating saying insane bullshit because hes a sociopathic monster!
the financial guy always takes the hits for the creative guy. the financial guy is always seen as the "bad cop" and the creative guy who makes the super-cool software is the "good cop". It is a paradigm that has been going on since 1979 when Activision was born. The "good guys" were David Crane, Bob Whitehead and the other creatives. No one gets inspired by the legal and accounting teams doing all the admin work in the background. Everyone gets inspired when David Crane can make a game like Pitfall for a Console with incredibly limited power.
Kotick wants people focusing their anger on him and not the creatives who work for him. This is why he said many years ago... "i am going to take the fun out of making video games". He wants the spotlight on him so his creatives have the latitude and freedom that anonymity brings. Kotick is just playing a role. You believing it is real is just playing into Kotick's choreographed game.
Kotick's yapping is basically a pro wrestling promotional interview.
Multiple devs from Team 4(the Overwatch team) coming out and saying that Kotick regularly disrupted their progress by forcing them to work on his own pet projects which would end up abandoned certainly doesn't sound like him taking a hit for the creative guys.
But of course you are going to claim that this is all part of the act as well and Kotick is acting as their scapegoat while not having actually disrupted them correct?
Auld Bobby Kotick is obviously the Severus Snape of the company
There’ll be some big tearful reveal about how he was actually misunderstood this whole time. Poor Bobby, choosing to take the heat by having to act the cartoon villain the whole time
Something tells me that the Overwatch team didn’t make the call to can the PvE modes that were really all that justified that game being a sequel rather than a big patch. Or that the Reforged team wanted to ship a remaster with half the features of the original.
On the plus side Diablo 4 seems to have been something of a return to form for Blizz after a relative lean spell. I know some hardcore fans still aren’t 100% sold but as a general product it’s done pretty damn well.
Odd that a game launching pretty polished and feature complete does well eh?
On June 12 2023 12:40 Zambrah wrote: Its the mindset that assumes a perfect meritorious capitalist society and works backwards from there, Booby is rich therefore what he does has merit in all ways!
Kotick started with almost nothing. In 1991, Activision was a shelved brand. The company had no one making games when he bought it and the it was called Mediagenic.
The guy is a visionary who built an empire. He leveraged the child hood memories of a demographic of 20-somethings into an empire during the 1990s. When people in their 20s saw the Activision brand on a game it drew their immediate respect. Kinda like Blizzard has at many times in the past... and with Diablo4 ... still does.
Hes a psychopath. Just because the US incentivizes psychopathy in it's corporate nightmare land doesn't mean Bobby Kotick is anything other than a raging asshole incapable of properly gelling with human emotion. He isn't a visionary, he's part of a caste of people who the US makes virtually incapable of failure because they have so much money and because the US places no value on anything but money.
But hey, hes just playing the heel right, he threatens to have people killed because he expects it to make the news ~15 years later to cover for ABK in some way! True genius! A Visionary!
On June 13 2023 21:06 Zambrah wrote: He isn't a visionary, he's part of a caste of people who the US makes virtually incapable of failure because they have so much money and because the US places no value on anything but money.
incorrect, Kotick started with nothing but a long dead and buried brand name. Nothing else.
There are court room decision updates something like 4 times in the past 2 days. It is hilarious how much Activision loves to fight in court rooms. It is also hilarious watching these "gaming journalists" incorrectly characterize the decisions happening the past 2 days. ATVI has been squabbling with government regulators since 1979.
On June 14 2023 11:23 Sermokala wrote: He increased shareholder value greatly. That should totally excuse any kind of abuse he did or allowed to happen.
When he bought the brand there were 0 shareholders and 0 employees working on video games. In buying the Activision brand Kotick purchased the fond memories 20-somethings had from playing Pitfall, River Raid and Zork 10+ years earlier. When you are in charge of thousands of people for decades some bad stuff will happen. It is the law of large #s dude. + Show Spoiler +
Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister of Canada when a serial rapist and murderer got only 12 years in prison and a free 4 year university education. This does not mean he was a bad PM. Also, the people claiming they know why someone committed suicide have their own private agendas. No one can know for certain the cause of a suicide.
Bobby is excited! Are you excited? Deadline extended from July 18 to late August. Deal with MS altered. Larger pull out fee and a $1 dividend.
Bobby is on a massive win streak. Jeanette Whipper got canned by the governor of California and the FTC got their budget cut by 25%. Lina Khan got eviscerated.
the press name "Bobby" is fucking hilarious. There is no reality in any multiverse where the people who report to him call him "Bobby".
"hey Bobby ... King Digital microtransactions from senior citizens this week only made $1.2 billion and we projected for $1.3 billion. We'll get'em next week right Bobby?".
There was a violent and super dirty NHL player who , during his playing days, was known as "Bobby Clarke". After he retired the nanosecond he got a management job for a hockey team he became "Robert Clarke". Sorta Bobby Kotick ... in reverse.
Man, that guy has the most punchable face I’ve ever seen. Like, objectively. Put that YouTube preview picture next to 20 other random pictures of people and ask a random person “Who do you want to punch?”, with no prior knowledge of who they are or what they’ve done, 9 times out of 10 it’s that guy.
Not even commenting on his policies/history, could be a male Mother Teresa but that doesn’t change the face.
On July 20 2023 23:27 Ryzel wrote: Man, that guy has the most punchable face I’ve ever seen.
Mission accomplished by the thumbnail creator. Maybe the thumbnail creator should get a job at the WWE.
You are reacting to "Bobby"; This is a meticulously crafted fictional character. The thumbnail was changed twice before they settled on that one.
Great leaders keep the spotlight shining on themselves so that the very smart people undertaking extremely difficult creative tasks can work in total privacy.
I develop software applications and I prefer the Project Manager take all the heat while I work in peace. If the Project Manager has a long track record of great results, is a stickler for detail, and is a total prick that is great as well. Project Managers like that have massive budgets. The only thing I like almost as much as crafting amazing interactive digital solutions .... is money.
On July 20 2023 23:27 Ryzel wrote: Man, that guy has the most punchable face I’ve ever seen.
Mission accomplished by the thumbnail creator. Maybe the thumbnail creator should get a job at the WWE.
You are reacting to "Bobby"; This is a meticulously crafted fictional character. The thumbnail was changed twice before they settled on that one.
Great leaders keep the spotlight shining on themselves so that the very smart people undertaking extremely difficult creative tasks can work in total privacy.
I develop software applications and I prefer the Project Manager take all the heat while I work in peace. If the Project Manager has a long track record of great results, is a stickler for detail, and is a total prick that is great as well. Project Managers like that have massive budgets. The only thing I like almost as much as crafting amazing interactive digital solutions .... is money.
Why are you so confident that it’s a meticulously crafted fictional persona?
It looks like Gearbox Publishing did a fantastic job scooping Gunfire Games from THQ and giving them the resources necessary to make Remnant 2. Randy Pitchford was given a giant truck full of cash from Embracer. Whatever money went into making Remnant2... it was money well spent. I can't wait for the next Borderlands game.
On July 20 2023 23:27 Ryzel wrote: Man, that guy has the most punchable face I’ve ever seen.
Mission accomplished by the thumbnail creator. Maybe the thumbnail creator should get a job at the WWE.
You are reacting to "Bobby"; This is a meticulously crafted fictional character. The thumbnail was changed twice before they settled on that one.
Great leaders keep the spotlight shining on themselves so that the very smart people undertaking extremely difficult creative tasks can work in total privacy.
I develop software applications and I prefer the Project Manager take all the heat while I work in peace. If the Project Manager has a long track record of great results, is a stickler for detail, and is a total prick that is great as well. Project Managers like that have massive budgets. The only thing I like almost as much as crafting amazing interactive digital solutions .... is money.
Why are you so confident that it’s a meticulously crafted fictional persona?
Because of how common it is for the financial decision makers to PLAY THE ROLE of "bad cop".
its standard for the financial people to be the "bad cop" and the software makers to be the "good cop". the financial people do the firing... set the limits and scope of the project. the creatives make a working software solution possible that was impossible only months earlier. the creatives look like miracle workers.
Why do you have any confidence that this dynamic, which is going on right now in almost every software creation process, is not happening at Activision?
On July 29 2023 04:46 Zambrah wrote: Because his world view is warped around the idea wealth = morality.
This is way off topic... but i'll humour you. People have said money is the root of all evil. has any one ever stopped to ask : "what is the root of money?"