Bobby Kotick, always good to laugh at. Here's what he's been talking out his arse about this week so far.
On ex-Inifinty Ward staff
Quote:
"It shook my belief in two specific people, who were my friends," says Kotick, who says the IW founders used Activision for personal gain. "The frustrating thing about that is, the stuff that these guys did, I never would have expected them to do. We're a public company, we've got ethics obligations, and the things they did were ... I would go to jail if I did them.
"You can't use the company and the company's assets for your own personal benefit, and you can't use the leverage that you might have for personal benefit -- you're not allowed to do that! And so we didn't have any choice ...*That's one of those really difficult decisions as the CEO of a company, where you step back and say, 'No good is going to come of this. They're going to leave and probably have a really hard time ever being productive or successful ever again, and we're going to lose some talented people, and there's nothing we can do about it.' And there wasn't."
|
It is unfortunate that the laws of the land don't apply to ex-IW staff, but would be used harshly against Kotick. I'd put him on prison if I were a lawmaker.
Pretty sure that a Respawn game published by EA will be successful anyway. Speaking of EA:
Quote:
"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," says the fire-kissed despair merchant. "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 ... 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."
|
What? Yeah, EA are the last resort when Activision has looked at your idea and pissed all over it. Isn't that how Brutal Legend got published by EA? Tim Schafer did call Kotick a prick ages ago. Koticks rebuttal?
Quote:
"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," explains the nefarious businessman.*"I never had any involvement in the Vivendi project that they were doing, Brütal 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 ..."
|
He does have a point on that one, but he did also prove Schafer right by answering him like a prick. So, anything positive? He does seem keen on motion control. Hooray?
Quote:
Kotick told Edge: "So as long as we think a peripheral is going to deliver something that’s compelling and interesting and innovative we’ll support it." He feels that both Move and Kinect are "superb" for dance games, and has been impressed with both motion controllers.
That said, Kotick still feels the need for specific types of physical interfacing for their games, and it sounds like they have a few more up their sleeves. He says that "we’re going to keep making physical interface products if we think that’s going to enhance the experience - and we have some really cool ones for next year."
As enthusiastic as he sounds about Sony and Microsoft's newest offerings, he does have one beef with Kinect: the price. Kotick told Edge in issue 220, "With Kinect… I love it as an idea, but [Microsoft has] got to get the price down."
|
Hmm, shouldn't have ended on such a sane note.