Activision Has a Point When Defending Itself Against Claims It Doesn't Innovate

Chris Pereira:
"Between DICE taking place last week and Tim Schafer successfully turning to Kickstarter to fund a Double Fine-developed graphic adventure, there has been a lot of talk recently about the role publishers serve in the videogame industry. There is the belief among many people that publishers do little more than stifle innovation, a suggestion Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg takes issue with."

[THILLREBORN]

So here's the think Activision is on one with the re-hash and here's why.

1. Taking risks with expansions on an existing product is not taking risks it's called post launch support and when that's a service that is geared around monthly fees well that's a no brainer...shut down here.

2. Supporting a tracking feature for the highest selling franchise that is driven off of competitive community is again not taking risks it doing what is expected.

3. All Activision is done is played safe with community driven experiences which is why you almost never see single player only games...right now those are the risky bets!

I think I shut down Activision pretty quickly and it was fairly simple lol

[Fylus]

Agreed. Activision are morons. They obviously don't even understand the definition of "innovation".

[GraveLord]

1. It is taking risks when you release so much DLC for a game. Does the community want it? Will they move on to another game 5 months from launch? These are risks and it was especially risky back during the COD4/MW2 era.

2. COD Elite is actually really risky. It's a subscription model(optinal) on a console FPS. It has never been done before.

3. Is it a bad thing that they don't release single player only games? Multiplayer is the most popular mode this gen. So I say stick to what you're best at.

[fei-hung]

Although i dislike Activision, all things COD and agree with what you said above, i believe the biggest problem are the consumers who buy COD yearly and support Activision in not innovating, regurgitating and milking.

At the end of the day, if the consumer wants to be milked and be given a copy n paste product, Activision would be stupid not to give them want they want.

[FriedGoat]

THILLREBORN,

That was the best comment I have read for a long time.
I would also add that skylanders is not really a new IP, Its still a Spyro Game.

[Dovahkiin]

And not exactly a true Spyro game.