Activision doesn't want to be seen as 'the evil empire'

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg has reiterated his desire to repair gamers' perception of the publishing giant, saying in a new interview that the company's keen to shed its 'bad guy' image.

[Darth Stewie]

Too late

[FunAndGun]

pic made me lol

[Yi-Long]

... if they don't want that image, they should change their ways. Which they won't.

[b163o1]

Hate2 be a cosigner, but it is Too late

[Tempist]

About 3 Call of Duty Games too late.

[Yi-Long]

... I don't care for CoD, but as long as they're well-made games that have an audience, there's no problem with Activision releasing new games in the series....

The problem with Activision is lack of innovation (even going as far as to abort original new games out of fear it might not reach a mass-market audience), plus a horrible reputation when it comes to DLC-milking/scamming.

TBH though, who even gives a rat's ass about Activision anymore? Their big cashcow is World of Warcraft, and Call of Duty is always selling well, but what else do they really have?

Nothing. Just greed.

[Tempist]

You say call of Duty games aren't a problem, but then you go on to say they lack innovation? Call of Duty is one of the least innovative games that has a huge audience.

It's really starting to come down to a yearly update instead of a new game. It is a problem, because other devs can't do anything very new since gamers don't like things which are not familiar. It's sad to see one game becoming a bench mark for an entire genre of games and that game isn't even good.

[gamingdroid]

...and why ruin a good thing?

I like CoD, and messing around too much with the game means it ain't CoD anymore. If they want to do that, create a spin-off.

People b!tch about CoD, but all I see is major support from the games from consumers.

[pandehz]

lmfao

[Paralex]

I guess being a business and making money is evil? I guess everyone wants everyone else to be broke. :)

Every publisher is trying to make money off their games... how is Activision any different? How is EA any different? How is THQ any different? The point of a business is to exchange a product or service for money. Activision happens to publish games that appeals to the masses and sell the most games.

It's much easier for you guys to b*tch and moan though. So keep at it! Watching nothing change. :)

[moparful99]

There's nothing wrong with making money.. You're spinning the argument in favor of activision.. The problem is that activision does as little as possible and reaps money off of it.. They swallow up smaller companies and disolve them, they've found a play formula that is addictive to millions of gamers and they take full advantage of that, and charging $15 for a map pack is not only insane its highway robbery... They refuse to fix all of the issues with their games and they release a new title every year.. I haven't bought an activision product since modern warfare 2 nor will I untill they stop being so greedy.....

[TheXonySbox]

you have a twisted view of reality; please rethink everything you believe in.

So fucking pathetic you actually believe that bullshit you wrote.

[Paralex]

How's it a twisted view of reality? I wrote EXACTLY how things are. Activision = publisher of big name games. They're making the most bank of their IPs. So what? What are we going to do about it? Nothing. If anything your view of reality is twisted by actually thinking that you're going to hurt them by not buying their products. For every person that stops buying their products, 2 more will buy it. Whether their "evil" or not is irrelevant. Like many people around here say "don't like it, don't buy it." Do I bitch and moan at Mercedes for overpricing their cars? No. Do people still buy the cars? Yes. Do I care? No. And you people b*tch and moan about $15 map packs on only ONE of their IPs. They're not going to lower the price now, the masses have still purchased the DLCs they charge so high for. Blame their consumers for being enablers. Even if the DLC was $5 you people would still b*tch and moan. "OMG don't they already have enough money!?!?" Blah blah blah kid whatever. Just because you made so much money doesn't mean you should stop and retire.

[Dart89]

Kind of hard not to be seen as the 'The evil empire after all the stupid crap they have pulled recently.

[Emilio_Estevez]

1. get rid of Kotick
2. stop milking franchises
3. profit?

[Tempist]

1. Stop letting Kotick Speak
2. Do something besides COD / MW
3. Do something original
4. ????
5. PROFIT!

[theonlylolking]

Nintendo milks there franchises and hardly brings anything new with each new mario, zelda, pokemon, etc... game but they get away with it.

[Zydake]

because nintendo has done so well that almost every has fallen in love with these characters. Like Mario, every1 world wide knows that plumber because we've been with this guy for years. Same thing with Snake, there could be more MGS games and I will buy em cause the character is great

[Baka-akaB]

nintendo try new concept with their milked franchises , and release games of excellent quality . Mario had what ? 8-9 forray into new genres , and excelled at each so far .

Not to mention that they occasionally release new ips .

IF that crap crap you said was 1% remotely true , you wouldnt even know about pokemon , pikmin , metroid , kid icarus , kirby , punch out , earth bond , donkey kong , F zero , fire emblem , golden sun , advance wars , star fox , xenoblade , brain age , wii fit , animal crossing ...

Dude i'm already drowning you under a dozen of ips , and at least 5 of those are from the current decade , and some others werent much seen till recently ... give it up

[Biggest]

I agree with some of what you're saying, Baka-akaB. But please take some of those games off of your list. There are 98 Pokemon games. There are dozens of Metroid games. Kid Icarus, Kirby, Punch-Out, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, and Star Fox are the same games I used to love as a child. They aren't new IPs. There are plenty of new IPs on the Nintendo consoles, so I agree with your point. The games you listed were the weakest part of your argument.

[jack_burt0n]

1. execute bobby
2. give the COD franchise to respawn as a gift
3. form a new studio made up entirely from the 1000's of people they have fired over the last 3 years.
4. let that studio make new IP
5. not release a sequel, reboot or film franchise for at least a year.
6. make all DLC across all titles free for a year.

@lolking
Miyamoto can get away with it because he has earned the right by being a gaming legend. HUGE difference.

[elbeasto86]

"Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has also felt the need to defend himself from being painted as the big, bad executive type. In fact, he has joked, he's more Luke Skywalker than Darth Vader."

Don't people love Vader more than Luke Skywalker??

[unknownhero1123]

yeah, i don't see him as vader, I see him as emperor palatine.

[femshep]

if he is luke then im glad that i like the sith side of star wars more

[Jamaicangmr]

You should put "Anymore" at the end to complete the sentense.

[Valvatorez]

I don't see them as evil,I see them as assholes.

[StayStatic]

Am i the only one who had the biggest grin ever when they read the title of this article ? =D

[Raven_Nomad]

There not. To me companies like EA are much more evil. They force quality companies like Bioware to rush their games and milk their sports franchises and every other franchise. Activision really only have one or two viable franchises, where as EA has a ton and most are utter crap now because of how EA runs things.

[radphil]

How is "I'm taking the fun out of development" not evil?

[Baka-akaB]

I dont care for either , but see ... those milked sports franchise actually features more changes and new tech each year , than the last 3 cod combined .
We cannot argue that fifa doesnt improve when it's tech is even being used as a milestone for other genres and franchises ..
Or when it went from the being the "casual crap soccer" game , to the reigning king of soccer , thanks to its tremendeous changes (even if i dont share that opinion) .

It's actully something to ponder , when sports games , the perfect milk , do more than blockbuster fps , there is something amiss and weird going on .

Activision had as many ips and studios than EA . They just dropped everything not named cod , blizzard , and spiderman . I dont see how EA still managing its properties instead , even if leading to some painful failures , can be considered any worse than that

[Raven_Nomad]

Activision doesn't own nearly as many franchises as EA. I have never played a soccer game because I'm American and think Soccer is stupid.

I have played their Madden series and it's gone from bad to worse. Now there is a game that has been milked and has zero improvement.

If you think it's the same COD game every year then I think you need your eyes checked bro.

I went back and tried to play COD4 and WAW yesterday and both were just awful. They looked bad and the movements were stiff and I found it to be almost a last gen effort. Which is odd because COD4 is probably my favorite FPS of all time.

So obviously Activision and these companies are putting in some sort of innovation and upgrades to their games.

[Baka-akaB]

It's irrelevant if you like soccer or not . It's not as if i even like fifa personally .

Bottom line still isnt changing much for me... even fifa brought new tech to EA that actually benefits .

COD is using the same outdated tech for years , get relatively minor changes in comparison , and brings nothing interesting aside from being a major money maker .

From my point of view , the cod franchise is then even more stale than an actually ever changing "milked" sport market .

Both companies are too big for their own , no our own good . But one got an even worse effect on the market , and i dont see it being EA , at least thus far .

[DigitalxPiracy]

You and Warprincess are the biggest CoD-loving trolls on this site. Please, both of you, kill yourselves.

[beast242tru]

well they are almost as evil as microsoft soo idk its gonna be hard 2 get out of that mabe if they give us mordern warfare 3 for $30 usd then we mite kick them down a notch

[TitanUp]

people looked at ea the same way sometimes still do but at least ea came out with new ip and better games cause of the gaming community. hope activision does turn around if so we could see the same thing happen with activision that happened with ea.

its doubtful cause they could have started with modern warfare 3.

[LightofDarkness]

Yes, and now EA have begun returning to their old ways, divorcing their products from Steam and requiring customers to use their Origin service ONLY for their games, charging much more for their games and taking the exclusive launch "DLC" market to bold new lows.

This is like EA essentially stating that they're tired of playing nice and now they want some of that Activision money.

[CaptCalvin]

You've been misinformed buddy. Alice was just released on Steam.

[Leathersoup]

Murderers don't want to be seen as evil either.

[blacktiger]

good one

[TitanUp]

sure about ea using only origin? alice is up on steam a bit late but its there only games from ea i don't see on there are a lot of the sports titles and crysis 2.

[Acquiescence]

The damage is done.

[dorron]

Too late...

They want respect back? Fire Kotick and stop using those scare tactics and milking customers...

[Baka-akaB]

And yet they've changed nothing to at least pretend they are nice guys .

Realize that ? They can't even muster the effort to lie about it

[Tdmd]

Yeah, good luck with that...

[CanadianTurtle]

Its actually a good thing for them. The reason that they're on top is because they're mean.

[RememberThe357]

Then pull an EA and support more niche titles. EA is putting out Shadow of The Damned and Alice, two game Acti would have passed on because they wont be milkable.

EA milks it's big titles and still puts out games for the niche crowd. Thats how you get respect. You support the developers. Becuase really, in the end, your just a middle man and that can't be forgotten.

[Ethereal]

Well it is.