Bobby Kotick is really dumb, for real
Just when it was thought that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick had nothing else to say about the video game industry, he starts ranting about publisher/developer Electronic Arts. According to ign.com, Kotick had an interview with Edge Magazine Monday, where he said EA does not give its studios an identity, and talented developers do not want to work there.
In the interview, Kotick talked about EA’s acquisition of studios and how it wasn’t given its own name.
"EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida,’ ‘EA Vancouver,’ ‘EA New Jersey,’ whatever," Kotick said. "We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision, and that’s what makes them so successful.' We don’t have an Activision anything – it’s Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer."
That might be true to some extent, but this shows that Kotick has obviously not done his homework. There are few studios owned by EA that have names that don’t start with EA. Visceral Games, which was formerly known as EA Redwood Shores, is responsible for games such as “Dante’s Inferno” and “Dead Space." Another example is Mythic Entertainment, whose most popular game is “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.” To top off the list, one of the most popular games on the Xbox 360 is the “Mass Effect” series, which is developed by Bioware, a company owned by EA.
The second half of that quote says none of the studios Activision owns has the name Activision in it. Not only has Kotick not done his homework on EA, but also he doesn’t even have a full knowledge of his own company, named Activision Blizzard.
In addition, Kotick also said EA’s projects are not creative and have no value. Again, Kotick is a hyprocrite. The only reason why I am so happy about the whole feud is because Jeff Brown, the vice president of communications at EA, had a nice comeback to Kotick’s idiotic accusations.
"His company is based on three game franchises – one is a fantastic, persistent world he had nothing to do with. One is in steep decline. And the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick's own hubris,” Brown said to Escapist Magazine.
Right on sir, right on. If you didn’t have an idea about what Brown was talking about, let me break it down for you. The franchises that he talked about are “World of Warcraft,” “Guitar Hero” series and the “Call of Duty” series, respectively. Without any of these titles, Activision would cease to be a major player in the video game industry. To have Kotick accuse EA of something that his own company has done is not fair and utterly stupid.
Bobby Kotick needs to shut up. Seriously.
The next time Kotick decides to say something, he had better do his research and stop being a hypocrite. Because anything else is just a waste of my time, and it’s making him and the company look more like a bunch of morons.
