| radiantshadow92 said: Is Activision the Most Evil Company in the World? Editorial: An attempt to answer the most important question in gaming. It's a statement I've heard made in this very office, among other gamers, at Gamestops, in bars, at industry events, on blogs, in tweets -- Activision is the most evil company in the world. Or at least someting along those lines.
So I thought, what better way to get The Gold Standard shut down than to investigate that very question? I mean, have you (a person who has probably at some point uttered disdain for Activision) stopped to really analyze the company's position as the most evil around? Probably not. But you probably should.
Figuring out if a company is evil (and in fact one of the most evil around) isn't that easy. Sure, if you want to be lazy about, you can just cast a stone and say Activision is the bad guy. But I like to analyze first, throw stones second. So let's see how Activision stacks up against some other evil companies.
We pretty much have to accept that, when compared to other companies outside the games industry, Activision is pretty harmless. So, no, it is not the most evil company in the world, because we live on a planet with Philip Morris, BP, Pfiezer, Halliburton and dozens of other corporations that are responsible for destroying the environment, profiting from wars, and directly or indirectly causing the deaths of millions. Guitar Hero V didn't spurt oil all over your living room when you opened the case. Activision never spiked the cost of prescription drugs or screwed anyone out of legitimate healthcare coverage. Call of Duty: Black Ops does not cause cancer. (As far as we know).
 So no, I am sorry to say that we can pretty much rule out Activision as being evil on a global scale. Hell, Cobra was more evil than Activision and they weren't even real. No one at Activision is a Nazi, there's nothing in its back catalog that's comparable to the Holocaust (Jew certified), and they aren't selling blood diamonds or testing strains of the Ebola virus on the innocent. Sally Struthers is not standing outside of Activision's Santa Monica offices begging you to "think of the children" and cajoling you to give just 25 cents a day (which, I assume, can save a poor child from having to play another Tony Hawk game).
Let's scale down just a touch. We know Activision isn't the most evil company in the world, but are they evil in general?
Assuming that Activision bigwig Bobby Kotick's goon squad (they dress in gold suits sewn together by the profits earned from Modern Warfare 2) doesn't kick in my door, toss a burlap sack over my head and make me disappear from the world of gaming, I intend to answer this question.
Maybe the easiest way to settle this is to look at the definition of evil and see whether or not Activision fits the bill.
Funny little aside. I had a ten minute conversation with IGN fan-fave David Clayman over whether I should use the noun definition of evil or the adjective. Basically a choice between "those guys are evil incarnate or just dicks," as Dave put it. I had to side with adjective, because it's the right thing to do. I mean, it's not like Activision is the big menacing darkness of Alan Wake or anything. (It turned creativity into a destructive force to satisfy its own hunger for power -- ah, crap.)
Phew. Evil sure does suck. Well, let's try and look at this as objectively as possible. I'm sure that every big business has some moments of impropriety and can be viewed as "evil," but does Activision really do enough to satisfy any of these five definitions?
The four things people tend to focus on when speaking poorly of Activision are how it kicked Harmonix to the curb with Guitar Hero, how it treated Double Fine following the Vivendi merger, the fallout with Infinity Ward, and the serial ruining of once great franchises. To me, the question becomes: Are these acts evil or just business moves? Let's catch up on each of these before determining if, indeed, Activision is evil.
Road Tour Out of Activision's Office
The move seemed cruel at the time. To reward the creative team that created a brand new way to enjoy games with a swift kick to the ass is pretty cold. We always want to believe that smart game design and innovation should reap rewards, not exile. Harmonix was bought by Viacom (they once acquired Carson Daly) and re-reimagined the music genre combining guitar, drums and mic for Rock Band. As if that weren't enough, Harmonix built an awesome online music store and delivered weekly content updates ever since Rock Band's release.
But for all its ingenuity, Harmonix must not have made enough cheddar with these endeavors. Why else would MTV let them go? Was that a matter of MTV and Rock Band distributor EA handling things poorly on the business side? In Activision's more capable marketing hands, might Harmonix have been more successful? Only Cyberdyne Terminators can know this answer. But I'd guess yes.
Brutal Treatment
As seems to happen a lot to Double Fine, it was shown the door in the middle of developing a game. EA was expecting big things of Brutal Legend. Turns out Activision had it wrong on both accounts. Brutal Legend didn't exactly tear up the charts and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock was a bad game that sold poorly.
Is that evil? Well, it certainly seems dickish.
To Infinity Ward and Beyond
But as new court documents become available, it's starting to look like co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella were secretly meeting with EA to start a new company. If that's true, then Activision really didn't do anything obscene here. In fact, I'd probably have done worse. But that's because I've watched far too many episodes of The Sopranos.
Everything Good is Ruined Now
In Guitar Hero's case, Activision simply bled the franchise dry in the span of four years. Too many Guitar Hero games were coming out annually with too many new peripherals to boot. It was plastic toy overload with almost nothing new being added. Even the first band version of Guitar Hero was just a bite off of what Harmonix did with Rock Band. The series lost its way, and with last year's Warriors of Rock, it seems the entire thing just went off the rails and exploded into oblivion. (Can't wait for Guitar Hero 7!)
Tony Hawk started strong and peaked at the third installment, then slowly declined. Though several attempts were made to revitalize the franchise (Now a story mode! Now a plastic board full of technology!) it fizzled. EA came in with Skate and did what Tony Hawk should have years ago -- made a more realistic, visceral skating game. Tony Hawk could maybe have gone the other way as well -- been more over the top, gone into space or done hoverboards or made a kart racing game -- but it just devolved into repetitive, unimaginative skating tricks stuck between reality and absurdity.
So, About That Evil Thing...
But you are here to witness me proclaim Activision as evil, aren't you? I do think you can find this with numerous companies, but Activision seems to very much fit the definition: "Due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character." By this definition, Activision is evil. Because even if the acts themselves are not bad (some are more defensible than others), the fact that the gaming public believes Activision has done bad things (that's the "imputed" part) means they are, technically evil. Sorry, Activision!
Here's the catch. I'm complicit in Activision's evil. And if you've bought an Activision game, so are you. And judging by their sales, a whole lot of us are involved in this. I bought Call of Duty: Black Ops. I liked Call of Duty: Black Ops. I've played 40 hours of the multiplayer. I loved Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. So for as much as I can say a dictionary definition has condemned the company, I have to accept my role as well.
The whole idea of a game company being evil is kind of silly, which is why it's so much fun to write about. I read a lot of comments on IGN articles and see a lot of the emails that come in from readers. And Activision takes a lot of heat. Some of it is very valid. They've screwed up a lot. They've been (from an outside view) heartless at times. But the reality is that the people at Activision don't spend their days spinning in their plush leather chairs, fingers steepled, thinking of the next evil thing to do.
The people who make games for Activision want to make great games. Sometimes they do. A lot of times they do not. When they do right, I spend my money. When they do wrong, I go buy someone else's game. That's pretty much the perfect working economy for the games industry. If everyone only bought the great games, then fewer crappy games would be made. If you don't want annualized sequels, don't buy them.
 Who stopped you from buying Brutal Legend or whatever inventive new game that came out and underperformed? Activision didn't keep these games off the shelf. You could make any cool, unique game a success. The company that publishes it doesn't really matter. Your wallet speaks louder than anything else.
If Activision has committed any sin (if you can call it that), it's that it doesn't use the security of its major franchises to take gambles on smaller, more innovative games. Activision could father a whole new movement of exciting games, knowing it will continue to make billions off Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. But instead, Activision seems to be eager to find the next Call of Duty.
Activision isn't bad for the industry. Any company that can bring this much money and attention to gaming isn't bad. But it is doing little to advance games. It's just not a very inspiring company. That can change if Activision wants it to. If not, that's not really evil. That's just kind of lame. |
They are not hte most evil company in the world but to me they are the worst in the video game industry.
