Mnementh said:
Well, this is a bit more complicated I think. It may warrant it's own thread, but there are different levels. From the standpoint of a gamer it is dumb: every game on every platform is a win. So we tend to see a port or a game which doesn't actually makes loss as a good thing. For a company it is more complicated. See, no manager ever will be fired because he didn't release a game. Think this scene: an activision shareholder demands that the CEO is replaced, because he didn't greenlight a new big open world RPG. That probably will never happen. But what may happen, that if said CEO greenlighted said open world RPG and it sold mediocre, that the shareholder will demand the CEO must go because of that. So from a view of a manager: a project not greenlighted is never a risk, only the greenlighted projects are risks. That said Crash probably never was a big deal. Even as it sells pretty well, it is a one-off thing. Call of Duty releases regularly and is always big, Skylanders may not so big anymore, but still releases regularly and brings in extra profit with the figurines. Crash simply doesn't matter overall. What managers decide with such projects is nothing the shareholders really care about. So the managers make such decisions with their gut feelings or their personal gaming preferences. |
Yes, I agree on all of this. Nothing to argue here. It's just baffling how they ignored a system that showed a very successful launch, that showed healthy sales for 3rd party titles and that is known to host an audience which is very used to platformers. These are clear signs in my opinion that they should try to catch the wave. But the confusing thing about is that one programmer tried it on his own, just because he was curious, and it worked surprisingly well. So the implication is that the management doesn't even know what the Switch hardware can even do at all. It needed this kick off. And I believe that the management needs to know as many info as possible about the entire gaming landscape in its entirety.
I believe that we can safely assume that Activision is full of hard working and knowledgeable people. So why did they not consider these signals?
You say that smaller projects can be outweighed by bigger projects, and this is true, no doubt. But we still see Activision releasing a whole lot of more games than just Call of Duty. Games from all sizes and scopes. So why ignore the Switch? And last but not least, they knew that they would port this game to the Xbox One. Please explain how they could completely ignore the third console in the mix?
My guess is that they a) simply underestimated its impact and/or b) don't seem it relevant. Both assumptions shouldn't be done by a big company like Activision.
