Hi everyone. In the article, he basically says that Activision does not care about new games (e.g Ghostbusters & Brutal Legend), and only wants games where sequels can made year after year so Activison can make the most money. I personally think that this is terrible because while some games deserve sequels and even succeed at making good ones companies should keep trying to develop new games to give to the consumers. What do you guys think?

Here is the link to the full article:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/11/06/activision-if-we-cant-run-a-game-into-the-ground-we-dont-want-it

I like the "Activision is becoming the new EA" comment. Anyway, I think it's important to have new IP's as old ones may have shrinking fanbases. I like the horse analogy. Overall, good find.

Company created for money likes money.

Well we'll see if Activision still thinks that way when people get bored with Guitar Hero and Call of Duty in a few years time..

This is why I didn't want Blizzard doing business with such crappy companies.

Blizzard is it's own thing though. The official title may be Activision-Blizzard, but Activision won't have a say in how Blizzard operates. Blizzard is one of those few gaming companies that I feel is actually concerned more about the players than money.

There are few executives in game publishers who come from a videogame development (or even videogame playing) background. In the 1990s many publishers actively recruited executives from the movie and music industries in an effort to gain experienced talent as companies focused on larger scale more mainstream marketing for their more "Mature" cinematic gameplay experiences.

With conventional wisdom in the movie and music industry focusing on more generic cookie-cutter experiences, and endless (low quality) sequels, is it really a surprise that this "wisdom" has been brought into the videogame industry?

Just to finish the above article:

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/11/05/why-activision-let-go-of-ghostbusters-and-50-cent-games/

"Those of you out there who love new, original games and therefore may bristle at that Kotick quote should be mindful of the businessman’s follow-up: “You still need to have production of new original property but you have to do it very selectively… the focus at retail and for the consumer is to continue to be o the big narrow and deep high profile release strategy… We’ve had enough experience that I think the strategy we employ is the most successful.” He noted that the number of successful original games released in the last several years can be measured as a mere single-digit percentage of all games brought to market."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mind you, the flaw remains blatantly obvious, but I figured the guy should have a chance to explain his reasoning, at least.

That's what they keep saying, but from what I know the Blizzard CEO is under the Activisoin CEO. Also please look into SC2 Trilogy and notice how they are grinding the whole player-first thing to a halt.

Making new games can be rough.

Take Saints Row for instance, it's a great game but with endless complaints just because it was a GTA rip off.

Same can be said for many games.

Sequal games sell more, time after time. Yes some bomb but thats because the devs planned on the name selling.

People always want to hear it strait from the devs / companies, Tell it like it is so to speak and when they do, people don't want to hear it anymore, or complain as if it was NEVER about the money.

If you only knew what your beloved (insert company name here) said behind closed doors about consumers and the best way to make money, you would cry.