There were some stories going around, after the Overwatch 2 launch, that Kotick would sometimes interfere with the development on that game, which would cause them to just lose or waste tons of work. There's more that went wrong with that game, but if those stories are true, that certainly didn't help.
This fucking guy is going to work a bungie. I love destiny… a lot. While the game might not be everyone’s brand of tequila, I love it. Super scary times for the studio.
You’ll be glad to learn that rumor was actually just a joke. It came from a joke TWiD post that went the rounds on Reddit and YouTube but isn’t real. Don’t worry, Kotick isn’t joining Bungie.
The one thing he was at the company to do, was make good games that make good money.
Covering for rapists and threatening to kill employees is bad enough, but I can see a world where that sort of shit is, not forgiven, but swept under the rug.
That world is one where the money flows. It's not a good world, but it's one that's understandable.
But fucking with the games and making shit worse? In a sane world, the Board would take a look at the company and say, no. this guy has to go for all of the above reasons.
That sane world is one where mergers and acquisitions are heavily scrutinized, and Blizzard was not allowed to merge with Activision.
Actual competition in the space means that the CEO has to actually be halfway good at the job, and maybe not a complete psycho. We don't live in a sane world.
He made the games worse, but that doesn’t mean he made them less profitable. Those are sadly distinct goals. The CEO does not have an incentive to make good art.
You are making the mistake of conflating game quality with profit. He did not lessen the profitability of the games, on the contrary, and that is what the board cares about, not the quality of games.
Is it just going to stay common knowledge that all the productions of man are put on for the invisible wallets of shareholders and nothing is sacred anymore in the chase of profit? Like companies are straight up selling shit and shovelware and nobody is piking anybody?
That may be true now but it wasn’t always. If they hadn’t made the classics they wouldn’t be the giants they are. The incentives changed, and it was a short fall into the pits.
It’s not impossible, but it makes it a hell of a lot harder. The pockets of the shareholders are almost always directly opposed to the wants of the players. The public company needs to fight the shareholders not to rake the players over the coals or through other means gain 20% per year. Every time the big ships gobble up the small fries, the odds readjust toward late stage capitalism
I’d say it still holds some truth - Activision started out as a private company and didn’t go public until 14 years later.
Once a company goes public, it suddenly has to answer to shareholders instead of just its owners, and that’s how any creative vision gets diluted and, eventually, lost completely.
True, on the other hand Nintendo was public when they made it big in the 1980’s. They were public before they stopped making trading cards and well before they thought of Mario, Kirby, and really any of the ninetendo characters we love. The same is true for Sega. What happened was C Suites starting putting their fudiciary oath to the shareholders above all else, even company name and reputation. Which, in today’s age, might explain some of FromSoftware’s uniqueness, as they are a private company.
I always thought that Gamestop should have pivoted incredibly hard and used all that extra money to buy a game developer company. If enough shares are in household hands you can still do cool stuff.
Yes, but it’s not really common knowledge. People may recognize that if you’re talking about egg prices last year for instance, but then don’t bat at $400 concert tickets, or TV shows that spin plotlines to increase ad time, or the state of higher education as sports franchises first and foremost to sell merchandise
The thing about Bobby Kotick, it’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When it comes at you it doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites you, and those black eyes roll over white.
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