Why do people dislike Bobby Kotick so much?

[Deleted]

There's a difference between making sure your company is making money, and prioritising making more money over everything else.

What is "everything else"?

[Krunsh]

Blizzard's tagline for projects used to be "It'll be done when it's done".

Not kidding, search a little in the past. You'll find it.

When ion took over, this change happened.

[Deleted]

Gamers aren't intelligent enough to understand inflation. Games have cost roughly 59.99 USD for over 25 years. To meet up with inflation, games would have to cost $101 USD today. Since no one would pay over $100 USD for one game, game companies have kept the price at $59.99, and make up the difference elsewhere.

Bobby Kotick is a genius at making up the difference. Gamers forget that companies have shareholders and responsibilities to them.

thats just an easy excuse for the marketing department to tell you. in reality the amount of games sold at the $10-30 pricepoint has exploded over the last decade. this happened before the microstransaction train took off even.

now sure, a bunch of things involved in game development have become much more expensive in the same time, but at the end of the day the cost of distribution has dropped by a order of magnitude, while the consumer base buying games has grown an order of magnitude. and again all of that is before you consider the goldmine that micro transactions have turned out to be.

[reauxmont]

What is "everything else"?

Producing a high quality product, for example.

[Zabatakis]

Do you really think Mike Morhaime cares any less about money than Bobby Kotick? It's their job to make sure their company makes money.

Very very short-sighted and ignorant to say that. The job is actually to keep the company alive. I am not about to give you a business 101 essay but there are many ways to do it and some work better for the consumer than others. Bob's way is very nearly the worst for a certain type of consumer and thusly he is dispised by them.

[Deleted]

Very very short-sighted and ignorant to say that. The job is actually to keep the company alive. I am not about to give you a business 101 essay but there are many ways to do it and some work better for the consumer than others. Bob's way is very nearly the worst for a certain type of consumer and thusly he is dispised by them.

So you keep the company alive by making less money than you could?

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Producing a high quality product, for example.

Producing a high quality product makes more money than producing a low quality product. But sometimes you have to release something, because you can't put more money into production.

[reauxmont]

Producing a high quality product makes more money than producing a low quality product. But sometimes you have to release something, because you can't put more money into production.

Initially, maybe. But once you're established, you can pretty much produce a lower quality product and watch how the sheep will still pour money into your account. Take a look at Apple, or even just WoW.

[Deleted]

Initially, maybe. But once you're established, you can pretty much produce a lower quality product and watch how the sheep will still pour money into your account. Take a look at Apple, or even just WoW.

The question is, will the company still do well if they do that?

[Mafic]

Loot boxes and being able to buy gold is cheating. This is why I do not respect CEO Kotick because he is responsible for dragging the gaming industry to the dark corners that should have never been ventured into.

[RoKPaNda]

Why is this in WoW general? Bobby Kotick has nothing to do with WoW. Or is this one of those conspiracy theory threads by someone that's never actually played a game that Activision has a hand in? Where their logo is plastered all over the game and the microtransactions make WoW look pure and chaste?

Loot boxes and being able to buy gold is cheating. This is why I do not respect CEO Kotick because he is responsible for dragging the gaming industry to the dark corners that should have never been ventured into.

Tokens were a response to two other major MMOs doing it. That's the way the market headed. So you can cross that one off Kotick's list of sins. I mean I don't like the guy, but lets at least keep the blame where it belongs.

Blizzard is heading down the road they started down over 20 years ago, blaming Activision is just a cop-out.

[Mafic]

The market heading off the cliff doesn't mean they should follow into the soulless abyss of preying on children with loot boxes.

[Amorac]

There was a time when video games were made by passionate nerds who wanted to bring their tabletop fantasies to life. Projects had passion. Now gaming is big business and manipulative reward behavior mechanics are the game and the graphics are the pretty image that keep one pulling the lever. It's mainstream and widespread. You can see this too in the people who now make the games, the trend of it all. This transition happened when people like him bought into gaming, and turned it into a business that almost literally prints money. It's not specifically him but what people like him have done to the small niche hobby, that is now bastardized.

It's really not much different from the 1980's and 90's.. E.G Atari's ET fiasco and a lot or most big movie games adaptions were horrible or sequels of games that were often just as much of a money grab as today. Not to mention horrible ports of arcade games..

And it's not as if the software houses were put a gun to their heads when doing businesses with big publishers.. They either were just in it for the money as well or knew that if they wanted to survive long enough to even finish their game they had to fold in line, and that was also already normal in the 80's. The only thing different is that games perhaps had less bugs, but it was also not unheard of that there were patches, and games were usually less complex as well (less complex in game design/mechanics, programming wise they may have been more complex being done in say assembly sometimes and having to fit in minuscule amounts of ram)

Before crowdfunding it were the big cooperations that put the money into the (bigger) projects, taking the risks and therefore calling the shots, again, not unlike the golden age of home computers.

And well, as for crowdfunding, not to sure that is even a viable option in the long run, either it is ruined by money grabbers promising greatness never delivering that will drive consumers away from it or the over promising and failing ones that will.

[reauxmont]

The question is, will the company still do well if they do that?

They mostly will for a certain amount of time. Just look at the amount of time it took from the moment every gamer knew that EA was shit to them actually needing to do something about it - what was it, 10 years?

Here's a good video for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-LE0ycgkBQ

[Zabatakis]

So you keep the company alive by making less money than you could?

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Producing a high quality product makes more money than producing a low quality product. But sometimes you have to release something, because you can't put more money into production.

So at this point I am 99% sure you are a usual suspect who got banned on an alt account and understand fully the dynamics of the topic in question but are pretending not to for thread count. For the life of me I don't know why you people do these things. That said perhaps it can serve to educate someone, if not you.

There is a point when producing something of quality yields less dollar return per dollar spent. You can either say to yourself A) "I want to make the best possible thing while still making enough profit to stay in business" or you can say B) "I want maximum return on my investment". The person in scenario A makes the best pizza, hands down. It comes at a price though, since its not nearly as efficient to produce it cost a good bit more. Person B spends a good portion of his initial investment testing just how shitty a pizza he can make with the least amount of effort and still sell at a profit. After all, people want a pizza even if they can't afford the best, or can't tell the difference due to unrefined taste, so there is a market for this sort of thing.

And that is good and well for both those people to be in business. The problem is when due to US laws pizza man B is able to hostile takeover person A and put out his shit pizza using A's boxes. Now at first he keeps the recipie the same and no one bats an eye. But then one day he swaps the pepperonis out for a cheap trash one. The people say, well its still the best and its not a big deal. But then he swaps the sauce out for imported ketchup "sauce" from china that can't legally be called ketchup without a disclaimer. It's cheaper and the people notice, so many stop coming but some are stuck to the rewards card system and he knows it. After all, his research team understands psychology and sunk cost so he is keenly aware of how to trick a sheep. next after another year he swaps out the dough for wet cardboard. Finally the pizza is the same trash he was peddling before but it has the "A" pizza box name and customers psychologically stuck be it for the rewards card, or the advertising that suckered them in, or nastalgia connection they try to recapture from how great their lives happened to be at the same time pizza A was good.

Anyhow, that was a long and grossly exagerated scenario of how people see Bob. He is businessman B, and if it were not for the ability to buy out A no one would honestly give a shit if he was selling trash pizza. But since he did and he changed it to essentially his trash pizza over time throwing out the original recipie people who can't get pizza A anymore are pissed.

You can argue he had nothing to do with that, and may even be right. I sure as hell don't know for certain. The thing is tho people need a person to blame and old Bobby has given them enough amunition to blame him via his words during earnings calls and such.

[Femininity]

Wealth inequality.

[hulkgor]

When ion took over, this change happened.

Yea, nothing to do with Blizzard being bought out, it's just Ion's choice alone.

/S

[Gadzooks]

That's so full of bullshit it's not even funny. I don't know where people got this hazy, nostalgic view of an ancient world where video games were made with passion and greatness without stuffy business people in the way, but it never existed.

This. No game studio ever said "We don't care about money", that's just what gamers want to believe.

[Multitorix Davlen]

This. No game studio ever said "We don't care about money", that's just what gamers want to believe.

its not about not caring about money. Its about how you go about getting that money that people rant and rave about. I.E. loot boxes or incomplete products. THAT'S what gamers believe.

[Littleraven]

Cause he's a big businessman and a name people throw around as being bad.

I personally don't know anything about the guy but people like to find someone to point a finger at when something they don't like happens. Same reason people seem to be going after Mike Morhaime all the sudden.

[Zyky]

It's because Activision has a habit of ruining games and franchises and just trying to bleed money out of the games instead of making quality games.