Why do people dislike Bobby Kotick so much?

[Deleted]

This is why.

Blizzard was the "When it's ready" company.

Fast forward a few years, Activision merge happens. WoW goes from "When it's ready" to "What makes us the most $"

Again. This is why.

[derpkitteh]

I always thought he made smart business moves, I cannot dislike someone for running a business successfully.

that's exactly why you should hate his fetid guts.

games a service is cancer. everyone that looks at games as a service instead of a fun hobby would spend a week or so on the crucifix if i had my way.

[Unholyground]

that's exactly why you should hate his fetid guts.

games a service is cancer. everyone that looks at games as a service instead of a fun hobby would spend a week or so on the crucifix if i had my way.

Oh I dislike games as a service, I am with you but I can still admire business moves no matter how bad for the consumer.

[stellvia]

The people who create these games are still very passionate about creating video games. A CEO is not a programmer. What do you expect?

They may be passionate, but they have to design the game around the 287 page manual labeled MONETIZATION PLAN or they get fired/studio gets closed. Unless you think half of games being locked behind lootboxes and similar mechanics are a positive gameplay feature.

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They don't.
They don't know the guy, they've never met the guy, they don't know anything he's done, etc etc.
He's just a visible guy on whose shoulders they can throw all their discontent and vitriol about video games.

Many these days don't know more than the meme, but that doesn't mean the word of mouth wasn't spread by people who do know and hate him for good reason. It's not just that Kotick is only in it for the money, it's that he's been involved since the start of it being known as Activision... when they made good games to make the most money possible. But starting around 2000 they kept making more and more choices that weren't in the best interests of their customers (gamers). They've also actively interfered with studios trying to make games on passion. Or have you forgotten that the founders of Infinity Ward were forced out because they didn't want to just become the Call of Duty Company?

Skylanders forces you to "rest" characters when they die, knowing full well that asking an 8 year old to take a 30min break from the game is an eternity to them and they will beg/demand more characters at $20 a pop. They didn't do it for gameplay reasons, they did it for greed.

And before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. I still have my original Mechwarrior tshirt tucked away in my closet that was included as a bonus when it came out.

[Skorpionss]

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.

This would make sense if the number of consumers also didn't increase with the costs, but that is not the case.

Yeah prices are the same as back then while costs have increased substantially (mostly due to bad management and location of the studio and marketing). But a shit load more people buy games now. Do you think any game would have sold 4 mil in the first week 10-20 years ago?

Look at a Blizz title: Diablo 2 sold roughly 4mil copies since release in 2000, Diablo 3 had sold 30mil copies from 2012 to 2015, and who knows how many people will get it for switch as well. You can't tell me games can't make a profit on 60$ box price...

[stellvia]

This would make sense if the number of consumers also didn't increase with the costs, but that is not the case.

Yeah prices are the same as back then while costs have increased substantially (mostly due to bad management and location of the studio and marketing). But a shit load more people buy games now. Do you think any game would have sold 4 mil in the first week 10-20 years ago?

Look at a Blizz title: Diablo 2 sold roughly 4mil copies since release in 2000, Diablo 3 had sold 30mil copies from 2012 to 2015, and who knows how many people will get it for switch as well. You can't tell me games can't make a profit on 60$ box price...

Not only the box price, but all the in-game purchases these days, and digital sales give a much larger portion of the sticker price to the publisher. eg: When games were $50 MSRP, the distributor price was $32. I think now at $60 it's something like $37. Yet any game a AAA publisher sells on their own platform is sold for full price. They basically make twice what they made off the box per unit.

PS: The first game sold at $60 MSRP was Diablo2, which was in 2000 aka 18 years ago. Not 25. Accounting for inflation, the MSRP would be something like $90. Factor in digital sales margins being at least double what a publisher made from physical boxes, its like they were already having a "$120 MSRP" besides selling umpteen more copies these days.

[Deleted]

Because he's a smart businessman, and unfortunately what's usually smart for a business isn't exactly great for the consumers.

Couple that with him being tied closely to online communities via his companies connection to WoW, and the fact that he has a supremely punchable face.

[Kallisto]

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

/S

Right because Vivendi was such a great company not absorbing others and putting out shit before. Oh wait they were and worse than activision. Also Blizzard has only been an independent company for about a year in 1992 back as Silicon and Synapse. Activision was also bought by Vivendi which put all their gaming products under the Activision-Blizzard brand. In which part of allowing them to buy themselves out had a clause in US, French (by as such EU as well) law that if Activision part or Blizzard part started puppet stringing the other. There's going to be police and courts involved.

Since nothing has happened and no employee that has left since event has said anything evidence is that Blizzard is making their own decisions for good or ill.

[Wildmoon]

Because people tend to glorify and romanticize game developers and Kotick who is not a game designer but he still has a lot of say in the matter is far away from that idealisation as you can be. He is also honest about it.

Activistion Blizzard literally scrapped an enomous project that they have poured god knows how much resource into. They did not do it because some ideals about being game developers or shits like that. They did it because it will risk their brand and they can afford to.

[stellvia]

They did it because they had like small parts of 3 different games mashed together and nothing cohesive to show for it after 5+ years and the MMO market was in steady decline. Unlike Diablo3 where they could incompetently rework the game 3x over, but were lucky that the market for dungeon crawlers was still there.

[Mic_128]

Do people just hate him because of the nowadays common hatred for rich and successful people?

No, he's disliked for charming comments such as these.

"Long-term focus and commitment to providing superior returns to our shareholders. And Tony, you know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further."

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming $100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us."

He doesn't care about making good games, he cares about making franchises that can be pumped out again and again.

[stellvia]

Unfortunately he tapped into the apparently limitless potential of dudebros with bad taste to feed them every year. Basically pivoted away from the gaming market.

[SirBeef]

Because of people like him development turned into corporate idiocy. Maximising profit while minimising costs.

Today we have game streamlined so much that it lost all its depth. Questing is identical everywhere, just with different quest text and setting. Reputations are all copies of each other with one identical way to get them. Professions are all generic. Game master support is non-existent.

Developers and game masters today are like drones. No passion. Just blindly copying stuff to make it as quick as possible. All because of corporate mind set people like Kotick are responsible for.

Remember when Blizzard said they will never sell gold? Today we have game tokens, which bring more profit per player than subscription. Anything for profit.


I actually remember that. Good times.

To act like CEOs were not trying to maximize profits prior to Kotic is laughable. Look back at Atari and how they screwd over the game creators with pay. Games will always be made by passionate artists. The businesses that run the companies will always be about profit. If you believe for one second that Blizzard would have made games for free just becasue they loved games you are delusional.

As for the it'll be done when it's done stuff. You would be hard pressed to find any game, let alone a blizzard game that was released without a whole host of bugs.

[DesoPL]

Isin't actually Bobby Kottick started an beef between Activision and EA? Yep i mean here Call Of Duty vs Battlefield.

[Misuteri]

All in all the fact that Activision is around is a miracle. Started by 4 Atari 2600 programmers (At one point you knew every 2600 programmer by game they made because they were on the box.) it survived the video game crash of 1982. There is no more Coleco, Mattel Electronics, Imagic, Atari, Parker Brothers Games, Sierra Online, Bally Midway (Come on, they did PAC MAN in the US!), Williams Electronics, Magnavox yet Activision survives.

Unless I am mistaken they are the only company left that made games for the Atari 2600.

The game industry has been through cycles that have destroyed companies from one generation to the next, one technology to another. It is like the sands of the Sahara, never the same.

Yet Activision is still here.

Few like the business models of micro transactions or loot boxes. When the Xbox started selling additional golf courses and maps for Halo 2(We’re talking the original Xbox.) no one complained. You bought them or not. What it’s evolved into is not a fault of the developers or the CEO but the market for accepting it.

I bear no ill will towards the head of Activision Blizzard, when he took it over Activision it was worth almost nothing. In fact he pulled it from bankruptcy in 1992. The bitter socialists of the world will decry he’s rich and makes “X” times more than his lowest paid worker. Yet he took a company from nothing and made it what it is.

He’s the Michael Eisner of gaming. He took a moribund company with a rich history and made it a juggernaut.