News Flash - Bobby Kotick is a trash talker

Oh wait. I guess that's not news at all.

This gem from CNet... http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57486111-235/activision-ceo-competitors-games-are-less-than-adequate/

"I think you have had, unfortunately, a stream of products that are less than adequate from some of our competitors and I think the demands and the expectations in the marketplace [are] for great quality products," Kotick said, according to a transcript published by Seeking Alpha. "And if you look at the success that we're having, it validates that there is an opportunity for great quality products, but I think where we are in the console cycle makes it more challenging for anything other than great quality products."

Kotick didn't say which competitors are delivering sub-par products. However, he obviously believes that his company's offerings, which include the Call of Duty franchise, are superior to what's being offered by many other companies.

Oh, Bobby... you can think that, say that in meetings, bars, whatever... but don't say that to the press you moron.

Just Moneyball those great games out there, Bobby. Moneyball them all!

Sounds like he's doing what all successful CEOs do: make their company's success clear to everyone else in the industry. This remark is a non-story.

Look, I don't like Kotick as much as the next guy, but he's not saying anything that every other successful publisher and developer hasn't said a million times before.

To use terrible corporate misspeak, Activision has seen great profits from focussing on tentpole releases. This is a company who just announced that Diablo 3 sold 10 million copies (1.2 via a WoW promotion but 8.8 retail and digital download is still decent numbers for a few months into a product release) and that was only on PC. You don't see a lot of releases that big over all platforms. And it isn't in any way a sure thing that this will be Activision's biggest release of the year, in fact they expect CoD to eclipse it.

As Bobby Kotick has no interest in games and so uses metrics of sales and possibly even cost to develop to measure quality (if you can't tell if art is good then look at the sticker price) then his statement seems to be accurate. The focus on very large productions and advertising pushes to sell very high volumes of the majority of their releases. Anything that Activision release that doesn't hit 5 million sales is likely considered a failure if it wasn't from an experimental small team or budget/contractual release. Other publishers do not use this model and so do not have a similar financial sheet; it is a terrible weakness in the Activision hierarchy that those at the top have no concept of the qualitative analysis of the products they generate (but only if you care about assessing the artistic merit of the products, the investors don't care and Bobby would be just as happy if he was running a business selling ceramic toilets as long as he could run it this efficiently for the shareholders). If you are trying to sell to the widest market then you must necessarily not target niche or controversial interests, and maybe gaming will move forward and the current happy 10-20 million 'core' CoD players will decide they want more than a rewarding feedback loop, game feel, and Skinner box progression curve. Or not, as long as we can refine the tools then small teams should be able to create incredible content for smaller budgets and target those niches while the major publisher spin their wheels eating off the gamers who like the current crop of games and will replay them endlessly and don't mind extensive DLC plans to increase their cost per game.

Uh, what?

He's CEO of the largest publisher in the world. Of course he's going to talk about how successful they are. Because they are very successful.

Now, if you wanna talk about how John Riccitiello talks a bunch of shit, feel free. His whole "Battlefield 3 will destroy Call of Duty!" tirade was just sad.

Well with SWTOR going free to play with about a million subs vs. WoW's 9 million paying subs, plus MW3 outselling the shit out of BF3, I think Activision is doing alright. I'd feel pretty comfortable saying that the competition's games are inadequate if I were in his shoes.

He's still total poison to the game industry though.

This is a guy who measures the quality of a game purely by the revenue it makes. Nothing he says is of interest to people like us.

@Andorski said:

Sounds like he's doing what all successful CEOs do: make their company's success clear to everyone else in the industry. This remark is a non-story.

When the top three games sold in 2012 so far are your titles, two of them 2011 releases, then you have the room to talk a little trash.

This

@Andorski said:

Sounds like he's doing what all successful CEOs do: make their company's success clear to everyone else in the industry. This remark is a non-story.

and this

@CaLe said:

This is a guy who measures the quality of a game purely by the revenue it makes. Nothing he says is of interest to people like us.

@Brendan said:

This

@Andorski said:

Sounds like he's doing what all successful CEOs do: make their company's success clear to everyone else in the industry. This remark is a non-story.

and this

@CaLe said:

This is a guy who measures the quality of a game purely by the revenue it makes. Nothing he says is of interest to people like us.

Still doesn't change the fact that the guy is a greedy fuck, and that he'll suck satan's cock for all eternity. But, he is a CEO so...carry on.

@JRock3x8: Given that Skylanders ended up being a huge success, Call of Duty continues to be the #1 shooter in the world, Diablo III sold an ASSLOAD of copies more than what even Blizzard was expecting, World of Warcraft continues to be the #1 paid subscription MMO in the world, the company has been able to get Blizzard to end up launching what will be at least TWO games in ONE year (three if the SC expansion hits...since when has Blizzard EVER released three games in one year), they have an exclusive deal with Bungie (the creators of Halo) for new IP, and whether we like it or not they happen to have some of the highest sales for licensed movie and comic book properties in the U.S...oh, and they happen to be the #1 publisher in the world in terms of critical reception and sales by volume worldwide...

...I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that he kind of has the right to talk some trash about the quality of many other companies' IPs when they aren't performing nearly as well on critical and financial standpoints. = /

Don't get me wrong: I'm not supporting Bobby Kotick in the slightest. I think he's a fucking douchebag. However, he's a douchebag with evidence to back up his shit talk.

@TheDudeOfGaming: Not too mention it pretty much insults everyone who makes less then a COD game or Classics that didn't do so well Financially. It leads to the irony that he is a company that pushes out a lot of mediocre products which could lead to a video game crash just like 1983. Companies like him are a virus to this industry.

Wouldn't exactly call that trash talking.  
But hey, he's not wrong. 

Modern Warfare 3 came out, made a shitload of money, then had DLC come out, made a ton more money. Activision is doin' alright. Also as someone already mentioned, Bobby Kotick does not concern himself with anything other than finances of his company and I don't think he actively hides that fact in any way. While not exactly the 'high road' of success it definitely is a road one can choose.

@Humanity said:

Modern Warfare 3 came out, made a shitload of money, then had DLC come out, made a ton more money. Activision is doin' alright. Also as someone already mentioned, Bobby Kotick does not concern himself with anything other than finances of his company and I don't think he actively hides that fact in any way. While not exactly the 'high road' of success it definitely is a road one can choose.

If a CEO of a large company picks any other road other than financial success they probably won't be CEO for very long.

Eh. Also, I can't really think of any Activision game I really care about or would want to buy at full price. I think the last Activision game I bought at full price was COD 4. So...yeah, he's not talking about my tastes clearly.

The man has become a supervillain. I'd be let down if he DIDN'T talk mad shit occasionally.