http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94711-Bobby-Kotick-Wants-to-Take-the-Fun-Out-of-Making-Games
 
Now, I'm a fan of hyperbole and do not hesitate to employ generous overstatement for comic effect, but I do not exaggerate when I say I think Robert Kotick is evil incarnate.
 
Kotick speaking at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference:
 
 "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games,"  adding he aimed to instill a culture of  "skepticism, pessimism, and fear" appropriate to today's difficult economy.
 
The story was originally run by Gamespot, but it quickly spread across the interwebs causing no small amount of dismay.


Well, that's it. I feel sorry for Infinity Ward and Blizzard (not to mention the other developers) but I'm not buying another game from Activision. This guy is not getting my money.

I'm not even talking about what's coming out now. My current system wouldn't be able to run them anyway, but just the sheer amount of titles I have yet to catch up on is staggering. I am only now getting around to Super Mario Galaxy, and there's a whole pile of other titles from recent to classic that are gathering dust on the shelf. Thief, only ever played the demo. Fallout, never touched it - yes, the first one. Planescape Torment - haven't finished it. Day of the Tentacle, firmly stuck.

So far the new consoles don't have much to offer in the way of exclusivity, except maybe Little Big Planet (which looks wonderful), but how can I justify buying a whole new machine when I'm not even getting around to the games I already own?

Activision, you are what's wrong with game development.

So right now I'm playing through Vampire Bloodlines again, taking some screenshots along the way, and adding some character and concept pages to the wiki where they're missing. I'd been meaning to get back to this world of darkness again some time so this was a perfectly good excuse. First time I played as a Tremere blood mage which was interesting, but by far the most fun was playing as a Malkavian the second time. Really turns the game on its head and creates some genuinely hilarious moments (STOP-sign!). The way people react to you and the random stuff you can say really adds to the entertainment.

Right now I'm trying out the Gangrel clan. I briefly went with Ventrue just to see what that did but decided it was too similar to stuff I'd done before and I was more curious about the beast transformations and what have you of aforementioned Gangrel clan. I've gotten to Downtown LA now and I might give it a break and continue playing some other stuff first, but I'll be getting back to this...

So I'm quite liking this brave new site... the wiki is highly awesome and has the potential to become the de facto encyclopedia for all things gaming. Couple of things I'm not getting yet: Not sure why I can't put spaces in my name, or more precisely I wish there was a separate display name from the one word usernames... and I'm wondering where to button for "Create list" is...

I'll figure out.

[edit: and so I did... except for the spaces]