Reasons I hate Bobby Kotick (and you should too)

[bigsharn]

Well, I’m sure we’ve all heard of Bobby Kotick… No? Well he’s the bloke that runs Activision.
You hate him yet? Nope? Well you will soon

Withholding InfinityWard’s royalties

A little less known fact about Activision is that they never paid InfinityWard (The creators of the Modern Warfare series) the royalties that they were owed, and there’s STILL a court battle going on so that the original IW heads get paid the $36 million they are owed.
…And no, that’s not a typo

Activision decided that the heads of InfinityWard (West and Zampella) were insubordinate and were therefore fired because of that. However, West and Zampella seem to think (and I’m inclined to believe them over Kotick) that there were plans to fire the pair before their royalty cheques came in.

No dedicated servers

The infamous “No dedicated servers in Modern Warfare 2” argument/discussion has gone on for almost a year now. InfinityWard made the announcement, but guess what? Yep, it was Activision’s idea in the first place. Apparently it makes it easier to catch cheaters… How many nukeboosters do you know that have been banned? Or people that exploit glitches? And we’ve had to put up with laggy, high latency servers for the past year that Kotick sticks to his guns

But that’s ok, because in Black Ops they’re giving us…

Paid dedicated servers

Hang on a minute, they’re wanting to let us have dedicated servers this time around, but we have to pay EXTRA for it?

For those who don’t know, they’re wanting the hosts to pay £9.95/month for a ranked server, or 66p PER GAMER for an unranked server, with a maximum of 24 players.

Here’s hoping one of our good hacker friends manages to crack this pretty soon after the release.

Pay-to-watch cutscenes

"If we were to take that hour, or hour and a half out of the game, and we were to go to our audiences and say to them, 'Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?'... at a $30 or $20 price point, you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever,"

Words from the immortal idiot himself, charging people to watch what they usually would on a cutscene anyway.
And yes, you read that right, “$30 or $20 price point” I for one have no idea what films he goes to watch, but I certainly don’t pay that much to go to the cinema (even including chocolates, drinks and KFC afterwards).

“Exploiting already-profitable franchises”

It turns out that Activision won’t support any of their older franchises unless they’re $100m+ franchises (or have the ability to be). This means COD will continue, but the <insert instrument here> Hero games could die out soon because they’re not making enough money

Tl;dr:
Don’t buy Activision, the head is a greedy bastard who’s obviously had his grey matter swapped out for treacle porridge.

[Drumm]

This guy sounds like he knows Steve Jobs. Everything is about money. Money & Premiums. And stealing other people's designs.

[Special Chris]

Wow..that was a stupid post I just put..wasn't thinking..

Well, ummmm..GREED IS BAD!

[Myles]

I agree with drumm

---

I didn't know how much shit was going on in Activision and to pay for a dedicated server haha very funny Activision... O your serious...

[T3hRogue]

CITATION NEEDED

Activision has stated they are not making players charge for Call of Duty online. Secondly, IW have never cared about community. Every cheaters name that has gone up on the internet has been left untouched, unlike the Treyarch counterparts. Next up, Activision didn't decide to remove dedicated Servers, as far as I know. And cinema mode is the same as Halo's. Except PS3 user can upload directly to youtube via the XMB. So that's not being paid for.

[bigsharn]

Activision has stated they are not making players charge for Call of Duty online.

They're not charging players, they're charging the hosts of dedicated servers. Read the article before posting.

Secondly, IW have never cared about community. Every cheaters name that has gone up on the internet has been left untouched, unlike the Treyarch counterparts.

Both of which are were owned by Activision, so I fail to see your point.

Next up, Activision didn't decide to remove dedicated Servers, as far as I know.

A quick google search will tell you otherwise, granted it was IWnet that removed them in the end but as with the previous point, both are owned by Activision so I fail to see your point.

And cinema mode is the same as Halo's. Except PS3 user can upload directly to youtube via the XMB. So that's not being paid for.

Click the link and don't argue.

[Special Chris]

I'm just going to leave this little article right here...

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/art...?id=265559

[T3hRogue]

Activision has stated they are not making players charge for Call of Duty online.

They're not charging players, they're charging the hosts of dedicated servers. Read the article before posting.

Secondly, IW have never cared about community. Every cheaters name that has gone up on the internet has been left untouched, unlike the Treyarch counterparts.

Both of which are were owned by Activision, so I fail to see your point.

Next up, Activision didn't decide to remove dedicated Servers, as far as I know.

A quick google search will tell you otherwise, granted it was IWnet that removed them in the end but as with the previous point, both are owned by Activision so I fail to see your point.

And cinema mode is the same as Halo's. Except PS3 user can upload directly to youtube via the XMB. So that's not being paid for.

Click the link and don't argue.

1) Making players pay for dedi servers is charging for online. They are NOT doing this. Check the wiki if you don't believe me.
2) Being owned by one company does not make them immediate slaves. They have something called "professional freedom" - try looking for a job that has one
3)

'LIKELY'

Star Craft 2 article, not to mention that's a "theatrical" movie they're talking about. Not to mention, they didn't touch upon the PS3 ability to direct upload to youtube. Therefore invalid.

Sharn, I am dissapoint

[bigsharn]

1) Making players pay for dedi servers is charging for online. They are NOT doing this. Check the wiki if you don't believe me.
2) Being owned by one company does not make them immediate slaves. They have something called "professional freedom" - try looking for a job that has one
3) Star Craft 2 article, not to mention that's a "theatrical" movie they're talking about. Not to mention, they didn't touch upon the PS3 ability to direct upload to youtube. Therefore invalid.

Sharn, I am dissapoint

1. I beg to differ
I also beg to differ here
And finally, I beg to differ
2. I must have misunderstood that point, because I can't find an article to support my point (though I could have sworn I read one on MW2 release day)
3. If you read the entire article they talk about taking the cutscenes from Starcraft 2 and selling them as a seperate movie, not making a new theatrical movie, as there is an hour of cutscenes in Starcraft 2 he *thinks* that would be sufficient for a feature film, and that $30 is about the price to go watch a movie in a cinema or buy a DVD.

[T3hRogue]

Treyarch Community Manager Josh Olin said this partnership will provide high-quality private servers at an affordable rate for the game and re-emphasized Treyarch-hosted dedicated servers will remain free.

So we were both right. Treyarch aren't charging for their servers, but if you want to host your own it'll cost you

MW2 release day was a long time ago, and not much was known about Black Ops back then. In fact, nothing was known, including the title.

Regardless, still invalid.