Hi guys, serious topic here (it's not an Activision bashing thread - no matter how much grief they're causing you!) Activision have been on a rampant studio closure and culling various franchises left right and center. Clearly they have CoD and WoW and Bungie are working for them for the next 10 years, but aside from that....what else do they have?
They have Wow, CoD and Bungie? What else do you expect them to do, but milk the cash cows and beat the dead horses until the end of time?
they have a group of business men with pocket full of cash, who have no idea of innovation or new IP. their sole intention is to suck industry dry of any money with their endless crappy sequels that can only be sold by spending more money at advertising compared to development. they are a PR company, not a game publisher. they don't invest in developer studios.
This comment is sponsered by Brawl Inc. Brawl Inc agreeing with the truth and spamming your forums. --- It's true though Activision as of late have done little more than have games released under their awesome with "2" or "3" or "Sequel" emblazended on the box in MASSIVE GOLD LETTERS FLASHING ON AND OFF!
i definitely don't agree with them axing Guitar hero and it's studio because i'm sure it was really Activision who pushed the studio to release so many guitar hero games. However, since the last game sold very poorly and the rest were probably going to sell very poorly too then this decision is probably a very good one in a business sense. I'm just happy they didn't axe Raven, even though they're a shadow of their former self.
they are in the fortunate position of not having to look for more devs, since they make more money than most small countries. As long as the WoW fees keep rolling in they're happy, the only people who actually care about games in the industry are the people who have day to day contact with the development of them because its their work. But lets face it its not as if gaming has a long history of artists producing games just because, rather than for money (i know there were bedroom programmers in the 80's etc but even they ended up with ferraris) . Gaming has been one of the most commercial entertainment forms since its conception when compared to say music or even film which is commercial enough in itself. Its just unfortunate that the way to make money in gaming is sequels, as this holds back the genre in terms of new IPs etc.
Because Guitar Hero was fun, and we all know Kotick's views on "Entertainment" inside of his company? That and they spammed the market to death with the series and people couldn't be asked to buy yet more of the same game with a few extra pieces of tat slapped on? I'm just waiting for the Call of Duty games to die out. WoW will survive though, because Blizzard try to keep the game entertaining and playable.
It's so upsetting that Blizzard are related to Activision now. I feel dirty when I think about how much I like Blizzard's games yet I don't want to support Activision....
Blizzard does have a quite good reason to keep it interesting, lets say 13 million subscribers times 11 pound a month multiply by 12 months= £ 1 726 000 000 turnover. Just imagine that.....
Blizzard makes more money alone than most small countries The last cod sold 2-3million Copys on release date. Diablo 3 will do the same. Starcraft 2 sold millions again Activisions entire profile is now about games that can sell in the 1mil+ category
Well, they have take two in their sights at the moment so we might see GTA4 in activations stable soon too!
Take two have no reason to sell themselves. They have solid franchises that put them right up there with EA and Activision. EA already tried to buy them and they didn't cave. If Activision was axing all these franchises to make room for T2, then they'll end up sitting on the floor between two chairs.
