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Bobby Kotick, does it again
Codenak
Member UncommonPosts: 418
Activisions CEO Bobby Kotick's views of us, devs and games.
What will this mean for future and current Activision games, which includes World of Warcraft?
He's great from the investors point of view, but will an outlook like his deliver quality games to us?
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
Comments
That Bobby Kotex, he'll never learn.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
Why bring up the old news? The article is from September 2009 and as we all know now, Kotick rules the world. Whatever he says or does, gamers won't listen to him. They will run and get the latest fluff mount for 25 $ a piece just to make this guy smile and happy about the immense ignorance of his customers.
With the current discussions on how virtual worlds are dead and making money off games, it might be a salutary experience to re-read where the CEO of one of the largest gaming companies wants to take us and of how he views us.
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
he does have a face i wouldn't get tired of punching....
"–who earned $14m last year" -> recession? what recession.
just a shame 70% of Activisions income comes from Call of Duty (beginning to "yawn"), Guitar Hero (Same crap over n over), and World of Warcraft..... if any of those should fall, or numbers rapidly drop... then the future wouldn't be so nice for "bob"
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
Ignorance of the customer or has he found the balance point for the price elasticity of demand. He is offering goods at a price that enough people will pay to turn his company a profit. Capitalism.
Its funny because even most investor's don't like him/ the way the company is heading. First off at a time when sales should have gone up for them, simply due to the increased economic activity, Activision gave nothing special. While MW2 and WoW still did just fine, this was already a given. Also investors have been wary of buying into Activision because they still think GH is way to expensive, and it turns out they were right. While Activision thinks that raising prices works, they will find that soon enough it will not. DLC and fluff items in WoW, sure you can charge more because these are so popular and people will buy them just because they are part of CoD or WoW. But if the CEO thinks he can charge whatever he wants simply because he thinks his games are the best, he is going to be in for a shock. A nice thing about video games is that they are all basically the game price, even when the price goes down they all go down by the game amount. In an industry like this high prices have to be justified more then ever. And investors notice and have noticed this. If he keeps making the same moves and thinks he can do whatever he wants, he will see the stock price remain the same or fall. There is no way his business model will work for the long term. It is just bad for everyone.
shhh don't mention elasticity here... you'll confuse people.... unless you give examples...
okay a newspaper is inelastic right ... because if the price changes by a small amount it doesn't make any difference, you'd buy it anyway. 40p to 42p not a big deal.
a car would be elastic, because if the price changes by a small amount the demand WILL shift to a much greater focus. £9000 to £8500.
you'd see a difference. elasticity is simply to show the responsiveness of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price
-munches popcorn- i still couldn't get tired of punching his face though....
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
George Bush earned quite a bit of money - didn't make him a good president.
although americans were dumb enough to vote him in twice, the rest of the world really facepalmed themselves after that
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
although americans were dumb enough to vote him in twice, the rest of the world really facepalmed themselves after that
Couldn't be helped. The only people to enter the primaries were idiots. We still have that problem.
Bobby's job is making money for me. He does it very well. That's what makes him a good CEO.
A good CEO wouldn't be gutting one of his largest cash cows (Infinity Ward).
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Blergh, and people say EA is evil...
I see activision nickle&diming us up to a certain point where there's too much stress put on customers, then it'll all come falling down.
What goes up, must come down some time.
Massive population growth between rabbits only takes as long as there is grass to feed them all, when that runs out, they kill eachother with chainsaws and flamethrowers.
I'll dance and laugh maniacally when it happens.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I think a lot of people here underestimate the looseness of people's wallets. There is a new generation of gamers out there, gamers who love fad games like Sims, GH, etc, and its become apparent that they are lapping up expansions/extras/dlc and whatnot.
This stuff would not fly 10-20 years ago but it does now and big gaming houses are making a sweet buck from it. You know why? The market has changed, games are mainstream.
Companies are squeezing every dollar they can now, they've gotten smarter (maybe) and more experienced. This guy is simply on the forefront and he may be a douche to the common gamer like me or you but I can't begrudge him for doing his job. Whether his bold tactics pay off or not may still be an unknown.
When I think of what the gaming industry is becoming I think of Hollywood, a long list of big-budget, investor-safe games (movies) designed to appeal to the greatest audience... if you're lucky you get a real gem now and then.
O_o o_O
You might have been bullied too much at highschool by the rich popular guy, success in bullying doesn't make him right and it doesn't mean I have to like what he does. Criticizing things don't make people bitter and the wallet is not the end of all things. It actually makes me quite happy not to fall for Mr Kotick's ruses.
Make me CEO of Activision and Blizzard and I will make them earn a lot more on the long run. I'll just use good common sense as my secret weapon.
What that man is doing is raking in a lot of money in the short time and forgetting to build towards the long term.
Bobby is right. Look, people still buy those games. You could slap a gamer, kick him in the nuts, grab his mother's purse and run away, spit in his face, shit all over his house, destroy everything, steal his car, and then present him with a Modern Warfare 2 game and he'll buy it and regardless of what you said and done, you are forgiven.
I personally have boycotted MW2, do I feel like I can change anything? Not really, I'd just rather put money where I think I can get the most of on a long term basis. Not a lot of people boycotted MW2, most where PC players as it's the only version that was affected by changes compared to previous versions of the IP. But still, way too many bought the game so it hardly matters.
Expect more companies starting to act this way as they realized that the mass-market is ruled by sheeps.
Just an excerpt from the latest annual report.
"... Like other entertainment companies, our business is significantly based on the creation, acquisition, exploitation and protection of intellectual property. ..."
ActivisionBlizzard is just a Publisher. Don't expect the company to put creativity into creating games, as long as they have some
subsidiaries that will do the actual work. More likely they will be buying some "indie studios" or small/medium sized development studios which have an established brand and then exploit the brand. Or another merger in the future.
On first glance their revenue looks great. But the more interesting question is when the will have the recent merger digested and when they will increase their profit.
The CEO of such a company can't do much wrong, besides missing the right time when to buy into the next big thing/trend/hype. Or buying the wrong company/brand for a too big price.
A CEO has to make unpopular decisions from time to time and he/she is not going to be everybody's darling all the time. But one can still be diplomatic. Maybe Kotick just wants to be perceived as the tough guy, hence maybe his numerous controversial remarks.
I could totally boycott diablo3. I mean, Im not even excited about it. And besides its only coming out in 2030 at least. By then no one will care anymore.
People say alot of things about EA, but I think people at EA are just retards. Activision? Now thats some real evil right there.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
People hate Kotick but yet still buy his games.
People call Blizzard greedy but still buy their games.
People hate EA but yet buy their games.
People hate John Smedley but still buy his games.
The only people we should be complaining about is ourselves. Priceless...
Really?....really? Your honestly defending this man?
That's like defending the U.N.
I play all ghame
Pretty much sums up how I feel about most of the threads on this site.
HEAVEN OR HELL
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It takes a very long time for people to realize certain things and get rid of them. It's just as hard as ending a relationship with a girl friend you still love somehow.
Exactly.
All he did was give specifics for how supply and demand work. The price of a product should reflect what consumers are willing to spend. This is the essence of capitalism. The complaint seems to be that this guy understands basic rules of business.
Because we continue to spend the prices they set, we have told him what we think is acceptable to pay for his product. Why is he the evil one?
Granted, the dev sweat shop fear tactic is pretty low.
While the purpose of a business is to create money, and that of a CEO is to guide said business in a manner to create profit...
Kotick is doing a terrible job.
Why?
Simple, he's destroying the sustainability of his business in the gaming industry. Sure, he's trying to milk more cash from customers by trying to shove more expenses their way, and trim '$100 million franchises that cannot be exploited every year' to maximize profit. Problem is, he's just digging Acti-Blizzard into a hole where they won't be able to get out of.
His slash and burn philsophy may increase profits for the short term, but it's going to destroy them in the long run. He's stifling innovation, he's trimming developer talent, and worst of all, he's alienating the customerbase. Consumers will eventually burn out on the recycled franchises, especially when they end up having to pay several times what they are today, for the same old.
What Bobby doesn't realize, is that franchises don't start out big, they start out small. By cutting out all of the "unexploitable" small franchises, he's destroying any chance of having new franchises grow big enough to be largely popular. Eventually existing franchises are going to become stale, and then no one is going to want the same old anymore, and will move on.
I will be boycotting Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2. And no, I'm not just saying that. I have zero interest in these games after seeing and hearing how stale and recycled they're going to be. Additionally because I don't feel like buying three separate SC2 campaigns, at full box price for each.
You might be 100% correct but Kotick is a business man. What he cares about most is money and how much time it takes to get that money in his hands. You see, gamers need to stop thinking like gamers and start thinking like customers because that is exactly what we are. If you are unsatisfied customer you do not go back and support them with your money.
There are two types of "good" business men. There's the ones like Bobby who care about making as much money as fast as possible. When you only care about the bottom line a few quarters ahead, then yeah, he's the guy you want. They trim the "fat", they exploit every scrap of profit they can plunder. They get you money now.
The others, are the ones that don't make you gobs of money right away. If you stick with them though, they'll make you significantly more money than the other type of "good" business man. They acheive this through hard work, customer relationships, and genuinely caring about a good product for profitabiltiy and sustainability of the business.
Kotick is very much the former, and it's as crystal clear. The problem is that Acti-Bliz is going to suffer for it, big time. It may take a couple years, but it will happen. He's painting them into a corner with his decisions, and when the consumer base wakes up, and they will, then Kotick will be caught with his pants down.
Unfortunately a large reason why this type of thing happens, is because CEOs are rewarded to behave this way. Kotick got a $10 million dollar bonus last year I believe it was. Why? Because he skewed the profit margin favorably from his business practices. But what happens a year or two from now when/if sales tank? Well, no skin off his back, he's already made millions. He can just walk away and find another company to expliot for his own persoanl gain.
And yes, you are right, it's the customer's job to respond. I know I will be boycotting any new Acti-Blizzard games. I hope other people will wake up and do the same. Ultimately it's their choice if they want to, which is unfortunate since there seems to be a lot of people with too much cash and too little sense who are all too willing to piss away their money at companies like Acti-Blizzard for virtually nothing in return. That was made evident with how many people bought the Celestial horse mount in WoW that was released last week...
andf after that people wonder why i dont play any activision or blizzard title!i do hope others do like me and ignore their product
there are better alternative anyways and lot less /$%%?%?(&*)