Wow shit. I just finished MW2 like a few minutes ago and then read here that Activision has basically decided to destroy one of the best series of games I ever played.
Really, WTF man! "Target the asian market"... sounds like they're desperately trying to cover every front where there's money to be made.
I dearly hope IW will recover from this and continue to do their own thing, without Activison.
I am going to predict the future here. Actard will barely squeeze out a profit for 2010 based almost entirely on SC2 and Diablo 3. In 2011 they will release their crappy COD spin offs right after every other company has released their own COD rip-off games, and take massive loses for the year. In 2012 they will find some way to make Blizzard branded shovelware and try desperately to stop their financial free-fall by selling any asset they own that is not nailed down.
Either that or Nibiru is going to flood the planet with radiation killing everyone.
Well in that case they are fucked as D3 sure as fuck wont be out this year. so 2011 will be D3 and CoD spin ware/shovel wear. By the end of 2011, over 80% of all its revenue will be from blizzard. 2012 we will see a cue removing him from power and replacing him with a Blizzard guy.
If any rep at Activision actually fucking played Call of duty games they'd do the smart thing and give IW the whole fucking franchise, they obviously do it RIGHT. No offence to Treyarch, but we all know how well IW makes the CoD games..
This is just so sad, it doesnt make any sense..
hopefully it'll clean up a bit and it wont be as bad as i think it is.
"Hmm. . . This Modern Warfare 2 is selling faster than anything we've made before. . . And I heard that the first one, made by the same company apparently, also made a metric cock-ton of money as well. It seems people really like this whole 'modern' warfare thing. . . . Meh. . . shut it down, it's obvious a waste of time."
Wow, I read Activision's plans for the CoD franchise released today... pretty disgusting. They literaly have no respect for games what so ever as creative and intellectual properties. Bobby Kotick's take on the game industry is so completely screwed it's unbelievable. Even though their short term growth might be good, their long term growth will be disastorous. If Activision Stockholders knew what was good for them they'd get rid of him right now. I mean how do you not learn this lesson that has been repeated time and time again.
It's interesting how they (Activision Blizzard) are doing to the CoD series that they did to the Guitar Hero series. You'd think they'd learn what saturating the market with a product can do, utilizing multiple studios to do so, the first time it went sour.
However!This situation is a pretty good example of the real business side of things, the actual 'cents & dollars' side. This is a sure fire way for them to make decent coin for the next few years - on top of what they've already made from this IP. And if they're smart, they'll have the next-big-thing lined up to take CoD's place when that time comes.
Speaking of market saturation, this does not include handhelds or iPhone:
Speaking of market saturation, this does not include handhelds or iPhone:
Call of Duty
Call of Duty: United Offensive
Call of Duty: Finest Hour
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One
Call of Duty 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Duty: World at War: Final Fronts
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty 7 (Treyarch)
Call of Duty 2011 (Sledgehammer)
I've played almost all the CODs. And no offense to Treyarch at all..but the only ones I've found to be truly exceptional Were Call of Duty 1, 2 (my personal Fave) Modern Warfare 1 and MW2. The rest...meh.
exactly, those games were good because of infinity ward, not because of the brand.
brandmentality is going too far now.
I can even imagine right now how activision is trying to figure out how to get warcraft and starcraft out of the hands of blizzard, imagine what they could do if this "polish" and "quality" thing didn't hold them back!!!!
Question: How "tight" are Blizzard and Activision? Are they a single company now, as in "Activision Blizzard says 'make shitty knockoffs' and the Blizzard team has to"?
Seems IW got screwed and the whole thing smells like massive layoffs by 2011 to me, but I'd really hate to see Blizzard pulled into this kind of bullshit. They've been the only rock solid studio for 15 years running, without a single stinker.
While Treyarch do indeed suck... Lets not forget that MW2 was pretty much just an expansion pack to MW, and that WOW "DID" give us Zombie Nazis...
But other than that yeah I agree. IW should be the only devs tbh.
They don't suck. They just don't capture the best parts of CoD (the incredible cinematic experience) while they amplify the worst parts (the frustrating AI and difficulty). Nazi Zombies was the only thing that didn't make me regret spending $20 on WaW. And MW2 is no expansion pack, it's a huge refinement of every aspect of the previous one.
A huge refinement? I have to disagree there, badly... As somebody who has put in a LOT of hours on MW2 Multiplayer, I have to say a lot of it just went backwards. For example, the single player was short, so short in fact that you blink, you miss it. While production values were high, the game was short, and you constantly had the feeling thatthis was part two of a bigger plan, that you were never going to finish this game. Multiplayer was, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on how stripping down everything, removing features we are used to and adding IWNet is "refined" because to me and the other few million players, MW2 was a step backwards in MANY regards.
Question: How "tight" are Blizzard and Activision? Are they a single company now, as in "Activision Blizzard says 'make shitty knockoffs' and the Blizzard team has to"?
Seems IW got screwed and the whole thing smells like massive layoffs by 2011 to me, but I'd really hate to see Blizzard pulled into this kind of bullshit. They've been the only rock solid studio for 15 years running, without a single stinker.
I've actually been wondering this myself. Would it be possible for Blizzard to get away from the shitstorm that is activision? But then again. I guess they don't really suffer from the bad PR that activision gets.... they are Blizzard after all.
actually i see no problem with taking the COD franchise the same direction as ubisoft did with their Tom Clancy name.... releasing similar themed games under the same franchise... no surprise that MW2 got back the COD label... but MW is still a seperate franchise inside the COD brand...
While Treyarch do indeed suck... Lets not forget that MW2 was pretty much just an expansion pack to MW, and that WOW "DID" give us Zombie Nazis...
But other than that yeah I agree. IW should be the only devs tbh.
While I fully agree that Treyarch has never managed to fill the HUGE shoes that IW wears, I would bet that +95% of game studios out there would fail to fill them as well. Making a blanket statement that Treyarch "sucks" is pretty fucking harsh as well as unfair to the individuals that make up that company. If anything, Activision SUCKS for forcing their studios to churn out a new COD game every year regardless of quality.
I'd assume that the contract signed between Activision and Vevendi states that Activision cant fuck with Blizzard more or less. Besides, Vivendi owns the majority of Activision Blizzard, hence control hasnt shifted much even after the merger in terms of Vivendis studios.
There is a lot of treyarch bashing as of a result of this crappy storie i have to point out that i taught WAW was awesome i really really enjoyed it as much as cod2 and MW, people bashing treyarh are ignorant and cant see real value.
Despite the merger Blizzard operates autonomously. They own their IP's and handle their own HR and recruiting as far as I understand it.
Despite Odium's expected trolling, I dont think anyone has been bashing Treyarch or Sledgehammer in all this. These guys just happen to be caught up in this unfortunate incident. This is strictly between the talented guys at IW and Activision's ownership and management of the COD IP.
I hope the guys at IW regroup and come out on top. I'd be really interested to see their new original IP, that they have been allegedly developing under the renewed Activision contract in 2008.
If Evian beats out Aquafina in water bottle sales, it's because the marketing department did a better job.
You can't market games like water, because not all games are the same.
Activision makes everything from Crap to Cream.
Do what Blizzard does.
Get the fucking publishers name off the box. Get the fucking publishers name off the intro title screen. Sell the talent!
People don't go watch every Paramount movie, because they like Paramount movies. They watch movies because of the actors and directors in them. Infinity Ward has proven to be one of the most talented group of developers in the industry. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS! Start hyping them up and marketing them as TALENTED DEVELOPERS.
People don't go watch every Paramount movie, because they like Paramount movies. They watch movies because of the actors and directors in them. Infinity Ward has proven to be one of the most talented group of developers in the industry. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS! Start hyping them up and marketing them as TALENTED DEVELOPERS.
ARRGHH this is aggrivating.
Most of the time all of the splash screens are noise to most gamers, they can't tell you which is the publisher or the actual developer. Just like the paramount logo is noise to you. People buy games because they like the game or they buy into the marketing, not really the developer.
I get what you're saying sell the delveoper and anything they make will be like printing money. But with great branding comes great overhead. IW did the heavy lifting and established a franchise, its easier to maintain than it is to establish, from Activisions point of view they can maintain somewhere else at a cheaper cost...
I'm not justifying their actions or saying I agree with them, but it does make sense, if you're Bobby "fuck you in the ass" Kotick.
IW is an activision owned studio, blizzard is different...
in comparison to ubisoft and EA, atvi has always maintained the studio names... not just naming the atvi north, south, .. so they still do the dev more justice than other big publishers...
and i m sure they did their fair share to put the COD brand out there and supported the dev...
The QA department is not why I bought Modern Warfare 2. Sorry to say they aren't the talent. I'm sure they played a prominent role in the entire thing, but I bought the games because of the studio who made it.
This is setting a pretty ridiculous prescedence that the talent is NOT important. And that testing and marketing is what made the game successful.
EA is not a brand name. They make everything from childrens games to movie liscences to AAA FPS to shovelware on the iphone.
Of course they supported the devs. That's what publishers are supposed to do for any medium, from books, to movies, and music. But it's not why people buy the games.
People watch Spielberg movies because Spielberg directs or produced it. They expect a certain level of quality from a Spielberg movie.
Spielberg is marketed as the TALENT behind a movie.
Sorry, but EA and Activision are NOT talented developers. They are publishers and marketing teams that have NO idea how to market their talent.
I'd be pretty upset if Starcraft 2 becomes known as a an Activision game, and whether Blizzard makes it or not becomes irrelevant. And (much like what 2k did to Irrational) Remove Blizzards name from the box, and becomes Activision Irvine.
Then some crappy startup gets ahold of the Starcraft liscence, and gets to make Starcraft 3, 4, and 5, so it becomes an annual title, and Blizzard gets to make every 5th or 6th Starcraft game.
The only difference I'm seeing was that Blizzard got the opportunity to create a name for themselves as a brand of talent that sells games. Activision is trying their absolute damndest to prevent that happening with Infinity Ward.
So much wrongness. Blizzard is 100% owned by ATVI, just like IW. ATVI owns them and all their IP and all of their souls. Blizzard has been owned by various companies for a very long time - throughout all of their big hits.
If activision is paying for all bills at IW and owns the company and is funding the huge development costs of MW II than it is of course ok put their logos on the splashscreens and boxes. I mean it was their money. Without propper funding even IW can't develop shit, because people need to be paid. And in case of very talented people (like the guys at IW) an above average payment is justified and necesary.
I don't think that Activisions behaviour of getting the absolute maxiomum of every brand is the way to go. Absolutely not. But denying a publishers rights to place his own logos, to claim his rights on a brand that was raised by his funds is just not smart.
MW2 wouldn't be the outstanding game without the proper financial backbone Activision provided.
of course the talent is important, but so are all the people supporting the "talent" .... thats why you ll find admin staff, QA staff, managing staff, cleaners.. etc in the credits... and I m glad they are and I apreciate all support while working on a game...
in the end , every product is a team effort, and publishers provide the team with the infrastructure...
its our (the devs) job to make the agme as good as possible, but the publishers to make it sell and be succesful...
PEOPLE DO NOT BUY GAMES BECAUSE ACTIVISION PUBLISHED IT!!!!!
They publish EVERYTHING from Kung Fu Panda to Doom to iPhone Shovelware.
Whether they are on the box is completely irrelevant to whether people should buy the game or not. They need to STOP MARKETING it as an Activision game, and START marketing it as an INFINITY ward game.
ACTIVISIONS NAME ON THE BOX IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO SALES.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. It wasn't until a bit into my teen years that I even started to realize the difference between the developers and the publishers. And activision does have bran recognition now. They've built it by constantly tossing their logo on every product they publish. Same with other big publishers. heck, a lot of times my friends don't know the difference and are telling me about a new activision game.
Why won't Toyota put Ishimaru Michiyo's name on the cars he makes. He runs a sub-contracted company that builds Toyota's. His company deserves to have it's name over the Toyota logo, they actually build the cars.
Jac, you're forgetting who's in charge and why people buy games. They don't buy it because of the dev, or publisher, they buy the game for the game. I bet if you polled Bioshock2 buyers they would have a hard time telling you who made it or who published it. Red Dead will be a bit of a test of the RockStar brand name. I bet it doesn't sell anywhere as well as GTA. If it was all about dev branding then it would be another huge hit and the box could be filled full of bacon bits and people would buy it.
They also market the franchise first and foremost, and stick their name on the box because they paid an assload of money to bring it to market. Denying them proper credit is just as bad as denying you credit.
You might highly identify with the developers given your interest in the industry and how plugged in you are. I think its a pretty big leap to think you can market a studio like you can a franchise.
The pecking order follows the the money and goes, Publisher > Franchise > Studio.
It's dangerous for a publisher to market a studio before a franchise.
What if the talent leaves? PR nightmare.
What if the studio bloats and you have to trim the fat? PR nightmare.
What if the talent was a one trick pony and can't do more than one thing?
What if the project tanks and you have trouble finding them other projects that fit their unique style.
What if the success goes to their heads and they demand more and more money from a ever shrinking franchise?
What if you're dev brand goes under taking dozens of franchises you've stuffed into their name, with it?
You're obscure parent publisher the puppet master tanks because all of a sudden the franchise you built was around a single dev, thats no longer there, people will be more likely to distrust any future titles because you built up the dev name so high and now switched the one thing they identify with.
Market the franchise, keep your options open in case things aren't always rosey at the studio.
I think thats a really good point, I always find it really frustrating seeing the publishers name and logo plastered everywhere and hardly anything from the developer, Its as if the publishers takes credit for all the developers hard work.
Its like me paying for Marko Djurdjevics pencils and paper and saying I want my signature on his work because I payed for it.
EA and activision are the biggest culprit, many people wouldnt even know that studios such as visceral, criterion, treyarch, infinity ward etc. are the ones behind their games, not EA or activision.
but end of the day publishers are forking out the money and if they say jump you should be saying how high............or you get the bouncers in!!!!!!
Its just the equivalent a directors name on a movie box, people know that IW made MW2. George Lucas, and Steven Speilberg can sell new movies just from their name and past work and reputation, even though alot of what they make now is trash.
I agree Jaque its one of the differences that seems to be with other medias. Publishers will not allow personalities and reputations to excel and develop. The mainstream games media/popullus has this perception of it just being this big money making machine, because it is, nothing can get in the way of them making their immediate million dollars. As opposed to letting some people have a little creative freedom and place their own personal stamps upon things, so that they may gain more probable money in the long term. With more reputable names and products.
as it is irrelevant to have the IW name on the box, as people buying the COD name... so what...
without publisher support IW wouldnt be able to make these games in the first place and thats the end of the story...
Nah....I would buy a game if it said Infinity Ward because I know they make good games....now if it just had an Activision stamp on it...with some crap ass studio..I'd pass
heck, a lot of times my friends don't know the difference and are telling me about a new activision game.
Yeah, that's the problem... They're doing it backwards on purpose, Activision wants the recognition on them and not the developers. :poly127: As Jacque said, nobody goes to see a Paramount movie because it's omg a PARAMOUNT movie. They go for certain directors, actors, hell even fight choreographers. The key players that give a movie quality or appeal. As developers shouldn't we be supporting the idea of the developers getting more credit and recognition? Sheesh people
Nah....I would buy a game if it said Infinity Ward because I know they make good games....now if it just had an Activision stamp on it...with some crap ass studio..I'd pass
maybe, but the majority of people dont give a thing to who developed it
people who post on games related forums are not the majority of customers...
Isn't that Jacques whole point? That it's not this way now, but it SHOULD BE. Just because gamers currently don't give a shit who developed their games doesn't mean they shouldn't care.
Yea but its still "he who has the money, calls the shots and designs the box art".
If you don't like it you can take your own big pile of cash and make games however you want.
You can't get a publisher to pump up a developer like it would a franchise.
Most studios are one trick ponies linked to a franchise. Once the franchise tanks and they always do, so will the studio. Very few make it past the one trick pony phase. If you're going to build up the studio then they need to be able to do more than one thing. That's risky, publishers don't like that, because you find out too late they really where a one trick pony after they've failed. Bye bye money, bye bye investors.
If they pump the franchise instead of the studio, they can shift and spread the franchise around to make more money. Getting them to invest in a single dev so it can bloat up and do more isn't always in the publishers best interest, or the wisest use of their money. Why spend 20 billion on one big name studio in a high cost of living area, when you can spend 15billion on 3 smaller studios?
Simple question - with the huge amount of money made from the COD series, why couldn't IW fund the game themselves, and just go to a publisher on a game by game basis? Rather than be owned and controlled by a publisher?
I'm not arguing the publisher doesn't have the RIGHT to slap their logo on everything. We're saying it's in the best interest of game development itself, to push the developers, the ones that actually CREATED the product and are responsible for whether its good or not.
Again let's look at the movie industy, they know the talent is what sells tickets. Actors, directors, whatever else. Sure they still let everyone know who paid the bills, and that still helps their branding, but I think we can all agree that's not what sells the tickets. "James Camerons" Avatar would be a good example.
Before everyone replies with "thats not how to make a publisher millions of dollars" maybe step back and re-think if making publishers millions of dollars is what's actually beneficial to us, as GAMERS and GAME DEVELOPERS.
Of course I understand the publishers are the ones with the power at the moment. I think Jacques point is we need to rectify that, and start tipping the scales back in OUR direction.
If they pump the franchise instead of the studio, they can shift and spread the franchise around to make more money. Getting them to invest in a single dev so it can bloat up and do more isn't always in the publishers best interest, or the wisest use of their money. Why spend 20 billion on one big name studio in a high cost of living area, when you can spend 15billion on 3 smaller studios?
Yea but its still "he who has the money, calls the shots and designs the box art".
If you don't like it you can take your own big pile of cash and make games however you want.
You can't get a publisher to pump up a developer like it would a franchise.
Most studios are one trick ponies linked to a franchise. Once the franchise tanks and they always do, so will the studio. Very few make it past the one trick pony phase. If you're going to build up the studio then they need to be able to do more than one thing. That's risky, publishers don't like that, because you find out too late they really where a one trick pony after they've failed. Bye bye money, bye bye investors.
If they pump the franchise instead of the studio, they can shift and spread the franchise around to make more money. Getting them to invest in a single dev so it can bloat up and do more isn't always in the publishers best interest, or the wisest use of their money. Why spend 20 billion on one big name studio in a high cost of living area, when you can spend 15billion on 3 smaller studios?
Aquired long experience is a valuable asset. The more people do things the better they get at them(usually). Developers are only one trick pony's because thats all there allowed to be. There are quite a few developers that arent one trick pony's.
Do these publishers want to make money, or are they just after putting there name's on box's?
I think Publishers are missing a trick. When they put their name to everything, people believe that they created it. When something is trash they associate it with that publisher and their reputation goes down, when something is good it goes up, they must have this sort of yo, yo effect which causes sales to fluctuate.
Theres also embedded perception, Activision, makes the CODS and Guitar Heros. I hate those games. When they come out with a new game, say it was The Sims, its a whole nuther market to the Guitar ands CODS. Those people whom hate Activison and would love The Sims wouldnt even look at it, because of this perception of what Activision does. And I garantee it would be a fair number of people how many is hard to say, but they would be lost sales for no real reason.
I'm pretty sure hollywood know about this, they start up fringe companies, that aquire a reputation in distributing different sorts of content, Romance films, etc.
Even authors do it. People cannot accept a single author writing romance novels, and heavy science fiction so they, use alias's for each.
Its a clever trick it allows the publishers to avoid, any loss in reputation from rubbish products. They can just palm responsibility for the mess off to the creators. And when things go good. The brighter the front names shine the more they highlight the names in the background.
Replies
Really, WTF man! "Target the asian market"... sounds like they're desperately trying to cover every front where there's money to be made.
I dearly hope IW will recover from this and continue to do their own thing, without Activison.
Well in that case they are fucked as D3 sure as fuck wont be out this year. so 2011 will be D3 and CoD spin ware/shovel wear. By the end of 2011, over 80% of all its revenue will be from blizzard. 2012 we will see a cue removing him from power and replacing him with a Blizzard guy.
*sigh*
If any rep at Activision actually fucking played Call of duty games they'd do the smart thing and give IW the whole fucking franchise, they obviously do it RIGHT. No offence to Treyarch, but we all know how well IW makes the CoD games..
This is just so sad, it doesnt make any sense..
hopefully it'll clean up a bit and it wont be as bad as i think it is.
just some tweeted reactions
However!This situation is a pretty good example of the real business side of things, the actual 'cents & dollars' side. This is a sure fire way for them to make decent coin for the next few years - on top of what they've already made from this IP. And if they're smart, they'll have the next-big-thing lined up to take CoD's place when that time comes.
Speaking of market saturation, this does not include handhelds or iPhone:
I've played almost all the CODs. And no offense to Treyarch at all..but the only ones I've found to be truly exceptional Were Call of Duty 1, 2 (my personal Fave) Modern Warfare 1 and MW2. The rest...meh.
brandmentality is going too far now.
I can even imagine right now how activision is trying to figure out how to get warcraft and starcraft out of the hands of blizzard, imagine what they could do if this "polish" and "quality" thing didn't hold them back!!!!
But other than that yeah I agree. IW should be the only devs tbh.
Seems IW got screwed and the whole thing smells like massive layoffs by 2011 to me, but I'd really hate to see Blizzard pulled into this kind of bullshit. They've been the only rock solid studio for 15 years running, without a single stinker.
They don't suck. They just don't capture the best parts of CoD (the incredible cinematic experience) while they amplify the worst parts (the frustrating AI and difficulty). Nazi Zombies was the only thing that didn't make me regret spending $20 on WaW. And MW2 is no expansion pack, it's a huge refinement of every aspect of the previous one.
While I fully agree that Treyarch has never managed to fill the HUGE shoes that IW wears, I would bet that +95% of game studios out there would fail to fill them as well. Making a blanket statement that Treyarch "sucks" is pretty fucking harsh as well as unfair to the individuals that make up that company. If anything, Activision SUCKS for forcing their studios to churn out a new COD game every year regardless of quality.
Call of GuitarCraft: Online
that is all
Despite Odium's expected trolling, I dont think anyone has been bashing Treyarch or Sledgehammer in all this. These guys just happen to be caught up in this unfortunate incident. This is strictly between the talented guys at IW and Activision's ownership and management of the COD IP.
I hope the guys at IW regroup and come out on top. I'd be really interested to see their new original IP, that they have been allegedly developing under the renewed Activision contract in 2008.
Jason Rubin is spot on with this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1876636950994293221#
Activision is NOT A BRAND. EA IS NOT A BRAND.
If Evian beats out Aquafina in water bottle sales, it's because the marketing department did a better job.
You can't market games like water, because not all games are the same.
Activision makes everything from Crap to Cream.
Do what Blizzard does.
Get the fucking publishers name off the box. Get the fucking publishers name off the intro title screen. Sell the talent!
People don't go watch every Paramount movie, because they like Paramount movies. They watch movies because of the actors and directors in them. Infinity Ward has proven to be one of the most talented group of developers in the industry. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS! Start hyping them up and marketing them as TALENTED DEVELOPERS.
ARRGHH this is aggrivating.
I get what you're saying sell the delveoper and anything they make will be like printing money. But with great branding comes great overhead. IW did the heavy lifting and established a franchise, its easier to maintain than it is to establish, from Activisions point of view they can maintain somewhere else at a cheaper cost...
I'm not justifying their actions or saying I agree with them, but it does make sense, if you're Bobby "fuck you in the ass" Kotick.
I'm pretty sure Vivendi Universal's name wasn't featured prominently on Blizzard titles, because they're completely irrelevant.
Steven Speilbergs name should be prominently featured above the movie's Title.
NOT Dreamworks.
Infinity Wards name should be what they should be selling. NOT Activision.
in comparison to ubisoft and EA, atvi has always maintained the studio names... not just naming the atvi north, south, .. so they still do the dev more justice than other big publishers...
and i m sure they did their fair share to put the COD brand out there and supported the dev...
This is setting a pretty ridiculous prescedence that the talent is NOT important. And that testing and marketing is what made the game successful.
EA is not a brand name. They make everything from childrens games to movie liscences to AAA FPS to shovelware on the iphone.
Of course they supported the devs. That's what publishers are supposed to do for any medium, from books, to movies, and music. But it's not why people buy the games.
People watch Spielberg movies because Spielberg directs or produced it. They expect a certain level of quality from a Spielberg movie.
Spielberg is marketed as the TALENT behind a movie.
Sorry, but EA and Activision are NOT talented developers. They are publishers and marketing teams that have NO idea how to market their talent.
I'd be pretty upset if Starcraft 2 becomes known as a an Activision game, and whether Blizzard makes it or not becomes irrelevant. And (much like what 2k did to Irrational) Remove Blizzards name from the box, and becomes Activision Irvine.
Then some crappy startup gets ahold of the Starcraft liscence, and gets to make Starcraft 3, 4, and 5, so it becomes an annual title, and Blizzard gets to make every 5th or 6th Starcraft game.
The only difference I'm seeing was that Blizzard got the opportunity to create a name for themselves as a brand of talent that sells games. Activision is trying their absolute damndest to prevent that happening with Infinity Ward.
http://www.mobygames.com/company/blizzard-entertainment-inc/history
ATVI has chosen to leave Blizzard alone, just like they chose to leave IW alone until now. Why they decided to fire the studio heads IS STILL UNKNOWN.
I don't think that Activisions behaviour of getting the absolute maxiomum of every brand is the way to go. Absolutely not. But denying a publishers rights to place his own logos, to claim his rights on a brand that was raised by his funds is just not smart.
MW2 wouldn't be the outstanding game without the proper financial backbone Activision provided.
in the end , every product is a team effort, and publishers provide the team with the infrastructure...
its our (the devs) job to make the agme as good as possible, but the publishers to make it sell and be succesful...
ACTIVISION IS NOT A BRAND OR A DEVELOPER!
PEOPLE DO NOT BUY GAMES BECAUSE ACTIVISION PUBLISHED IT!!!!!
They publish EVERYTHING from Kung Fu Panda to Doom to iPhone Shovelware.
Whether they are on the box is completely irrelevant to whether people should buy the game or not. They need to STOP MARKETING it as an Activision game, and START marketing it as an INFINITY ward game.
ACTIVISIONS NAME ON THE BOX IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO SALES.
without publisher support IW wouldnt be able to make these games in the first place and thats the end of the story...
Jac, you're forgetting who's in charge and why people buy games. They don't buy it because of the dev, or publisher, they buy the game for the game. I bet if you polled Bioshock2 buyers they would have a hard time telling you who made it or who published it. Red Dead will be a bit of a test of the RockStar brand name. I bet it doesn't sell anywhere as well as GTA. If it was all about dev branding then it would be another huge hit and the box could be filled full of bacon bits and people would buy it.
They also market the franchise first and foremost, and stick their name on the box because they paid an assload of money to bring it to market. Denying them proper credit is just as bad as denying you credit.
You might highly identify with the developers given your interest in the industry and how plugged in you are. I think its a pretty big leap to think you can market a studio like you can a franchise.
The pecking order follows the the money and goes, Publisher > Franchise > Studio.
It's dangerous for a publisher to market a studio before a franchise.
What if the talent leaves? PR nightmare.
What if the studio bloats and you have to trim the fat? PR nightmare.
What if the talent was a one trick pony and can't do more than one thing?
What if the project tanks and you have trouble finding them other projects that fit their unique style.
What if the success goes to their heads and they demand more and more money from a ever shrinking franchise?
What if you're dev brand goes under taking dozens of franchises you've stuffed into their name, with it?
You're obscure parent publisher the puppet master tanks because all of a sudden the franchise you built was around a single dev, thats no longer there, people will be more likely to distrust any future titles because you built up the dev name so high and now switched the one thing they identify with.
Market the franchise, keep your options open in case things aren't always rosey at the studio.
Its like me paying for Marko Djurdjevics pencils and paper and saying I want my signature on his work because I payed for it.
EA and activision are the biggest culprit, many people wouldnt even know that studios such as visceral, criterion, treyarch, infinity ward etc. are the ones behind their games, not EA or activision.
but end of the day publishers are forking out the money and if they say jump you should be saying how high............or you get the bouncers in!!!!!!
I agree Jaque its one of the differences that seems to be with other medias. Publishers will not allow personalities and reputations to excel and develop. The mainstream games media/popullus has this perception of it just being this big money making machine, because it is, nothing can get in the way of them making their immediate million dollars. As opposed to letting some people have a little creative freedom and place their own personal stamps upon things, so that they may gain more probable money in the long term. With more reputable names and products.
Nah....I would buy a game if it said Infinity Ward because I know they make good games....now if it just had an Activision stamp on it...with some crap ass studio..I'd pass
Yeah, that's the problem... They're doing it backwards on purpose, Activision wants the recognition on them and not the developers. :poly127: As Jacque said, nobody goes to see a Paramount movie because it's omg a PARAMOUNT movie. They go for certain directors, actors, hell even fight choreographers. The key players that give a movie quality or appeal. As developers shouldn't we be supporting the idea of the developers getting more credit and recognition? Sheesh people
maybe, but the majority of people dont give a thing to who developed it
people who post on games related forums are not the majority of customers...
As is infinity ward's name to most mainstream gamers. Only the big 'COD' matters.
Meanwhile, activision's name on the box is COMPLETELY RELEVANT to INVESTORS.
Which is somewhat important.
If you don't like it you can take your own big pile of cash and make games however you want.
You can't get a publisher to pump up a developer like it would a franchise.
Most studios are one trick ponies linked to a franchise. Once the franchise tanks and they always do, so will the studio. Very few make it past the one trick pony phase. If you're going to build up the studio then they need to be able to do more than one thing. That's risky, publishers don't like that, because you find out too late they really where a one trick pony after they've failed. Bye bye money, bye bye investors.
If they pump the franchise instead of the studio, they can shift and spread the franchise around to make more money. Getting them to invest in a single dev so it can bloat up and do more isn't always in the publishers best interest, or the wisest use of their money. Why spend 20 billion on one big name studio in a high cost of living area, when you can spend 15billion on 3 smaller studios?
Again let's look at the movie industy, they know the talent is what sells tickets. Actors, directors, whatever else. Sure they still let everyone know who paid the bills, and that still helps their branding, but I think we can all agree that's not what sells the tickets. "James Camerons" Avatar would be a good example.
Before everyone replies with "thats not how to make a publisher millions of dollars" maybe step back and re-think if making publishers millions of dollars is what's actually beneficial to us, as GAMERS and GAME DEVELOPERS.
Of course I understand the publishers are the ones with the power at the moment. I think Jacques point is we need to rectify that, and start tipping the scales back in OUR direction.
Brand dillution.
Are we really the only entertainment industry that doesn't seem to WANT to recognize and push its talent at the forefront? That's pretty sad.
Aquired long experience is a valuable asset. The more people do things the better they get at them(usually). Developers are only one trick pony's because thats all there allowed to be. There are quite a few developers that arent one trick pony's.
Do these publishers want to make money, or are they just after putting there name's on box's?
I think Publishers are missing a trick. When they put their name to everything, people believe that they created it. When something is trash they associate it with that publisher and their reputation goes down, when something is good it goes up, they must have this sort of yo, yo effect which causes sales to fluctuate.
Theres also embedded perception, Activision, makes the CODS and Guitar Heros. I hate those games. When they come out with a new game, say it was The Sims, its a whole nuther market to the Guitar ands CODS. Those people whom hate Activison and would love The Sims wouldnt even look at it, because of this perception of what Activision does. And I garantee it would be a fair number of people how many is hard to say, but they would be lost sales for no real reason.
I'm pretty sure hollywood know about this, they start up fringe companies, that aquire a reputation in distributing different sorts of content, Romance films, etc.
Even authors do it. People cannot accept a single author writing romance novels, and heavy science fiction so they, use alias's for each.
Its a clever trick it allows the publishers to avoid, any loss in reputation from rubbish products. They can just palm responsibility for the mess off to the creators. And when things go good. The brighter the front names shine the more they highlight the names in the background.