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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/activisions-bobby-kotick-brings-cash-but-not-heart.arsActivision's Bobby Kotick brings cash, but not heart
Opinion: in a world of thoughtful and passionate gaming CEOs, Bobby Kotick stands alone. He doesn't play video games, but he sure knows how to make money off people who do.
By Ben Kuchera | Last updated January 21, 2009 7:50 AM CT
Something that's pretty surprising happens as you cover the game industry: you start to like the bigwigs at the companies you cover. I've had the pleasure of meeting executives from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, and I've never been anything less than impressed with their passion and love for the business they work in.
At E3, Jack Tretton answered every question posed to him at a breakfast with the press, and I had the pleasure of his company for a few minutes afterwards. This is a guy who knows the PlayStation business inside and out, and clearly loves the products he sells. At a Nintendo event years ago, I was lucky enough to speak with Nintendo's Reggie Fils Aime for an extended period of time, and I thought the same thing. Peter Moore, back before he left Microsoft for EA? Charismatic, and very knowledgeable about the titles he controlled. I've since met Microsoft's John Schappert, and he was an open and amiable fellow. Even on the developer level, people like Alex Rigopulos from Harmonix and Kelly Zmak from Radicial Entertainment all love games, play games, and they live and die by their products.
In other words, even though it's frequently my job to write about these people when I disagree with their decisions, I'm happy to report that almost everyone who works in the business loves what they do. Being a game writer has been like crashing in the North Pole and finding out that not only are Santa and his elves real, but they're all passionately devoted to Christmas. That's why I find Bobby Kotick so distasteful—the man is a carpetbagger.
The only reason we care about him is that he makes a ton of money, and yes, that's great for business. I get that. But usually, when you put the devil in charge, you have the good graces to at least keep a smooth-talking demon or two around to deal with the press. With Kotick, he's very brazen about his need to squeeze every last dollar he can out of every franchise under the Activision Blizzard label. He wants to exploit his games. He wants to make sure he has a sequel every year, and don't forget the Wii and DS ports. Why have one StarCraft game if you can have three? Just because people are used to Battle.net being free doesn't mean you can't find some way to make more money from the service.
I firmly believe that EA handed Activision the bottle of special evil sauce because, while Electronic Arts used to be the most hated name in gaming, the tide is turning. At least with EA, the franchises mostly stay the same year after year; Activision's tend to age poorly, like wine made from rancid grapes. This is a company that looked at Ghostbusters and decided it wasn't interested because Harold Ramis most likely wouldn't write a sequel every 10 months.
Kotick doesn't play his games, and it shows. He has a tin ear when it comes to speaking to investors or the press. This is a guy who looks at the balance sheets of World of Warcraft and wants more, more, more... and it's doubtful he even knows the name of Azeroth. Under his control, Activision Blizzard has started to look and feel like the Shire at the end of the Lord of the Rings (and by that, I mean the books' vision). The only difference is I doubt Activision will see any brave hobbits willing to do a little scouring, not when cutting down the trees remains so profitable. I'm going to get out of this paragraph before the Tolkien metaphors get too mixed, but I hope you get what I mean.
Reading the story in Forbes detailing Kotick's business maneuvering, including the asinine editorial assertion that Rock Band is "a shameless knockoff of Guitar Hero," left me impressed by his savvy, but not much else. Remember, Harmonix created Guitar Hero, only to have Kotick's Neversoft take over and create not only a somewhat lazy and locked down Aerosmith addition, but a portable version that's more of a sick dare than a solid product. He'll shrug this piece off, as will all of Activision Blizzard, because the money is so good. But you can only slash and burn for so long. Neversoft and Treyarch will continue to clothe the bones that Harmonix and Infinity Ward have left behind in Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, but they'll never be able to make the corpses dance as well as the games' creators. I can't imagine what it's like to give Call of Duty to Treyarch between games—it must be like leaving a child you love dearly with an abusive aunt six months out of the year.
World of Warcraft may look like it will go on forever, but the only thing greater than the loyalty of those players is Kotick's cash-lust. The only question is if the two will ever collide.
Or maybe I'm just being a downer, the clichéd crying Indian looking over the dirty fields of Activision's future. It's possible this could go on forever, and Kotick will extract his pound of flesh from gamers by a thousand tiny cuts. But we'll be the worse for it, and the idea of looking at those beady eyes every time I write about the man gives me enough incentive to hope for someone—anyone—to come in and love the children that Kotick wants to beat until they work harder. Until then, the company will have to be happy with a nearly infinite cash stream, delivered by a man who seems to proudly refuse to handle a controller.
CAPITALIST PIG DOGS!
Some are just more subtle about it than others.
and they say us gamers are the ones who belong in a life of dark basements without a life 
