Activision big boss, Bobby Kotick, has been uncharacteristically quiet over the past few months, but it seems as though gaming’s most entertaining industry leader/corporate troll has just recently come into some spare time. 

Just last week he famously said that Bungie is the last high quality indie developer, and that he would like to charge for game cutscenes. 

This week he has taken it a step further, by verbally assaulting Activsion’s largest rival, EA, as well as former Infinity Ward leads. He also finally got around to responding to Tim Schafer (Brutal Legend, Day of the Tentacle) who publically outed Kotick as a “total prick”.

First off, speaking to Edge Magazine, Kotick explained that what Vincent Zampella and Jason West did in the recent Infinity Ward saga was unethical, and that if he had done the same he would have been arrested. “The frustrating thing about that is, the stuff that these guys did, I never would have expected them to do,” Kotick said. “We’re a public company, we’ve got ethics, obligations, and the things they did were… I would go to jail if I did them.” Kotick alleges that Zampella and West were utilizing company resources for their own personal benefit, and that he feels betrayed by people he considered “friends.”

Next up, Kotick accused EA of essentially being monopolising jerks (I’m paraphrasing), specifically regarding the way they buy up independent developers and rebrand them. “EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida,’ ‘EA Vancouver,’ ‘EA New Jersey,’ whatever. We always looked and said, ‘You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that’s what makes them so successful.'”

“EA has a lot of resources, it’s a big company that’s been in business for a long time, maybe it’ll figure it out eventually. But it’s been struggling for a really long time. The most difficult challenge it faces today is: great people don’t really want to work there,” said Kotick. OHHHH BURN! A little ironic however, coming from a publisher who’s most successful development team recently abandoned them completely, and tried to sue them for millions.  

Lastly, Kotick chimed in on Tim Schaffer’s recent shenanigans, whereby he referred to Kotick as a “total prick.” “The guy comes out and says I’m a prick. I’ve never met him in my life,” Kotick said.” I never had any involvement in the Vivendi project that they were doing, Brutal Legend.” Kotick explained that Activision pulled the plug on Schafer’s Brutal Legend because the developer was unable to meet deadlines, stay on budget, or make the game “particularly good.”

Kotick does not mention Activision’s decision to try and sue the developer for taking the game to another developer, despite the fact that they did not want to publish it.

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