Blactivision goes chop chop: Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend et al

[UnSub]

As reported by GI.biz:

Activision Blizzard has submitted its latest release schedule with no mention of forthcoming title from Terminal Reality, Ghostbusters, 50: Cent: Blood on the Sand from Swordfish or Double Fine's Brutal Legend.

Additionally the company plans to "realign" staff at High Moon Studios and Radical Entertainment, while Massive Entertainment and Swordfish Studios are both under consideration for sale or closure.

[schild]

Ghostbusters have been confirmed not to be canceled. Obviously looking for a publisher. Also, Wet wasn't mentioned either - was looking forward to that. Brutal Legend would be a huge loss.

[Sauced]

Tim Schafer says it's fine, if you believe in alt-text anyways.

[caladein]

Ghostbusters have been confirmed not to be canceled. Obviously looking for a publisher. Also, Wet wasn't mentioned either - was looking forward to that. Brutal Legend would be a huge loss.

Yeah, I was also looking quite forward to Wet.  Funnily enough, I was talking about it with a friend a couple of days ago .

Don't know how far along it was, but hopefully it can find a home and get released.

[Velorath]

And the reason these cuts where made?  According to CEO Bobby Kotick they "don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises".

[Phire]

Did he really have to say exploited? I mean we know they like milk their franchises but when that is coming straight from the mouth of the CEO that is just wrong.

[IainC]

Did he really have to say exploited? I mean we know they like milk their franchises but when that is coming straight from the mouth of the CEO that is just wrong.

It has a different connotation in business than the one you are thinking of. Kotick is talking mostly to investors ad business people not to gamers in that quote.

[Velorath]

Did he really have to say exploited? I mean we know they like milk their franchises but when that is coming straight from the mouth of the CEO that is just wrong.

Not the first time he's done that either.

[Lantyssa]

It has a different connotation in business than the one you are thinking of. Kotick is talking mostly to investors ad business people not to gamers in that quote.

It's the same connotation.  We just realize it's a bad thing.

[ahoythematey]

I don't know how Blizzard seriously expects us to believe in their good intentions with Starcraft 2 when the CEO of the company they partnered with says this kind of shit.  I really don't, and I sure would like it if the fucking gaming-press would grill them harder on it.

[Hawkbit]

OH hell no I need mah fiddycent game

[Stephen Zepp]

Did he really have to say exploited? I mean we know they like milk their franchises but when that is coming straight from the mouth of the CEO that is just wrong.

Not the first time he's done that either.

I got nudged at for months in the civilian world for over-use of the term "exploit" meaning to utilize to your best advantage as a business unit. In the military at least, it was a neutral to positive term, meaning to capitalize on a situation or scenario, like "exploiting a market void", "exploit this opportunity to it's fullest potential" (give it full attention, as opposed to it being "just another project", etc.).

That being said, that was a pretty overboard decision, although financially speaking I can see what he means--which sucks from an industry perspective :(

[Azazel]

I don't know how Blizzard seriously expects us to believe in their good intentions with Starcraft 2 when the CEO of the company they partnered with says this kind of shit.  I really don't, and I sure would like it if the fucking gaming-press would grill them harder on it.

It was pretty clear from the moment they announced that SC2 was going to be released as three seperate game/campaigns, "possibly up to a year apart".

I think we also see why Vivendi put Activision in charge of Blizz, and not vice versa.

[ahoythematey]

Clear to me and you, but we're just people on a message board.  Why in the fuck are the dedicated enthusiast press not hitting this shit harder, why are they not pushing back and calling them out directly in interviews on this kind of bullshit?  Publishers are becoming more aggressive towards the press anyways, so why not get something genuine out of it?

God this is so fucking ridiculous.

[schild]

Clear to me and you, but we're just people on a message board.  Why in the fuck are the dedicated enthusiast press not hitting this shit harder, why are they not pushing back and calling them out directly in interviews on this kind of bullshit?  Publishers are becoming more aggressive towards the press anyways, so why not get something genuine out of it?

God this is so fucking ridiculous.

Apparently you don't understand the position of press in this industry.

I've long since realized that unfortunately, they're just an extension of PR and are about as critical to the process as a roast beef sandwich.

In other words, they're a bunch of buffoons.

I was going to write an article about it, but frankly, this is pretty much Activisions MO and has been for a while now.

[ahoythematey]

I admit it has been pretty naive of me to think that there are at the very least some serious journalists in the bunch.  When you look at any random game website and see it's a bunch of goddamn lists I guess you have to be blind not to see the writing on the wall.

[schild]

I admit it has been pretty naive of me to think that there are at the very least some serious journalists in the bunch.  When you look at any random game website and see it's a bunch of goddamn lists I guess you have to be blind not to see the writing on the wall.

There are serious journalists, but ain't none of them gonna get paid enough to write serious journalism.

You should hear some of the shit journalists and devs talk about, god forbid they have the balls to write it in public. Seriously, you have no clue. I'm sure 99% of them are afraid to be half as candid as me for fear of not getting their precious industry gig.

[ahoythematey]

Hey!  If we can haz a black prezident, we can haz sum srs jurnullsm!  I still dare to dream!

[Hawkbit]

Jeff Gerstmann, is that you?

[schild]

Jeff Gerstmann, is that you?

Jeff Gerstmann reviewed a single game honestly when he wasn't supposed to. How many do you think he faked or didn't over the years there?

Do you remember a single hard-hitting piece of journalism he wrote during his tenure at Gamespot?

No, of course you don't, that's why you made a bland apples-to-oranges joke about it instead of trying to make a point.

[apocrypha]

I don't know how Blizzard seriously expects us to believe in their good intentions with Starcraft 2 when the CEO of the company they partnered with says this kind of shit.  I really don't, and I sure would like it if the fucking gaming-press would grill them harder on it.

Good intentions? Their intention is, and always has been, to make a profit. That has to be the case for any company, games-related or not. All the good intentions in the world mean diddly squat when you're bankrupt.

Blizzard have just always been well aware that polished, quality games make them money hats more effectively than unfinished, shoddy games.

[UnSub]

I've long since realized that unfortunately, they're just an extension of PR and are about as critical to the process as a roast beef sandwich.

Gaming journalism starts out at "OMG I get to write about games they give to me free and before everyone else?" and ends up at "You aren't paying me enough to write another glowing puff piece about this title and I want a raise", wherein one of the other million nerds desperate to get into the industry gets put in their place and the cycle starts anew.

Serious games journalism doesn't happen because it requires time and effort to write, while potentially stopping the journalist from getting that coveted assistant assistant producer job at a gaming studio.

The reality is that 'serious' journalism could occur in some areas because the journalists' costs were paid for by advertising dollars and revenue from the news paper / channel. Given that the vast majority of game site revenue has to come from sponsorship deals and ad spend from only a few sources, jeopardising that means the site would be shut down in short order due to a lack of cash.

[schild]

I've long since realized that unfortunately, they're just an extension of PR and are about as critical to the process as a roast beef sandwich.

Gaming journalism starts out at "OMG I get to write about games they give to me free and before everyone else?" and ends up at "You aren't paying me enough to write another glowing puff piece about this title and I want a raise", wherein one of the other million nerds desperate to get into the industry gets put in their place and the cycle starts anew.

Serious games journalism doesn't happen because it requires time and effort to write, while potentially stopping the journalist from getting that coveted assistant assistant producer job at a gaming studio.

The reality is that 'serious' journalism could occur in some areas because the journalists' costs were paid for by advertising dollars and revenue from the news paper / channel. Given that the vast majority of game site revenue has to come from sponsorship deals and ad spend from only a few sources, jeopardising that means the site would be shut down in short order due to a lack of cash.

Well, yes. But that takes a lot longer to type.

[Xuri]

And the reason these cuts where made?  According to CEO Bobby Kotick they "don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises".

This is outrageous. Someone ought to take a stand against this, preferably with pitchforks and torches outside their HQ. The entire future of gaming is at steak!!1! Seriously, I weep.

[Ragnoros]

I just want to play Brutal Legend damn it!

[schild]

You know what, fuckit, I get paid to write stuff that tears apart shit like that. I'll deal with it in the morning. Not like they're sending me around the world promoting Guitar Hero. A fuck them for bringing out 5 versions in 3 years.

[Hawkbit]

Jeff Gerstmann, is that you?

Jeff Gerstmann reviewed a single game honestly when he wasn't supposed to. How many do you think he faked or didn't over the years there?

Do you remember a single hard-hitting piece of journalism he wrote during his tenure at Gamespot?

No, of course you don't, that's why you made a bland apples-to-oranges joke about it instead of trying to make a point.

You're right, and my apologies.  I should have known better knowing what you do for a living. 

That said, as an outsider looking in, I can't help but be pissed about what happened because I don't know the whole story, only what I was able to read across various internet sources.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that IGN/GS fabricate their reviews due to getting kickbacks and/or ad revenue.  I figured that out pretty soon after reading IGN regularly many years ago.  But seeing it called out was pretty fucked.  For the average guy like me, who is into gaming but not the industry, that was some heavy bullshit.  To me, it didn't matter what Gerstmann's credentials were, I saw only a Gamespot journalist getting screwed by the man. 

If you can look at my post/login history here at F13 you'll see that it jumped quite a bit after last November when all that went down.  I finally figured out how to get decent info on games without needing to weed through ten different sites, because there's no better place to find the real story than real people who for the most part are decent and pick apart games like an Iron Chef judge does salmon ice cream. 

Again, no offense intended. 

[fuser]

Back to the good stuff 

source (via blues)

Atari, one of the world's most recognized video game publishers, announced today the addition of the highly anticipated Ghostbusters: The Video Game to its 2009 release schedule.

[schild]

While I may sound offended, I can't remember the last time I was ever offended by anything typed on f13. So don't worry about that.

That's not true, sometimes the daftness of a developer or two can offend me, but it's typically not as a poster on the website but as a dev. So, yea, not really the same thing. Point being, I'd rather you say what you want to say so we can clear the air than not say it at all.

[Sky]

I can't remember the last time I was ever offended by anything typed on f13.

We do love a challenge! 

[Hawkbit]

Fair enough, man.  Thanks.

[Litigator]

I don't know about these games.  I like the Ghostbusters games, but I am very aware that a Ghostbusters game had the potential to be bad.  When they say they don't think they could turn these games into $100 million franchises, it may be their way of saying that they don't think the games were on track to be good.

However, in looking at comments from this guy in the past, I don't think he understands that you can't flog the shit out of certain franchises.

For example, Starcraft was a revenue stream, and was in print for a decade because it was a piece of software that was finely honed into pretty much the definitive e-sport.  People laugh at the designation, but they're not laughing in Asia, where the competition around multiplayer Starcraft made Blizzard a whole lot of money.

Activision plans to release Starcraft 3 in 3 boxes.  If their campaign is epic enough to justify multiple purchases, and their cinema team is up to supporting all that, then this is great.  However, if splitting the game up results in people needing all 3 boxes to play the multiplayer game, then this guy is shooting himself in the foot by trying to juice the franchise this way.  The Koreans will move on to something else or go back to Starcraft 1, and this guy will lose his job.

Blizzard is still run by the same guys who have been there forever, so they draw enough water to maintain their ethos and keep the standards high.  I hope this guy knows that the primary asset there is not his IP, but an extremely talented shop made up of extremely talented people, who will jump ship if the suits try to fuck with the mojo, and a perfect reputation that will not last if he "exploits" it by slapping it on shitty games, spewing out too many iterations, or doing other stupid shit that disappoints fans and squanders the goodwill toward the company. 

Starcraft was the phenomenon it was because it was the best damn RTS out there, and the developers continued to support and pay attention to the game and its competitive multiplayer balance for years after release.  The magic is not in the IP; the monsters are pretty cheap rip-offs of Aliens and Predator, and the space marines are pretty generic as well.  The last update was ten years ago, and I suspect that most people don't give a good Goddamn about the continuing adventures of Jim Raynor.

This game ought to be, very simply, the definitive PC RTS game, until Blizzard decides it wants to make the next definitive PC RTS game.  But this guy's strategy is totally at odds with how this game turned into a license to print money in the first place, and he may very well fuck this up. 

For example, by "exploiting" Starcraft II across multiple platforms, he will have to submit to whatever patching protocols Microsoft and Sony impose on software.  The expectation that console players have, which is that their software should work out of the box and not need patching, is directly at odds with what Blizzard's audience expects, which is that multiplayer balance issues will receive careful and constant attention.  The result will either be that PC and console players will be playing different builds of the game, or that the PC software's support will be constrained by the limitations on the console software.  A multiplatform rollout also segments the multiplayer community across multiple platforms.   

Similarly, the strategy of new boxes every year will undercut the franchise.  It took years to hone the game into the most balanced competition game, and shaking it up every year will result in a game that never becomes the default standard.  Also, some franchises need to rest.  If you blow it out every year, then it becomes iterative and incremental, instead of a big step forward.  What's more, Blizzard has historically needed long development cycles, but it has put out games that broke sales records and remained in print for years.

This issue has nothing to do with the language of investors versus the language of gamers.  Blizzard has made great games, and making great games has been a great business for them.  Selling one widget is not the same as selling another, and if this guy doesn't understand why gamers love Blizzard, then he could very well screw it up.

[Velorath]

When they say they don't think they could turn these games into $100 million franchises, it may be their way of saying that they don't think the games were on track to be good.

It seemed more like their way of saying that they couldn't get licensing agreements to shovel out 50 Cent, Ghostbusters, or Riddick games on a yearly basis, nor would it be feasible to get Vin Diesel, 50 Cent, and the cast of Ghostbusters back every year to record new dialogue.

[Litigator]

Clear to me and you, but we're just people on a message board.  Why in the fuck are the dedicated enthusiast press not hitting this shit harder, why are they not pushing back and calling them out directly in interviews on this kind of bullshit?  Publishers are becoming more aggressive towards the press anyways, so why not get something genuine out of it?

God this is so fucking ridiculous.

Apparently you don't understand the position of press in this industry.

I've long since realized that unfortunately, they're just an extension of PR and are about as critical to the process as a roast beef sandwich.

In other words, they're a bunch of buffoons.

I was going to write an article about it, but frankly, this is pretty much Activisions MO and has been for a while now.

There is no question that this is the case, and that it's gotten worse.

There is a certain limitation on the honesty of game journalists.  Readers won't look at their publications and websites unless they get previews, screenshots and video of upcoming games.  They also can't publish a review on the release day unless the game developer sends them an advance copy of the game.

Gerstman actually getting fired for shitting on an advertiser was blatant and egregious, but even the Gerstmans have long operated with an implicit understanding that if you go into a developer, you play their pre-release game, and then you go out and tell your readers that it's a piece of shit, that you won't get pre-release info from devs in the future.

Reporters in all fields deal with the issues of bias when reporting on people they know, and getting too close to the story is a constant problem.  However, the games journalism situation is compounded by the fact that the same people who are depending on the devs for access and depending on the access for their livelihoods are also the game critics.  The devs have been leaning hard on the journalists, and that's why we've seen rampant rating inflation.  

At this point, the ratings are so inflated that, if a game is a consensus 8/10 on the major sites, I assume it's a piece of shit and mark it off my list even if I was planning to buy it.  That's the only way to use reviews as a filter these days.  

By contrast, there are serious film critics, book critics and music critics who do not need any access to sell their wares.  However, movie studios have exercised a power play by widely expanding a tactic of not holding early press screenings for a lot of movies where they figure they don't need the critics, which results in no reviews on release day.  If you've got "Saw XV" coming out, or Meet The Spartans: Part IV Spartan Summer Camp," you know that the reviews are not going to help you much.  However, film criticism has also gained market power due to metacritic and rotten tomatoes.  Most of the viewers who would be swayed by critical opinion won't go to any movie that isn't screened for critics.  

Unfortunately, gamers are not savvy enough to demand independent reviews, or there would be enough demand to incentivize outlets outlets that don't publish previews and prerelease screenshots to offer game reviews.

[Litigator]

When they say they don't think they could turn these games into $100 million franchises, it may be their way of saying that they don't think the games were on track to be good.

It seemed more like their way of saying that they couldn't get licensing agreements to shovel out 50 Cent, Ghostbusters, or Riddick games on a yearly basis, nor would it be feasible to get Vin Diesel, 50 Cent, and the cast of Ghostbusters back every year to record new dialogue.

I didn't know Brutal Legend was a Riddick game.  But the Riddick game was not successful because of Vin Diesel or the Riddick character, neither of which anybody gives a shit about. They could pull Vin Diesel out of there, put a different sass-talkin' space marine in and turn it into a franchise.  Gordon Freeman is a nerd in a space-suit with no personality. So is Master Chief.  Marcus Fenix has less personality than Pac-Man.  This guy needs to understand that the games business doesn't thrive on IP; it thrives on reputations, and a successful franchise can take a nose dive if the quality isn't there, and after one bad outing, a name isn't worth shit. 

Video games take place on the internet. Word travels very, very fast.  There are ways to make good money making bad games, but buying premium franchises at premium prices and fucking them up is not one of them.