Kotick is an asshole

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Originally Posted by trace wm

You people still think highly of Valve after how they've handled L4D/L4D2?

I love the Half-Lifes as much as anyone but my faith has been shaken just a tad.

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L4D2 is the first time I've ever lost respect for VALVe. I still love the company, but the way they managed this franchise is very unlike them.

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

Bob is an asshole, but you guys don't get what he means.

Game developers often fail to utilize efficient if mechanical, soulless and boring devices such as QA (quality assurance). Sometimes, they get so stuck in their own asses to realize their making a unprofitable game.

His entire point is that the game industry isn't unlike any other industry. Devs need to get a positive bottom line worth the investment and time.

Nothing he said is new, and nothing he said is going to be detrimental to the industry. Every other corporate head who hasn't played a game in twenty years, probably including blizzard CEO's think on similar lines.

Heres the asshat part. Bobby knew what kind of impression his words were going to have on the gaming community. He also knew that it wouldn't harm his company. Every other exec pretends to care. Bob doesn't even care enough to pretend. He doesn't care what in his mind, a bunch of trolls and basement dwelling nerds think. That conceit is the only thing hes guilty of.

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New complex, um... I know my posts can be large, but I know I've touched on many of these subjects multiple times :)

The problem isn't that Kotick is doing anything "good" or "evil" in my eyes. In fact, by removing those aspects, it's always been my side to say that there is no problem. However, you did pull out a large generality to say that all CEOs "pretend to care". By nature of the industry, game design is the one exception where CEOs can care quite a lot about the products they design by the average nature of how they got there. Some got there in terms of business decision, but if you look at Blizzard's for example.. he started out as a codemonkey in a building writing code, eating pizza and getting sleep deprivation as many of the other individuals along side him.

Going back on subject.. as you said, there is nothing wrong with him saying what he said. Games will still sell as long as they produce good games. This doesn't change the fact that what he says will have the general gamer population perceive him poorly based on what he said. It also doesn't change the fact that the typical person investing into Activision from a pure business standpoint will perceive these words as a sign of a productive business.

Valve, Bioware, Blizzard are the CO's you can trust (however because of l4d2 valve lost in my eyes)
Mass Effect is great
Kotick is an asshole and he needs to stay away from gaming, I would still kick his freckled face to blood
Acti will have no influence on Blizz, perm
EA is better than Acti
Battlefield: 1943 (bestseller), Bad Company 2 (looks great), Dante's Inferno (God of War like game with it's own story), Dead Space (best horror of the decade with fun new mechanics like zero-G), also they take under their wings CO's like Bioware, which is not a bad aspect if you consider them only as producers of great games like Mass Effect

I agree that Valve, Bioware, and Blizzard are the best game developers right now. But their higher offices are a bit too scummy.

Forgive my lack of knowledge on L4D2, but what is everyone giving it such a hard time about?

I played L4D1 and I thought it was superb.

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

Forgive my lack of knowledge on L4D2, but what is everyone giving it such a hard time about?

I played L4D1 and I thought it was superb.

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The argument is that Valve somehow "promised" lots of down-loadable content for L4D. Instead, they announced L4D2 a year after L4D was released. People got angry they'd have to pay full price for what should have been cheap expansion content. Valve responded by saying that they added so much stuff to L4D2 that it was almost like a completely new game anyway.

Oh I see, thanks. Sounds just like the people bashing the trilogy.

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

Oh I see, thanks. Sounds just like the people bashing the trilogy.

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Welcome to economics. Supply, and demand.

I have to agree with the people against L4D2. L4D is good but god I wouldn't pay the full price for a game that only have 4 campaign that don't last that long. This is completely retarded. For this price you can buy I don't know Fallout 3 and have so much more for your money. If they would have made more downloadable content the game would have been fine and well worth the money but now they're pulling this L4D2 crap. No thx.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

I have to agree with the people against L4D2. L4D is good but god I wouldn't pay the full price for a game that only have 4 campaign that don't last that long. This is completely retarded. For this price you can buy I don't know Fallout 3 and have so much more for your money. If they would have made more downloadable content the game would have been fine and well worth the money but now they're pulling this L4D2 crap. No thx.

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See, this is exactly what I don't get about the anti-L4D2 faction. Allow me to see if I can understand it.

Fallout 3, to use your example, cost $50 at startup. I don't know how much the DLCs cost when they first came out, but right now you can buy 2 2-packs for a total combined price of $40.

By all accounts the DLCs didn't actually include all that much new stuff in them. By all accounts L4D2 is even bigger than L4D1, with 4 full campaigns, five new "uncommon" zombies, three (or was it 4?) brand new zombie heroes, a slew of new melee weapons, completely new and upgraded models for all players AND zombies, an updated Director that completely changes the levels even MORE than the last time around, including weather and time of day...

It is essentially a giant DLC pack all rolled into one. If Valve had released it as such nobody would have raised an eyebrow. But they tout it as a sequel, which it rightly is as big as one (and larger than many sequels I've seen) and people suddenly think this is a bad thing?

Am I missing something here?