Kotick: Looking Out For Shareholders First, Gamers Second?

EndSights:

"Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick is a determined man. Focused on little but the bottom line, Kotick spoke openly to investors and analysts at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco about Activision Blizzard's status within the gaming community. Kotick made some fairly large claims during his 45 minute presentation, surrounding the future of game development and Activision Blizzard's role therein, but most of these claims seemed more focused on making or saving money rather than on the enjoyment of consumers."

[Nitrowolf2]

This guy a greedy duoch
but i guess thats business

[UnSelf]

Kotick

Konniving Opportunist Tethered Into Castrating Kittens

[Seraphim]

that is business...

but leave it to Kotick to stir up a Blizzard...

[Leathersoup]

It's not business. It's "publicly traded company" business. It's one of the reasons I appreciate Valve and all they do.

[THE-JAGON]

Fire Robert Kotick !!! Fire Robert Kotick !!!
Fire Robert Kotick !!! Fire Robert Kotick !!!
Fire Robert Kotick !!! Fire Robert Kotick !!!

[sunil]

its just business, but he is being an idiot coming out and saying the things he does... Hes just alienating gamers and thats not good

[morganfell]

A lot of people workout because they want to lose weight. Their goal is to look better, feel better, and drop those pounds and the workout is something you have to deal with. You endure it. Gradually the chore of exercising, going to the gym, eating correctly wears on them and they fail.

But if they make the workout itself the goal, an adventure, something to be enjoyed and adjust their lifestyle and don't focus on the end result then the pounds drop and end result they want actually takes care of itself.

Bobby (Hank Hill voice) if you take care of the gamers and focus on treating them fair and providing a great product that everyone enjoys then the shareholders will reap huge profits. The end result will take care of itself.

But focus on the greed and profit, rather than the enjoyment, it will wear on devs, the games will blow and your system will fail.

[VampHuntD]

Kotick should realize that looking after gamers and consumers is the BEST way to look after his shareholders. Gamers ain't buying means stockholders aren't getting paid.

[D4RkNIKON]

It doesn't get any more true than that..

[Johnny Rotten]

in other words...

if you keep putting out overly priced plastic toys and give us nothing more than a rehash of the "been there, done that" people WILL get board of you. When I say people I mean the ones your trying to milk.

[DARK WITNESS]

Exactly..

now if only gamers actually realized this... i don't the few of us on this site and the few who are ready to leave activisions games on the shelf and not support them, but the masses of gamers who regardless of what price or stupid schime he comes up with will gladly skip down to the shops like lemmings and feed him and his board of directors while getting less quality and paying more for it !

honestly, wake up people.

[kaveti6616]

Bobby Kotick is actually a lot smarter than most of us on here. We sit here in our little internet bubble and think we are the world, and we're not. We read these articles about the douchey things that this guy says and does, and we say we should boycott his games, and all of that, but guess what? We are the minority. Bobby knows this. Modern Warfare 2 is going to sell millions of copies and most of the world has no clue what Kotick has said. They don't know and they don't care, only we do. We make mountains out of molehills on this site, thinking what? That we are the voice of gamers? The world will continue to pay for the game, even if the price went up 20 bucks. That's what is happening, and that will continue to happen. I really have no idea what kind of arrogance it takes to post a comment that advises this man what he should do.

Bobby is the CEO of a major company. Do you really think he gives a crap about what an internet blogger has to say? No. He has more info than anyone else about what it takes to sell games. Will he make mistakes? Yes, and in hindsight the rest of us will seep out of the woodwork and make claims that we knew all along that so and so game was gonna fail, whereas the majority of games by Activision Blizzard are in high demand and are anticipated by millions of people around the world. World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Modern Warfare 2, Guitar Hero, Diablo 3 are all games that I have no intention of buying because they don't interest me, but I assume each one of them will be successful and Kotick's shareholders love him, and gamers all around the world don't even know who he is. They just play the games that his company makes.

[omimasum]

stupid mother...

[Ares84PS3]

How is he a CEO of anything if he can't think???

wow.

[mrv321]

Atleast we are second, surprised we are that high, he treats us like a clingy woman, no matter he does we come back.

I will never buy GH, WoW, WarCraft, Starcraft or Diablo 3, because of this guy I got too close to buy WoW and I went I refuse to put faith in a company that treats me this way. I'm buying COD 6 second hand unless they implement some anit second hand system in which case I'll pirate.

[v1c1ous]

we are people commenting on a website, he's running a multi-million dollar company.

the stuff he says does come off as retarded, but he's a businessman first and foremost.

he's thinking about profit. just like the ALL game companies.

the only problem is that Activision's PR department must be smoking their budget in marijuana and staying constantly high cause they keep letting Kotick make a fool of himself a lot lately.

[mrv321]

He's a buisness man first and foremost and where the buisness.

You don't see Tesco saying, let's raise the price of basic good and re-releasing the same old stuff and charging full price for it.

In the end he may be a busnessman and his shareholders are importnat but imagine if we just said 'no', 'no more plastic toys that cost $100', 'no more DLC', 'NO MORE CHEAP GAMES', 'No more lackluster after support' then I'd very much like to see a shareholder meeting after 0 games are sold.

Activision is making me look positiviely towards pirating good games because we buy these games we deserve to be treated accordingly. I doubt I'll pirate COD 6 but I might and certainly much more than games such as(if possiple) Uncharted 2, M.A.G, Halo: Reach and Splinter Cell.

[DARK WITNESS]

@ mrv321

Well said man, my point exactly..

people defending him saying oh he is just a business man and we are just some small punch of people on the net who cares....

everything has a breaking point. he is running a business selling goods, he is selling those goods to consumers... without consumers there wont be any goods sold, and no games sold = no money in the bank !

the average gamer may not know who he is, but when you walk into a store to buy a game, the average gamer is only willing to pay so much.. it gets to a point to look at whats on offer and if the price is too high, you leave it their. The average consumer may not go round the net talking about boycotts and stuff... but even they have limits and a limit on what they can pay for a game.

[Godmars290]

How can a man dig a hole so big it threatens to swallow the company he represents?

[Death]

There is no company that does things differently. All companies are in business to make profits. It's not uncommon to take billions to make millions. If a companies goal is to make 100 million for the year, it will take 1 billion if you plan on a 10% return. The bottom line is the people loaning you the billion need to see a return or they won't be loaning you money in the future. In order to make that return, any business needs to make it's customers happy or they risk failure.

The reality is Investors need to come first. In order to maintain a long term business, customers need to be a very close second. It's a very delicate balance that few can pull off. You also need to look at the fact he was talking to investors. I hope no one expected him to say investors came second. Put him in a room full of gamers and he would probably say they come first. Is thisvreally shocking?

-Death

[Godmars290]

but if you take the fun out of making games, how are those games going to be fun?

If this idiot gets his way Activision is going to turn a where MW and GH aren't going to bring anything in, and they wont have the ability to make anything new.

To say something like that out loud isn't a good sign.

[VampHuntD]

I disagree. His stockholders aren't the one supporting his product. It's not like a car industry where you have multiple vehicles out there. Sure they have multiple games, but they appeal to different audiences. Kotick should be supporting the will of the gamer, the ones that are going to fund the shareholders.

I'm not saying he should support the gamer in terms of dropping the price to zero. I'm saying if he pisses off enough gamers the product doesn't sell, there goes stock prices. I'm willing to guess that each time he says something stupid like this, stock prices drop, not raise.

[zoks310]

This guy needs to go fast, and if he thinks the whole industry really cares about his games then he don't know this industry, gamers are worse than a woman scorned.
This crazy mans attitude have done permanent damage to Activision's reputation and time will prove this to be true. The last time I checked CEO's cause companies to crash, and this guy is off to a good start, and what a way to start off .... you treat your customers like utter garbage, and speak of them as if they are your enemies and he has no right.

[mirroredderorrim]

This is taken from the article.

I understand trying to please investors, but WTF?
Who are these "investors"? Do they need this kind of reassurance that money will be made?

People like Death cannot even look past the business aspect and see, in plain sight how this company plans to F*ck anyone involved with them, investors aside.
It's like showing your game plan to everyone and still expecting it to go the same as if you never did.

To even say he wants fear mongering to be a motivation in his work place is absurd!
Most gaming studios, from what I have seen and what my friends tell me, are fun to work at/in.
There is breathing room, team work and of course there is the projected deadlines that need to be met.

Maybe his greed model is what caused Prototype to be such a POS. Because now that I think about it, it felt like the game was rushed to compete with Infamous.

[jerethdagryphon]

agreed

i went in to prototype expecting a decent game what i got was a scitophrenic one.

ok theres a virus running rampenti could a do the mission or even fight hives but no ill see how fast i can jump a building....

the difficulty curve was all over the place

and it just seems mismanaged... i havent finished it due to the level of difficulty scattering

anyhow..
dont buy his games, and the company will look at him

we knows hes a numpty
we just have to not buy games like it

[kingme71]

Kotickisms of 2009:

"You know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further"

"They have to cut the price...If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony"

"A small segment of very vocal gamers say everything has to be new and different every year. Actually, people are happy with existing franchises..."

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming $100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us."

"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

"a company culture infused with skepticism, pessimism, and fear of the global economic downturn"

"We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."

[SuperStrokey1123]

Hate to side with bobby here but his FIRST obligation legally is to his shareholders.

[mirroredderorrim]

http://money.cnn.com/magazi...

[KR1ST0F3R]

this is the exact reason us gamers should stick together

why we all should of took the activision boycott more seriously

we should realise there is more important stuff than having the latest COD

we need to look at the bigger picture, instead of just at the next game.

[yog-sothot]

I personnaly do not agree with the "this is business" statement

Business can be different

You can respect your customers, your employees, your stakeholders and even the rest of the world (you know, environment, human rights...)

But of course, you may make less money in the short term. Something that became unacceptable for many people...

[makingdamage]

Unfortunately this is the way the business is headed. Make money at all cost!

[Godmars290]

I want to know is how do statements like this come across to game designers looking for work? Are they really going to want to work somewhere where fear and intimidation are used to promote productivity? What level of dev are you going to get with that kind of attitude?

And how is any of that, in th big picture, looking out for stockholders?

[kingme71]

Strangely enough Glen Schofield, the director and man behind Dead Space, jumped ship from EA to head an Activision studio. I guess he didn't get the memo :)

[Godmars290]

Like Dead Space has been seen as a pure hit? A product of creative process or market/genera rehashing?

In other words where is the evidence that Schofield has any real talent? Muchless that a company like Activision, with Kotick leading it, is going to let that talent show?

[Jeff257]

for everyone saying he has to look out for his shareholders. Well your half right. He should also look at who he is trying to sell this crap too. Not only us gamers but the average consumer out there who just knows stuff is fun to play like say GH and MW2. Now if he took all the fun out of making the games then these properties would turn into little more than more crap. Now there was a time when people got so tired of being sold bad games they stopped buying them completely. it led to the video game crash. Luckily if Kotick sticks to this it will only lead to the downfall of Activision and not gaming as a whole. So he really needs to think about his customers who give him their money for these poducts before saying dumb stuff like this again. But he has shown he doesnt know how not too though.

[mirroredderorrim]

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec...

[bunfighterii]

if shareholders weren't his no.1 concern he wouldn't be the CEO. and he would probably break the law. shareholders ARE your no.1 concern as a company head, your whole goal is to increase the return to your shareholders.

[Godmars290]

Considering this guy is now on record that Gamers are 2nd class citizens, why should we take anything from Activision, be it from him or a dev, seriously?

[djfullshred]

I have no interest in those kinds of games, but don't you need to buy peripherals to play them? If so, then I really don't see why they shouldn't make the game a seperate thing independent of the consoles if they decide to.

Then the shareholders can find out for themselves if it is a good plan or not, depending on if people actually buy that. If people don't buy it, then I guess this guy failed at looking out for the shareholders.