gaming Activision: Worst Publisher Ever?

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,632]

So, Activision, publisher of the COD games, many movie licensed games, the monster that is World of Warcraft, and many others, I feel that they are easily the worst publisher around. They were world's first independent gaming publisher and now they are the largest. This is terrible for many reasons, few of which I will name. They overcharge for DLC ($15 for a measly map pack on COD), ruin/kill franchises (True Crime, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk), milk franchises to death (COD, Guitar Hero, Spiderman), bastardize well known licenses (The Walking Dead: Survival Instincts), kill off developing studios (Sledgehammer Games) and clearly only care about the money (They could at least try to pretend that they care about their consumers). It is a shame that they own most of the rights to games based off of Marvel and Transformers. I know many hate Capcom and EA and for good reason, but I feel that Activision is by far the worst of them all. I think many of the licences that they own would be far better off in the hands of better publishers/developers. A good example would be Rocksteady Studios with the Batman Arkham games in comparison to the barrage of Spiderman games published by Activision. Sure some of these games are 'good', but imagine if this licence was put in the hands of a developer like Rocksteady. The recent disaster that is The Walking Dead Survival Instincts completely locked in my opinion on Activision.

 

 

Anyone else agree? Why or why not?

 

Edited May 22, 2013 by Kyoshi

[Kaneki 1,073]

Activision was made because Atari wouldn't credit the individual creators of 2600 games, and Activision did the opposite and credited every single person in the book with the game. Sad they've went away from this and are now basically "EA junior".

[Scootalove 10,689]

Well Activision has changed after Spider-Man 3's failure as a video game. Sadly, EA and Activision are the companies that really do kill the gaming world of gaming companies. Luckily, they aren't able to make Batman video games.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,632]

Activision was made because Atari wouldn't credit the individual creators of 2600 games, and Activision did the opposite and credited every single person in the book with the game. Sad they've went away from this and are now basically "EA junior".

Yep, these were indeed great intentions at that time and ironically one of the leading factors of the video game crash of 1983, since everyone else was thinking 'Hey! We can do that too!', drove Atari into mental lunacy, and then the market became over saturated. It is weird to think that the crash was actually a great thing for the industry, yet Activision is doing the same things that eventually led to the crash to begin with, at least some of them.

[Unique Pinkie Pie 173]

side note - i thought survival instincts was a good game

 

yes activision has milked games to death more CoD than anything else

guitar hero is still good because of many reason but i'm not here to list those reasons.

so yes i say activision is perhaps one of the worst publishers in existance

[Evilshy 5,090]

I like how you forgot Activision's greatest crime: ruining Blizzard.

 

To me, they are much worse than any other gaming company for this fact alone. Diablo III is a bane of the existence of dungeon crawlers.

 

Also, I don't think they ruined GH, the industry as a whole just pushed music games too hard. The community got burnt out, but if they had spaced out the games a bit more, I think they'd still be going fairly strongly.

[IronPuddinG 249]

I like how you forgot Activision's greatest crime: ruining Blizzard.

 

To me, they are much worse than any other gaming company for this fact alone. Diablo III is a bane of the existence of dungeon crawlers.

 

Also, I don't think they ruined GH, the industry as a whole just pushed music games too hard. The community got burnt out, but if they had spaced out the games a bit more, I think they'd still be going fairly strongly.

 

Diablo III isn't the only game being affected by the merge.  The storyline of StarCraft II trilogy is laughable so far.  I'm not certain on what goes on in the WoW side of things, but I wouldn't be surprised it that became more ridiculous than it already is as well.

Edited May 22, 2013 by IronPuddinG

[Aaramus 449]

I would definitely agree they are a pretty poor publisher, however recently they haven't been as bad as they were a year or so ago, mainly thanks to EA taking that spotlight away from them.

 

They're certainly not the biggest advocates for new IP's and new games and as much as we will complain about the annual CoD releases, the sales tell us that actually Activision must be doing something right in that regard.

 

What I really dislike however, is their very quick decisions to just close a studio. After Prototype 2 they just laid off most of the Radical Entertainment staff, despite the game selling well (even if it was a poor PC version)

[Wonderbolt_Spitfire 235]

I have to disagree with you about Activision and EA. Yes they both get really bad reputations for what they do to other studios and honestly I don't like what they do to those studios either, but from a business standpoint it is the smartest thing to do. It allows them to have the best talent possible and keep or obtain a bigger market share.

 

These studios actually love the indie and small studios for what they do. Those studios are able to try something new and redefining to a game genre. And usually that is what is required for the smaller studios to survive. They have to take a chance on making something new and capturing a new market because they know they can't compete with the larger studios who have 'proven' products.

 

Many people ask "Why doesn't Activision or EA try these new ideas?" and the big reason why they can't (Its not that they don't want to) is because trying to pitch a 'new' and 'redefining' game is almost impossible in the corporate world. It is unproven and in a company where the board of directors are influenced directly by the stockholders it's much safer to go with the proven games that everyone knows the masses will buy (Would you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a game that may not make you any money? Or would you spend that money on a game that is guaranteed to make you money?).

 

I am in no way condoning what EA and Activision do to the 'smaller' studios, but what they do makes room in the market for the next developer to come in and make a sucessful game. It also makes it so the market isn't flooded with game studios that put out bad or underwhelming games.

 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,632]

I would definitely agree they are a pretty poor publisher, however recently they haven't been as bad as they were a year or so ago, mainly thanks to EA taking that spotlight away from them.

 

They're certainly not the biggest advocates for new IP's and new games and as much as we will complain about the annual CoD releases, the sales tell us that actually Activision must be doing something right in that regard.

 

What I really dislike however, is their very quick decisions to just close a studio. After Prototype 2 they just laid off most of the Radical Entertainment staff, despite the game selling well (even if it was a poor PC version)

Derp. Radical Entertainment is the studio they killed, not Sledgehammer, though I have not heard anything about Sledgehammer in a while. In terms of COD selling so well, I am not fond of this argument. The only real reason that it sells is because of 3 things: 1. It is incredibly easy to get into. 2. They hype and market each new entry to the moon, even though they are mostly the same now. 3. It is popular. No matter how milked or mediocre a product is, if it is popular, it will sell. I guess I must add that it's hardcore fanbase is apparently quite gullible, since they stand out in line for each new COD game every year. 

 

I agree with you about EA though. They really have been trying to take Acti's crown in bad publishing. I still think that they are the better of the two though.

[Aaramus 449]

Derp. Radical Entertainment is the studio they killed, not Sledgehammer, though I have not heard anything about Sledgehammer in a while. In terms of COD selling so well, I am not fond of this argument. The only real reason that it sells is because of 3 things: 1. It is incredibly easy to get into. 2. They hype and market each new entry to the moon, even though they are mostly the same now. 3. It is popular. No matter how milked or mediocre a product is, if it is popular, it will sell. I guess I must add that it's hardcore fanbase is apparently quite gullible, since they stand out in line for each new COD game every year. 

 

I agree with you about EA though. They really have been trying to take Acti's crown in bad publishing. I still think that they are the better of the two though.

 

I didn't actually mention Sledgehammer, I'm not quite sure where you got that from.

 

As for CoD, the demand is there and they're creating the supply which I must say is more true for the Modern Warfare series than Treyarch's games. Black Ops 2 was a nice little diversion from the standard on rails shooter we've been getting for the last few years, so perhaps Activision are learning they need to do something, their target audience is slowly getting older.

[Evilshy 5,090]

Diablo III isn't the only game being affected by the merge.  The storyline of StarCraft II trilogy is laughable so far.  I'm not certain on what goes on in the WoW side of things, but I wouldn't be surprised it that became more ridiculous than it already is as well.

Oh, definitely. But SC2 isn't as bad as D3 is :/

I don't play WoW, but it seems like it's been getting pretty ridiculous for years. For one, where did all these continents and races pop up from that nobody had ever heard of until now?

And a race of Kung Fu panda? Really? Really?

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

They've gotten to comfortable just making shit-tons of money out of CoD game after CoD game, so they don't care anymore. It's partially the fault of the all morons that's drop $60 for anything with CoD printed on it, rather than looking at how good the game actually is.  

 

True story, my friend pre-ordered MW3 on the spot when he happened to see it was up for orders while we were at Gamestop, even though he knew nothing about it, just because it was a CoD game.  

Oh, definitely. But SC2 isn't as bad as D3 is :/

I don't play WoW, but it seems like it's been getting pretty ridiculous for years. For one, where did all these continents and races pop up from that nobody had ever heard of until now?

And a race of Kung Fu panda? Really? Really?

 

Screw WoW, I went them to start making Warcraft RTSs again, it's sad when you have to explain to someone that thinks WoW sucks that there's far better games with the Warcraft brand because they didn't know about them. 

Edited May 22, 2013 by Shoboni

[Darkshift 85]

Now then,Activision can't be the worst publisher in the world because of there popularity.Personally I don't like Activision thanks to rip offs such as Prototype but this is just my opinion.I don't prefere many others because every publisher has at least one terrible game.

[DusK 1,264]

I know many hate Capcom and EA and for good reason

EA, sure. Capcom, not so much. They may have blundered a bit with on-disc DLC, but that's pretty much the worst they've ever done. Look at Street Fighter x Mega Man, for example. A fan game, and Capcom stepped up and decided to back its development while allowing the dev team to maintain creative control and release it for free. What other publisher would do that?

 

Oh, definitely. But SC2 isn't as bad as D3 is :/

I don't play WoW, but it seems like it's been getting pretty ridiculous for years. For one, where did all these continents and races pop up from that nobody had ever heard of until now?

And a race of Kung Fu panda? Really? Really?

The Pandaren were a race introduced in WarCraft 3, with a playable hero called the Pandaren Brewmaster. They're not a new thing. None of the stuff in WoW is new; you dig deep enough into Pre-WoW lore, and it's all there. Northrend, Deathwing, Pandaria, all of it.

Edited May 22, 2013 by DusK

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,632]

I didn't actually mention Sledgehammer, I'm not quite sure where you got that from.

 

As for CoD, the demand is there and they're creating the supply which I must say is more true for the Modern Warfare series than Treyarch's games. Black Ops 2 was a nice little diversion from the standard on rails shooter we've been getting for the last few years, so perhaps Activision are learning they need to do something, their target audience is slowly getting older.

No, I meant what I said in my original post. I got the two mixed up. I meant that I made the mistake.

 

I honestly do not see them deviating from the what they have now. The games have been relatively the same for the past 4 years now and yet they still sell millions, so of course they will change nothing. I can see what they were trying to do with Black Ops 2, but I played it for a good while and realized that it was just a rehash with a few minor additions. The only major addition to me was the scorestreak system, which is kinda neat. Beyond that, the maps were horrible, the spawning was horrible, the matchmaking was horrible, the zombies mode was mediocre (though somewhat unique). Is it still fun? Yes, to an extent, but I honestly do not see the point anymore.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Kyoshi

[Evilshy 5,090]

EA, sure. Capcom, not so much. They may have blundered a bit with on-disc DLC, but that's pretty much the worst they've ever done. Look at Street Fighter x Mega Man, for example. A fan game, and Capcom stepped up and decided to back its development while allowing the dev team to maintain creative control and release it for free. What other publisher would do that?

 

 

The Pandaren were a race introduced in WarCraft 3, with a playable hero called the Pandaren Brewmaster. They're not a new thing. None of the stuff in WoW is new; you dig deep enough into Pre-WoW lore, and it's all there. Northrend, Deathwing, Pandaria, all of it.

 

Really?

Hmm... never knew that. Granted, I didn't played a little WC3 and a little WoW (back when it came out, before even the first expansion) and not much else.

[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 777]

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, couldn't resist posting this gem of an image 

 

I'll play Devils Advocate and say that while EA and Activision are bleugh companies who have a 'taint' for destroying reupatable studios and IP's, I say that fans use them far too much as a scapegoat. Spitfire has a great point, that big companies don't want to risk screwing themselves over with something new an innovative for an established market. While I'm sure that EA/Activision has some control as for how a game is developed it's the job of the studio to fight for reasons as to why their newer, crazier ideas should be implemented in future titles. Yet even when it's done properly not a lot of people like change to existing IP's, especially if it's a hardcore market which is becoming available to the casual (Raiding in WoW is a prime example).

 

I have a strong sense as though more studios are trying to please everyone as much as they can with high hopes that they'll make more dosh off it all. Yet more often than not, they lose a chunk of what fans consider made them great in the first place. As Abraham Lincoln once said:

 

"You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time."

Edited May 22, 2013 by Accellerant

[Aaramus 449]

No, I meant what I said in my original post. I got the two mixed up. I meant that I made the mistake.

 

I honestly do not see them deviating from the what they have now. The games have been relatively the same for the past 4 years now and yet they still sell millions, so of course they will change nothing. I can see what they were trying to do with Black Ops 2, but I played it for a good while and realized that it was just a rehash with a few minor additions. The only major addition to me was the scorestreak system, which is kinda neat. Beyond that, the maps were horrible, the spawning was horrible, the matchmaking was horrible, the zombies mode was mediocre (though somewhat unique). Is it still fun? Yes, to an extent, but I honestly do not see the point anymore.

 

Oh right, I mis-read that then , sorry ><

 

I think that they need to deviate, whether they do so or not is another issue. I actually feel that the multiplayer of those games is fun. It's not brilliant don't get me wrong and there are much better multiplayer shooters available. However if you want to sit down for 20 minutes and play an arcadey shooter with some reasonable progression then CoD does well in that regard. 

 

Activision do need to step up their game though, they've been hiding somewhat behind EA and I feel EA have finally realised they need to change their attitude (too to long but ah well). 

[Wonderbolt_Spitfire 235]

I like how you forgot Activision's greatest crime: ruining Blizzard.

 

To me, they are much worse than any other gaming company for this fact alone. Diablo III is a bane of the existence of dungeon crawlers.

 

Also, I don't think they ruined GH, the industry as a whole just pushed music games too hard. The community got burnt out, but if they had spaced out the games a bit more, I think they'd still be going fairly strongly.

 

Blizzard is a completely seperate entity from Activision. Everything Blizzard does is not influenced by Activision, this has been stated by numerous Blizzard execs. What ruined D3 was the fact that the original devs from D1 & D2 left due to creative differences. If you check out the Torchlight series (created by the original Diablo developers) you would find those dungeon crawlers are similar to D1 & D2.

 

Nothing has ruined Blizzard. They still own the market in the MMORPG Genre, RTS genre, and have a sizable market share in Dungeon Crawlers with D3. They are as strong as ever and will continue to put out quality games that millions of people play everyday.

 

**Note: I'm a bit biased seeing as I play all Blizzard titles and am going to blizzcon this year, but the facts still hold on there own.

 

 

Oh, definitely. But SC2 isn't as bad as D3 is :/

I don't play WoW, but it seems like it's been getting pretty ridiculous for years. For one, where did all these continents and races pop up from that nobody had ever heard of until now?

And a race of Kung Fu panda? Really? Really?

 

If you haven't played WoW then it's not the best idea to be critical of its lore when all of the continents and races have been in the game since the Warcraft series began 1994. A lot of there books explain a lot of why the current conflict is going on, but they are by no means pulling races and classes out of thin air.

[Evilshy 5,090]

Blizzard is a completely seperate entity from Activision. Everything Blizzard does is not influenced by Activision, this has been stated by numerous Blizzard execs. What ruined D3 was the fact that the original devs from D1 & D2 left due to creative differences. If you check out the Torchlight series (created by the original Diablo developers) you would find those dungeon crawlers are similar to D1 & D2.

 

Nothing has ruined Blizzard. They still own the market in the MMORPG Genre, RTS genre, and have a sizable market share in Dungeon Crawlers with D3. They are as strong as ever and will continue to put out quality games that millions of people play everyday.

 

**Note: I'm a bit biased seeing as I play all Blizzard titles and am going to blizzcon this year, but the facts still hold on there own.

 

 

 

If you haven't played WoW then it's not the best idea to be critical of its lore when all of the continents and races have been in the game since the Warcraft series began 1994. A lot of there books explain a lot of why the current conflict is going on, but they are by no means pulling races and classes out of thin air.

Eh, all I know is that before the merge, pretty much everything Blizzard made was good. After the merge, pretty much everything Blizzard has made was not good. I do not think this is a coincidence, nor do I usually trust execs (of any company) when they try to defend themselves after doing stupid shit and getting called on it. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard answers to Activision Blizzard, which was/is run by (technically former) Activision execs.

And yeah, I know about Torchlight. Played quite a bit of 1, but don't have 2 yet.

 

 

I have read about the games, played a few of them, and have discussed all of them with people who do play them, so I thought I knew about the lore. Clearly I was wrong.

[~Silver Essence~ 2,625]

Activision has been a huge infamous gaming company over the years.

However, to me, they crossed the line when they ruined crash bandicoot and produced and ruined not one, but TWO horrible games.

Ever since, I can't forgive them entirely...

[Harmonic Revelations 8,835]

Activision is bad for a multitude of reasons, and I for one blame CoD for the deterioration of the gaming industry as a whole by milking consumers and driving them away from games that are actually good. Even if CoD offers some "decent" titles, it is driving gamers away from their roots and is shifting us away from quality titles and into the same trap of horrible repetitiveness that the movie industry fell into, and who wants that?

 

Activision has published a number of horrible titles and has crushed some truly promising developers.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Harmonic Revelations

[Megas 27,725]

Still not as bad as EA(though pretty f***ing close). Activision still makes a lot of terrible decisions, but I still think that they pretty tame compared to certain other developers(like again, EA, and more recently, Capcom and Square Enix)

[Wonderbolt_Spitfire 235]

Eh, all I know is that before the merge, pretty much everything Blizzard made was good. After the merge, pretty much everything Blizzard has made was not good. I do not think this is a coincidence, nor do I usually trust execs (of any company) when they try to defend themselves after doing stupid shit and getting called on it. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard answers to Activision Blizzard, which was/is run by (technically former) Activision execs.

And yeah, I know about Torchlight. Played quite a bit of 1, but don't have 2 yet.

 

 

I have read about the games, played a few of them, and have discussed all of them with people who do play them, so I thought I knew about the lore. Clearly I was wrong.

 

To say that everything they have made after the merger was bad just doesn't make sense. The most successful WoW exspansion to date was made after the merger (Wrath of the Lich King held 10million + subscribers) and released SCII which if you were to say its a bad game I'm pretty sure a lot of Koreans would argue otherwise. Seeing as they have only published about 20% of their total games since being with activision there isn't enough data to really say they put out bad games (Obviously you're entitled to your opinion of what a bad game is).

 

They have only released 6 games since they merged and only two have been 'lackluster' (D3 and WoW: Cataclysm(but even I enjoyed that)). Also lets be realistic here, if it wasnt Blizzard putting out these games would we really hold them to the same standard? They wouldnt even be as hyped up and people's expectations wouldn't be let down. If anything it's been a poor marketing team that has been dropping the ball not the game developers. Overall all there games are fun to play and that's all that should matter.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Wonderbolt_Spitfire