Stephen Totilo asked the question on the MTV Multiplayer blog whether it was premature to call Activision "evil". I don't necessarily see them as evil (although I do resent a couple of their recent legal and business shenanigans), but I do seem them as a sign of where the industry is going, long term. Hopefully I'm wrong, but here is how I posed it to Stephen.
Personally, I became aware of a shift when, after the merger with Vivendi / Blizzard, Activision dropped Brütal Legend and Ghostbusters from their lineup. Brütal Legend was kind of understandable. Psychonauts was a great game, but didn't do great business. But the whole reason Ghostbusters started development was because of a brand study Sierra did that said it had huge market potential. And the press that had gotten to play the game said it was coming along nicely. Why would Activision walk away from that kind of money?
Then the quote came out that Activision wasn't pursuing anything they couldn't turn into an annual franchise. I could understand it from a business perspective, but my mind went to Tony Hawk, Madden, and Splinter Cell, all franchises that were once exciting, but had long since grown stale.
This was at the same time that the enthusiast press was getting excited over Dead Space and Mirror's Edge. EA was supporting new IP and talking about trying to get quality up, while Activision was talking about releasing the same games year after year.
Then I heard rumors that Activision was trying to block Brütal Legend from finding a publisher, rumors that I tend to believe given that when it finally did find a publisher (and EA of all publishers), Activision threatened legal action. Now we're hearing that Activision may be trying to buy out the competition with all of this Scratch DJ stuff.
If Activision wants to stick with stuff like Guitar Hero where innovation in mechanics isn't nearly as important as new content, that's fine. More power to them. But when they want to use the legal system and business moves to block games I care about and stifle competition, that's bad.
If you want to say that I'm a minority, that's fine. Core gamers are a minority. People (including Garnett Lee at the PAX 07 1UP panel) have told me that the broadening of the market is good for core gamers. But I see EA trying to appeal to core gamers with new IPs and more rigorous quality standards and losing to Activision which doesn't care so much about those things. It's frustrating.
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