actually it's Blizzbabbys Dexter like you that make me appreciate Activision (or at the very least, treat them with passive noninterest instead of blind hate). The Blizzard-Activision merge is pretty much the sole reason why they get the negative rep they do so much nowadays.
Blind Blizzard fanboys thinking that Activison ruined their little sacred cow.
The idea that Blizzard before the merger is good is one of the biggest faulty lines of logic in the PC community. Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft, the trio of the games that turned them into shit in my eyes. At least no one could blame that Activision "ruined" CoD, it was never good to begin with (a sequel has been made every year since the beginning and regen health has been introduced in CoD) or that any sensible person gave a shit about Guitar Hero.
I like how you put the blame on Activision that they're the reason SC2 is split in 3. Yeah, sure
. That's why SC2 is now an abused title with yearly releases. Oh wait, it's not. In fact, WoL was released in 2010, the next expansion 3 years later and the last one is not even announced yet. Let's ignore that SC2 already had a giant development time before that (to the point it was considered vaporware) and there's absolutely no profit to be gained out of them working on an expansion instead of simply moving to Warcraft IV/Starcraft III.
As a previous Double Fine fanboy myself, I used to hate Activision and Kotick for cancelling Double Fine and then sueing them and shit. Then I saw that Double Fine is actually in reality a piece of shit company made of incompetent hipsters and douchebags. Broken Age and Massive Chalice were more than enough proof that what Kotick and Activsion did and said at the time was spot on.
I also like the hypocritical tone of your piece. Activision is evil for suing other companies, but Activsion is also evil for being sued by Valve?
In fact, it's Valve which I would truly describe as lawful evil in general. It's amazing how they've managed to hold a giant monopoly on the PC market and yet still manage to get away with all the awful shit they make and have built an unbeatable army of fanboys who take everything they do for granted (kinda like Blizzard in the early/mid 00s actually). Here's a few things Valve did that Activision didn't:
- create a giant monopoly on the entire PC market and convincing people to wear their DRM and controlled market services as a badge of honor (see Metro posts every once and a while)
- hiring modders, students and small dev teams with great ideas, polish their games and then discard them (seriously, look it up to see how many of the original modders/devs of their non-HL franchises are still with Valve)
- popularize the concept of Early Access, making people pay for fucking beta-testing and letting developers be lazy slobs who can get away with creating unfinished and buggy pieces of shit, maybe even leaving it at that stage.
- helped popularizing cinematic shooters, REALISTIX modern military shooters, hand-holding design of FPSes, MOBAs and zombie games
- betray the trust of the entire PC community you've built over a decade by announcing your own console (and getting away with it because VALVE IS LOVE VALVE IS LIFE)
Really, Activision is more like lawful neutral/true neutral.
The amount of
this thread has is fascinating. No disrespect for Blackthorne, I've been lurking on his team's website and forums before QfI was even announced and I've enjoyed most of the things they've did up to this point. But you have to be a bit fucking insane to expect (or even demand) that a giant company like Activision would put the King's Quest title in the hands of a little company of fans who have just released their first commercial title a month or two ago and are basically renown only for emulating the old-school style of early 90s Sierra games. Not even Codex fan-favorites like Fargo and Vicke would do that. Or maybe I'm mistaken and Wasteland 2 and Div:OS look like
this and
this. Would you also complain that a new Ultima game is not being made by the guy who did KotC or the one who did Teudogar?
The fact that they gave the franchise to some indie dev in itself is a fucking giant feat. The only big companies out there that are still paying attention to small niches are Ubisoft and Atlus. Just stop and wonder what would someone like EA, or Bethesda or Take Two would do with the IP.
We live in an era where day after day we get a new case of some indie dev or team doing some nasty shit, scamming people out of their money, following some stupid trends or generally releasing poor and forgettable dreck. And people still blame the big and EVUL publishers for that. It's amazing how so many people lack the self-awareness to see their errors in logic. It's kinda like the hippies in the 60s and 70s levels of retarded.
Anyway, fuck my rants and that's my last post in this thread. It's obvious I'm not going to make a bunch of people living in a fantasy of cliches and stereotypes think reasonably. Continue to
about how Kotick is twirling his moustache in delight at the sight of a burnt down gaming industry. Remember guys, THE MAN is out there and he's ruining your life as we speak so go ahead and FIGHT THE POWA, preferably by buying more old-skewl games from respectable devs like Chris Roberts and Tim Schafer
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