Activision: "We're Taking Some of the Biggest Risks"

[LaoJim]

If you're wondering why Activision keeps up as one of the biggest publishers in the industry then you do need to include what they are bringing in from the Blizzard side of things. Yes, Call of Duty gets them a lot of money, but Blizzard's titles are also responsible, so ignoring Blizzard doesn't help if you're trying to understand why Activision is still so big.

Yes sure WoW must be a big earner for them and I guess their merger with Blizzard hides the extent to which they have shrunk due to the failure of franchises like Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero

Anyways, Activision, outside of Call of Duty, has had some popular franchises over the years that have since declined drastically. Tony Hawk is almost nothing anymore, and even I, a (former) fan of the series have trouble remembering that they came out with anything after Project 8 (2006), with the exception of Pro Skater HD (2012). Guitar Hero has fared even worse than Tony Hawk over the last couple of years. Basically, that's two major franchises that I'm sure have helped build Activision's name over the years that Activision no longer pursues (at least not with any passion). That might help explain how they continue to be such a big name, even if most people now can only recognize it from Call of Duty and Skylanders.

Right, but I don't understand why they aren't investing more in new franchises to try and replace them, even if those franchises turned out to be unsuccessful. It's not even about risks, Need for Speed sells well, but Activision hasn't tried to develop it's own generic racing game series, or sports series. It doesn't have a sandbox game to rival GTA or Assassin's Creed. (Possibly Prototype but I don't see that it gave either the original game or the sequel enough resources to make it competitive). It's made Skylanders but doesn't seem to want to push further into the kids market. (It would be nice if one company did). It does seem to be an "eggs in one basket" company.

 

[MysticSlayer]

If you're wondering why Activision keeps up as one of the biggest publishers in the industry then you do need to include what they are bringing in from the Blizzard side of things. Yes, Call of Duty gets them a lot of money, but Blizzard's titles are also responsible, so ignoring Blizzard doesn't help if you're trying to understand why Activision is still so big.

Yes sure WoW must be a big earner for them and I guess their merger with Blizzard hides the extent to which they have shrunk due to the failure of franchises like Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero

Anyways, Activision, outside of Call of Duty, has had some popular franchises over the years that have since declined drastically. Tony Hawk is almost nothing anymore, and even I, a (former) fan of the series have trouble remembering that they came out with anything after Project 8 (2006), with the exception of Pro Skater HD (2012). Guitar Hero has fared even worse than Tony Hawk over the last couple of years. Basically, that's two major franchises that I'm sure have helped build Activision's name over the years that Activision no longer pursues (at least not with any passion). That might help explain how they continue to be such a big name, even if most people now can only recognize it from Call of Duty and Skylanders.

Right, but I don't understand why they aren't investing more in new franchises to try and replace them, even if those franchises turned out to be unsuccessful. It's not even about risks, Need for Speed sells well, but Activision hasn't tried to develop it's own generic racing game series, or sports series. It doesn't have a sandbox game to rival GTA or Assassin's Creed. (Possibly Prototype but I don't see that it gave either the original game or the sequel enough resources to make it competitive). It's made Skylanders but doesn't seem to want to push further into the kids market. (It would be nice if one company did). It does seem to be an "eggs in one basket" company.

I agree. I was just pointing out how they developed a name worth recognizing, even if they tend to not have much going for them outside of one or two franchises.

With that said, though, they do have their hands in multiple different games outside of their major ones. I myself have often recognized them for the Cabela's games, but many gamers probably don't even know what that is. They also do a lot of license games based around Marvel and James Bond. They aren't just Call of Duty and Skylanders, even if those seem to be the only two things they are really letting us know about anymore. Then again, I doubt any of their smaller franchises has a chance of picking them up should Call of Duty go down, as they tend to be of lower quality and designed around some form of fan service (ex. comic book fans with Marvel or hunting enthusiasts with Cabela's), not the higher-quality, broader appeal games like CoD.

 

[JayRPG]

WoW isn't dying, as much as it's simply entered its twilight years.

Only if you're inclined to be reeeeeeeally generous, to the point of equating the fact that basically any MMO can keep the lights on infinitely on very little income. And by that definition, Everquest 1 and DaoC and WAR and so on are still alive and well, so it's not probably a definition most people would support.

The subscriber base is shrinking dramatically and new content no longer attracts significant increases in users. That's pretty much ailing severely, though we won't be in the last-gasp phase until they stop just dicking around with alternate monetization because it lets them squeeze the customers and start looking at it seriously as a way to keep the game going.

The problem with dwindling WoW numbers is that they simply got greedy...

Since WotLK they have been trying to cater to everyone and every playstyle and appeal to everyone and every playstyle but the end result is a game that doesn't appeal to anyone or any playstyle.

During BC they had great subscriber numbers, mostly everyone liked the challenge of raids and dungeons, they got rid of the most infuriating parts of raiding from vanilla (like farming for months for resist gear), it wasn't easy and it wasn't too hard either.

Then WotLK rolled around and instead of being happy with their 6-8 million subscribers, they thought if they made raiding easy as shit they could get more casual subscribers, and they did, they got to 13 million or so, then older players that made the game what it was started complaining so they tuned up heroic raids so they were still a challenge, and that maybe helped tide over a few.

Now it's just gotten to the point where there are 400,000 raid modes to try and please everyone but the end result, as I said earlier, is that it pleases no-one, it's just one big clusterfuck - an MMO shouldn't appeal to everyone, hell, a video game in general shouldn't appeal to everyone.

Blizzard should have identified their demographic/market and stuck with it, instead they went for short-term profit instead of long-term gain.

(The problem with catering to 'casuals'* is that they are 'casuals'*, inevitably a casual player will quit/stop playing the mmo well before hardcore or serious raiders will because they are simply not as invested in the game)

*Please note I'm not using this in a bad sense sometimes you just don't have the time to put into an MMO, I was a hardcore WoW and Aion player but a casual AoC, Swtor and GW2 player - I played the latter 3 for a significantly shorter amount of time.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's absolutely tragic how completely delusional these big publishers are. Just imagine how these guys approach this business if this is what they truly think. Just imagine how little actual creative control their developers must have when they have to answer to the people who think that they are taking biggest risks in the industry, when in fact they're barely taking any risk at all. It's terrifying how little they know about the industry they work in. All they care about is numbers.

 

[Thr33X]

All they care about is numbers.

Activision to a fault in 6 simple words. It's ironic that this very reason is why they were in part responsible for the crash of '83, and surprise, surprise, they're still doing the same thing.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

All they care about is numbers.

Activision to a fault in 6 simple words. It's ironic that this very reason is why they were in part responsible for the crash of '83, and surprise, surprise, they're still doing the same thing.

Actually Activision was formed from devs that defected from Atari because they wanted more appreciation for their work.

As for the Article in question, lest me trot out the two standbys for news like this.



You may fool investors with this BS, but not us.

 

[Roxas1359]

Game wise they are risking a little bit, but not much. Now if you count them and their recent battles against Vivendi then yeah you are taking some big risks because Vivendi is pretty damn ruthless to put it lightly. Although seeing them going back and forth at each other in court is interesting, but bew tween the two of them I'd have to side with Activision. *shivers at thought of defending Activision*

 

[Thr33X]

Actually Activision was formed from devs that defected from Atari because they wanted more appreciation for their work.

ACTUALLY, Activision was formed in 1979 and started making games for the Atari 2600 in 1980 onwards...such as the original Pitfall, which I happened to play back in 1985...when I was 5.

Just saying.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Actually Activision was formed from devs that defected from Atari because they wanted more appreciation for their work.

ACTUALLY, Activision was formed in 1979 and started making games for the Atari 2600 in 1980 onwards...such as the original Pitfall, which I happened to play back in 1985...when I was 5.

Just saying.

Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead met with Atari CEO Ray Kassar in May 1979 to demand that the company treat developers as record labels treated musicians, with royalties and their names on game boxes. Kaplan, who called the others "the best designers for the [2600] in the world", recalled that Kassar called the four men "towel designers" and that "anyone can do a cartridge." Crane, Miller, and Whitehead left Atari and founded Activision in October 1979...

Yep.

 

[Alarien]

Does anyone else remember when EA was a good company, developing their own cool titles?

Like Artic Fox back in the 1980's for Apple II series computers?

What happened to that company?

Edit: Oh wait, this is about Activision.

Nevermind, they've been making crap for decades. In the 90's they were only known for picking up really bad licenses. Oh god... the Mechwarrior II license for PS1... god...

 

[Callate]

So a third-person action/shooter spin-off of a fairly well-established character (Spyro) is what constitutes "risky", these days?

I guess the plastic figurine thing was kind of new. Maybe it's hindsight, but from here it looks less like "dangerous risk that paid off" and more like "canny marketing that aimed for a fairly clear sweet spot in the six-to-twelve year old demographic." Sure, they could have ended up with a bunch of figurines that didn't sell, but series like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! gave a pretty good suggestion that wasn't what was going to happen.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Does anyone even care anymore when EA/Activision makes these sorts of statements?

We all know it's bullshit, and it's still business as usual, and that nothing will change.

It's like talking about whether or not games cause violence.

A waste of time.

 

[Fox12]

No, Valve takes risks. Incidentally, it's Valve that reaps the benefits. That's why they can do the things other evil companies wish they could do, and they get lauded for it.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

From an investment capital perspective they are definitely taking the largest risks of any gaming company except maybe Rockstar.

If people get bored of the Call of Duty brand, or if they mess up somehow though could lose hundreds of millions to a billion dollars quite easily. They employ thousands of people all working on the same game and if everything works out then it's great. But if it fails then they are extremely fucked. I'm sure with the capital they have they could definitely survive such a flop, but that doesn't mean it isn't a giant risk.

 

[sageoftruth]

Reminds me of that old Family Guy episode where the British pub owner tries to pass himself off as a man of danger by saying, "I once played cricket without shinguards."

 

[krazykidd]

fare points on CoD, Skylanders and Destiny

but wow is dying, titan is cancelled and Blizzard doesn't have a release schedule going forward worth shit...

Dying, sure . But dying after making enough money to fly everyone to Mars. Nothing lasts forever , and i don't see anyone complaining about all the cash they made with WoW .

OT: Did the definition of risk change? I get using the cushion from abundance the money they have to try something new . But even if they fail , that money was just a cushion , they will hardly be in trouble .

 

[Thr33X]

Actually Activision was formed from devs that defected from Atari because they wanted more appreciation for their work.

ACTUALLY, Activision was formed in 1979 and started making games for the Atari 2600 in 1980 onwards...such as the original Pitfall, which I happened to play back in 1985...when I was 5.

Just saying.

Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead met with Atari CEO Ray Kassar in May 1979 to demand that the company treat developers as record labels treated musicians, with royalties and their names on game boxes. Kaplan, who called the others "the best designers for the [2600] in the world", recalled that Kassar called the four men "towel designers" and that "anyone can do a cartridge." Crane, Miller, and Whitehead left Atari and founded Activision in October 1979...

Yep.

He knows how to copy and paste from Wikipedia. Wow. Bottom line, Activision was responsible along with several companies at the time for a glut of bad games for the consoles of the time, which led to the decline of sales of games which led to the crash of 1983...which in part was how I managed to get a 2600 in 1985 as my mom bought it dirt cheap cuz retailers practically were giving them away...so um, my initial point still kind of stands, and yours...well...I guess you want a cookie for "knowing" so much. Sorry I ran out of them, but it still had no relevance to my statement.

So.

Yep.

(Please note your next possible response will not be replied to or even read on my part because as I've divulged in my statements, I'm grown...ergo I have better things to do than go tit-for-tat with pretentious know it alls.)

 

[Atmos Duality]

"I think that sometimes people misperceive that as somehow being risk-averse, and yet we?re taking some of the biggest risks in new genres and new business models and new IPs than anybody."

Good use of PR speak here.
Protip: Anytime you see the words "I think..." preface a public statement, the speaker is covering their own ass.
It's not a guaranteed tell for falsehood, but it's a very common one and one of the oldest tricks in the book.
(politicians use this -all the time-, along with the "memory" qualifier so they can change their story if someone finds evidence that disproves it. It even works in legal testimony!)

Case in point, without those two magical words, his "opinion" would become a statement, and a very FALSE statement at that; a total lie in this case. In the context of such an argument, Activision is by far *THE SAFEST* most conservative AAA Publisher in the business right now.

Pray tell what "new genres", "new business models" and "new IPs" he's referring to?
Because none of Activision-Blizzard's biggest breadwinners fit any of those criteria. Not even remotely.

Hirshberg cited Skylanders as an example of a risk, saying the franchise is not only a new IP, but a new genre of play that was still unproven 18 months ago.

Wow.
This isn't even, "Grasping at straws", it's "Grasping at nothing".

Activision, just because you're scalping parents by charging for individual characters in your new Spyro series doesn't suddenly make the content of the game incomparably original. Underneath that disgusting marketing scheme, it's still Spyro the Dragon.

Oh, and claiming that Skylanders is a new "genre unproven 18 months ago", who the hell are you trying to fool?
3rd person platformers/brawlers are not "new" or "unproven".
Rewind even a decade and you will still be stumbling all over them.

To use an analogy, this would be like if Pepsi-Cola took plain old Root Beer, changed the label to "Old Timey Fizzy Drink" and then claimed how it's a COMPLETELY new and original flavor of soda.

"I think Bungie is a pretty special group of creative people and they?ve had a very good track record of games that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful," Hirshberg said. "[You] can see the ambitiousness of the concept and in order to bring that concept to life it?s been a big investment.

"It's a partnership that takes both an Activision and a Bungie to bring to life."

What is this other than a plug for Destiny?

And please stop wanking your company's "relationship" with Bungie like it's something special, because it's not.
Bungie created Halo under Microsoft for a solid decade. I fail to see what changed besides who signs their checks.
Fuck, Destiny even looks like Halo.

TL;DR:
Activision's corporate PR goon lies through his teeth to make his company look better under the pretense of refuting a bad reputation. A reputation they rightly deserve.

 

[Lugbzurg]

"Hirshberg cited Skylanders as an example of a risk, saying the franchise is not only a new IP, but a new genre of play that was still unproven 18 months ago."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Wait, what...? YOU'RE SERIOUS!? Ugh...

You slapped Spyro the Dragon in as the face of the series. I'm not so sure this counts as a new IP. And it's FAR from an "unproven" formula or "new genre of play". It's a Diablo clone that wants you to purchase all the playable characters separately. There is nothing new or risky about any of this! We already have God of War, Beyonetta, Devil May Cry, and other such things. Just marketing it to kids isn't as special as you want us to believe.

Also, Destiny is no huge risk. Hard-boiled first-person shooters sell better than hotcakes.