Angry PC Gamer Skips MW2, Sends 60 Bucks to DICE Instead

[SimuLord]

Folks, you have to remember something important about Activision: Their CEO is a total douchebag. I quote him (Bobby Kotick):

[Kotick] pointed to changes he implemented in the past as being particularly beneficial, such as designing the employee incentive program so it 'really rewards profit and nothing else.'

No incentives for satisfying the customers and giving 'em what they want - just making the company money. Additionally, I quote the article on Hot Hardware:

According to the CEO, studio heads now regularly argue with CFO's over the allocation of funds, each competing with the others for cash. If this doesn't sound like much fun - and it doesn't - that's Bobby's stated plan. "We have a real culture of thrift," Kotick said. "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."

The CEO's long-term vision, in his own words, is to instill the corporate culture with "skepticism, pessimism, and fear...We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression." You'd think the man might've learned his lesson when indivuals and press organizations decried his plan to strictly focus on games that "have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises." Evidently not. In Bobby's world, the best games are produced when every employee is in a constate state of fear, projects are always on the brink of being killed, the ability to generate profit is the only yardstick by which an employee's value is measured, and - let's not forget - making video games is not fun.

Original source:
http://hothardware.com/News/Activision-Blizzard-CEO-Bobby-Kotick-Talks-Gaming-Hates-Happy-People/

Folks, when I read this story as first posted on Gamespot I thought it was a joke...it's not. Their CEO is really that much of a...well...

Don't worry. ATVI's stock is down 40% since last September and their earnings not related to World of Warcraft are so bad, you'd think they were General Motors. Kotick will be fired within a year.

 

[Kermi]

Because I love being on teams that help out their buddies on the other team instead of trying to win.

 

[ojm62]

DICE should make a battlefield 2 except with bad company graphics and the ability to blow up almost everything and BFBC only has 24 players for PC so MW2 is still better

Well MW2 has 18 player max, so 9v9.

 

[Sparrow]

Well, that guy is a bit of an idiot then isn't he. Surely that check would have been better off pre-ordering Battlefield: BC 2 instead.

 

[Cgull]

What did he actually aim to achieve other than emptying his wallet and seeming slightly petty?

If he goes on to buy Battlefield then he'll effectively have paid twice....clever man.

 

[Fasckira]

Well, that guy is a bit of an idiot then isn't he. Surely that check would have been better off pre-ordering Battlefield: BC 2 instead.

Not making quite the same amount of publicity though! I imagine quite a few people have switched to preordering BC2 over MW2 after the dedicated server scandal but it doesnt quite make the headlines as sending a cheque purely as a fuck-you to MW2.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Oh, man this is great stuff. it's like, "you have dedicated servers, here take my money". I could understand if he bought that game instead of MW2, but to just send them his money. What? Is this guy going to send 60$ to every game company that makes a PC FPS with dedicated servers now.

Though to be fair, I guess this is more like a statement of protest. But why not just send a letter saying "I'm not going to buy MW2 because it doesn't have dedicated servers. Instead I'll spend the 60$ on food". Or something like that.

 

[Slider2k]

IW obviously figured out that MW2 multiplayer wasn't that great to support it. So, players are left with somehow short single-player campaign. Way to spend some bucks!
Battlefied's trademark vehicular-heavy multiplayer is more fun anyway.

 

[Superior Mind]

Good on him. He felt strongly enough about it to do something and was bright enough make it public. It's a nice change from the "Boycott 'n' Cave" crowd who talk big but fold at the first sight of something shiney.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

Way to lose a sale, Infinity Ward. Not that it'll make any difference in the longrun, MW2 is already more popular than Halo 3 at its launch, but I can't help but wonder if this all could've been avoided if you had devoted servers.

Dude MW2 has already beaten Halo 3 with Pre-Orders (i think at least), thats a pretty big feat. I am one of those to pre-order the game. I say its better to get it on launch day delivered to my door then waiting 10 months for the stores to get more stock, and annother 10 years for them to drop the price (look at CoD 4, its still $50 new last time i checked).

 

[Arcadic]

I found the multiplayer in CoD4 to be somewhat... broken. Shooting a guy 5 times with stopping power only to have him shoot you twice with a weaker weapon and you die, no lag compensation, 'noobtube', nadespam, the fact that almost NO-ONE talks at all or even seems to own a mic... yeah...

And this is exactly the reason us PC gamers are so up in arms over the servers. With Dedicated Servers, we can BAN or KICK those who nadespam, restrict the use of noobtubes, have a properly calibrated ping, and most PC gamers use their mics or type in between lives. The stopping power crap is independent of that, and is more of a patch issue.

They lost my sale for sure. As a Clan Gamer, i always play on 3-4 servers that play by rules i enjoy. I enjoy community with my games as well as competitive play. MW2 kills all I enjoy about PC gaming before i even open the box. Thanks for saving me 60 bucks yet again Activision.

 

[Jaqen Hghar]

This guy just maxed his respect-meter in my eyes. This is a man who know what he is doing. That money was supposed to go to IW for their over-hyped standard FPS shooter, but instead of just not giving it to them, he gives it to a competitor! He clearly showed what he feels about IW, and he showed his support to a company he thinks is much better, giving them what he feels they should have.
I think this was a great move. I would do something similar if I had the cash, and if I ever had thought about buying MW2.

 

[Anarchy In Detroit]

Us PC gamers are an angry tribe, mistreat us and we'll impale your head on a stick sooner than you can say 'equal experience across all platforms'

No we won't impale your head on a stick. We'll use our superior hand eye coordination and the faster reaction time of a key board and mouse to spawn camp the console gamers. They will all quit, ask mom for a ride to Gamestop, and cry whilst stamping their feet.

And this is exactly the reason us PC gamers are so up in arms over the servers. With Dedicated Servers, we can BAN or KICK those who nadespam, restrict the use of noobtubes, have a properly calibrated ping, and most PC gamers use their mics or type in between lives. The stopping power crap is independent of that, and is more of a patch issue.

They lost my sale for sure. As a Clan Gamer, i always play on 3-4 servers that play by rules i enjoy. I enjoy community with my games as well as competitive play. MW2 kills all I enjoy about PC gaming before i even open the box. Thanks for saving me 60 bucks yet again Activision.

Agreed! I miss the good old days when Call of Duty 2 was where shit was at.

 

[Hybridwolf]

Can't even see what the problem is, just seems to me to be a load of people yelling at a brick wall. They own the game, they can do what they want with it. You'd be better off saving your cash, and not buying it if your that bothered by it.

But I bet people will still get it by the motherload, dedicated servers or not.

Just to repeat a question I had a while ago, is there anything that affect the console versions. I saw that Xbox live party modes are now not allowed, is this true?

 

[deffel2000]

Well at least he put his money where his mouth is.

I suppose that he'll just miss out on a great game though.

Why should he miss out?
He can rent the game for singleplayer.
The multiplayer will suck because there are no dedicated servers.
The latency and the interpolation and prediction on console multiplayer
cannot be tolerated by someone who is used to play on his fav. dedicated server
with a lateny of 20-30ms also they took ALL skill out of that game...so why bother?
The next real PC Shooter is always on its way
(I have a PC a Xbox and a PS3 - so you just know, that I know what I am talking about)

Greetings

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Well, talk about "talking with your wallet." The REAL reason the guy did it, of course, is quite simply this: so that it would be reported on gaming news sites like The Escapist and draw attention to exactly HOW pissed off PC gamers are about all this bullshit. "Look at this, this guy would prefer to give his money away to another developer than buy MW2!" THAT'S effective publicity for your cause!

By the way, if you're thinking that this is a waste of money and the guy's an idiot, you might want to think again. Assuming DICE aren't completely stupid, there's a VERY good chance that when Bad Company 2 is complete they'll remember him and send him a complimentary copy, saying he paid for it with this. Think of the good publicity that will result in!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

...Why didn't he do something worthwhile, like donate it to Child's Play or the Desert Bus (I BELIEVE that's a charity? Anyone from LRR care to correct/confirm?)?

According to Wiki, "The third marathon run is scheduled to start on November 20th, 2009"

Ah yeah, a donation to Desert Bus is a donation to Child's Play, but with the added bonus of torturing Graham and Simon!

Yeah, that's a worthy cause!

EDIT - I r did teh reseertch!

And in a letter from the man himself

I hear the Desert Bus is going for a ride again?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.153765.3704448

It does indeed!
In that thread "Chipperz" refers to Paul as "Simon" for some reason, but apart from that, yes. It's gonna be sweet.


www.desertbus.org

Support the bus

 

[mambodog]

If he was in Australia it would be $89 USD that he would not be paying them. Yep, apparently it costs more to sell games over Steam to Australia then it does to the US.

 

[Jonny49]

DICE should make a battlefield 2 except with bad company graphics and the ability to blow up almost everything and BFBC only has 24 players for PC so MW2 is still better

How many people you have on a map is trivial. Bad Company still felt insane even with only 24 players.

And how is MW2 better if Bad Company only has 24 players? MW2 has 9v9. 9+9=18.