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Activision CEO Wants Call Of Duty/Battlefield Trash-Talking Truce
firefly2003
Member UncommonPosts: 2,527
At his Gamescom keynote speech, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg says that the trash-talking between his company and Electronic Arts over Call of Duty and Battlefield, respectively, is bad for the industry.
"Competition is of course a good thing. It keeps us all on our toes and ultimately makes the games better. It's healthy," said Hirshberg according to Eurogamer. "But it's one thing to want your game to succeed and another thing to actively, publicly say you want other games to fail." Activision and Electronic Arts – particularly Activision's Bobby Kotick and EA CEO John Riccitiello – have engaged in a public feud over which game will come out on top this holiday season.
"As someone who runs one of the biggest publishers in this business," he continued, "I can tell you that I want as many games as possible to succeed, whether we created them or not, because I want this industry to keep growing and bringing in new people."
Continuing on this theme, he explained how this kind of in-fighting not only makes the industry look bad, but in his opinion, is overall bad for business. "We all still have a lot to prove in our position in the pop cultural landscape. We still need to stand the test of time. We need to show we can withstand the kind of disruptive change and new competition that we're facing now. The only way to do that is to continue to make great games. We shouldn't be tearing each other apart fighting for a bigger piece of the pie – we should all be focused on trying to grow a bigger pie. If we as an industry act like there's a finite number of games in the world, then there will be."
For more on Hirshberg's comments, head over to the full story over at Eurogamer.
EA's recent spate of public "mudslinging" over this year's Modern Warfare 3/Battlefield 3 showdown is bad for the industry, so says Activision exec Eric Hirshberg.
Speaking in his Gamescom keynote today, the Acti Publishing CEO called on publishers to encourage each other to make great games rather than tearing chunks off each other in the press.
"Competition is of course a good thing. It keeps us all on our toes and ultimately makes the games better. It's healthy. But it's one thing to want your game to succeed and another thing to actively, publicly say you want other games to fail," he said.
"Recently a competitor of ours was quoted as saying that he wants to see Call of Duty 'rot from the core'. I've been asked countless times to respond to this comment and I've generally chosen not to. My job is to help our incredibly talented, passionate teams to make the best games they can, not to throw insults around at others. But I actually feel this kind of rhetoric is bad for our industry.
"Can you imagine the head of Dreamworks animation coming out with a new movie and going to the press and saying that he wants Toy Story to 'rot from the core'," he continued. "It's kind of hard to imagine, right?"
Hirshberg went on to argue that if everyone supports one another then the industry will make better games and pull in more punters.
"As someone who runs one of the biggest publishers in this business I can tell you that I want as many games as possible to succeed, whether we created them or not," he continued, "because I want this industry to keep growing and bringing in new people.
"I believe when someone in this industry does something great, whether they work in California, or Sweden, or North Carolina, or the United Kingdom, it doesn't just benefit their company. It benefits us all."
He added that there are plenty of potential customer out there to go around. Make a great game and it will sell, no matter what the competition is up to, he argued.
"I believe that as many great games as this industry can make, that's how many people will buy. I say that not only as the CEO of Activision but also as a gamer.
"This isn't politics. In order for one to win, the other doesn't have to lose. This is an entertainment industry, it's an innovation industry and, at best, it's an art form. But we're still a young art form. If we were the movie industry the movies wouldn't even be talking yet.
"We all still have a lot to prove in our position in the pop cultural landscape. We still need to stand the test of time. We need to show we can withstand the kind of disruptive change and new competition that we're facing now.
"The only way to do that is to continue to make great games. We shouldn't be tearing each other apart fighting for a bigger piece of the pie – we should all be focused on trying to grow a bigger pie. If we as an industry act like there's a finite number of games in the world, then there will be."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-activision-condemns-ea-mudslinging
Comments
Its good for the industry if it makes the world realize the 4rd incarnation of a reskinned cod4 shouldn't be worth money.
Activision only wants it to stop so less people will realize how much more an FPS can bring to the table, and how little talent Treyarch/Infinity Ward/whoever they got working on this one actually has.
WoW and I mean WOW those Activision bastards accomplisht something. I'd rather play Battlefield 3 yes an €A title instead of the fourth CoD 4 rip off with monthly fees on top of it.
I hate both publishers but Activision really took over from EA unbelievable.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
meh both companies suck and frankly both games look like crap... how many modern shooters do we really need?? i mean really i fail to see how people can really warrant spending so much money on the same game over and over...
i feel like im looking at and playing a F2P game i just spent upwards of 60 bucks for 4 times....
kinda wish people would move away from modern shooters and try something else.. breath new life in to an FPS rather then repeating the same thing ... allies vs axis (usa vs the world/korea/china/russia/hobo down the street/your mom..ect)
maybe a CoD based on medievil europe or battlefield 9000000AD.... take freaking clubs and rocks over same old stupid auto sniper camping garbage we have had for the last 6yrs
well I will pass on both, still enjoying the heck out of Cod 4
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
BF3 looks like crap? would love to see what you are seeing....
We used to have innovation and creativity in the FPS world. Now everyone has the same "Me too!!" mentality that we seen in the MMORPG world with it's WoW clones.
Why be innovative when sheeple will keep buying the same product over and over??
Both games ARE crap. If a 90's shooter like Doom can still be played online and modded to this day by folks. A game that's been out well over a decade and has a longer life span then majority of these modern shooters shat out by EA and Activision. Think it's safe to say they suck and are just a block buster hit, not a long term edifice in which future shooters in the genre will look up to and aspire to greatness to be.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
graphically they are great. but who really cares about graphics? oooo wow i can see sweet on his brow as he fires his sniper rifle across the map.... woopy...
the games are repeats of repeats. BF1942 was best of all BFs. BF-Nam was alright but not as good as 42.. the rest are crap.
CoD was great these new cods... are crap..
you want to play cod or bf... you can play them in any F2P FPS on the market.... there are scores of them out of asia every day... ALL the exact same.. same weapons.. same "story" everything.. i want an FPS that is new.. and different not a repeat
EA and activision couldnt make a new game if 30 people spent 5yrs writing the best game in the world and offered it to them for free... they would still screw it up and make it a clone of all their other crap... just look at EA-Sports.. CoD and BF can be summed up as hockey 1000000000000 or football 9000.... upgraded graphics do not make a game great... >>"
Battlefield 3 is crap and doesn't look good? If you watch the Gamescon multiplayer video and say this then you just don't have a soul (or don't like fps). Its the second vid in the article.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/118/1188443p1.html
He has a problem with it because its obvious which game looks better this year.
If CoD looked better he wouldnt even give a shit, but since its the inferior game he's worried that all the kiddies will be convinced CoD isnt cool and jump ship and ultimately lower his bottom line.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
i looked at most of the BF 3 videos.. frankly apart from some graphic improvements it looks like BF2... as for hating FPS... i have played FPS since wolf 3d on 3/25 diskette... as well as duke and doom, im just tired of repeat games year in and year out modern shooters suck. there is no skill with the games anymore. ket out a shotgun and auto sniper = win. may as well play an awp match in cs 1.6....
BF1942 and 2 still have a decent following, although neither one of them had remotely as many followers as the Dooms. Also, not sure where you get this blockbuster business from, but none of the Battlefield series have ever been, nor have they tried to be blockbuster hits. You can possibly say that BC attempted to go that route, but only because DICE lost their way and fell for the allure of consoles. I am willing to let that whole phase go however, lots of dev teams fall prey to the console disease at one point or another. Few of them recover.
Discounting that embarassing run of console titles, the first two (does 2142 count as a standalone game? If it did, then this would be BF4) have always been niche titles. They have never aspired to be anything but, possibly attributable to the fact that DICE isn't an American developer. They are probably aware that their title takes more of a presence of mind to play than a run of the mill Doom-type system, and that there is little point in generating sizeable ad campaigns that try to draw away from someone else's fan base of headless chickens.
Trashtalk here and there, BF is far superior to any CoD game, there is not much to say here.
Honestly I havent played a Great CoD game since COD4: MW
all of these rush jobs once every year like CoD is fucking NFL Madden...
It screams money sink.
I just hope we dont see the same shit with BF francise now that it should overtake CoD this year.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Don't worry CEO types, the players will do the trashtalking for you.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It's a money grab. If BF3 performs well, i have no doubts that EA will adopt ACTIVISIONS model, of pumping out a game every year or so... it's EA after all ...
Its too bad BF3 doesnt support the mod community. IF EA tried that shit we could just stay with BF3 and have mods carry us for years. PC gamers are good like that, we know how to stretch a game
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
As for CoD versus Battlefield, I have to say CoD is more fun for me although they both are played out now in my opinion: I'm waiting for some fresh blood in the genre.
Batttefield plays like molassas to me although maybe things will get a little faster this version. I know some may prefer that style but I like to challenge my twitch gaming in FPSers and CoD is just better suited for that. Although I sure hope Battlefield 3 isn't planning on mixing jet dogfighting into the multiplayer: that is one gimick I wouldn't be fond of. Some good fast ground vehicles could be fun though.
As for the sniper/shotguns being overpowered in mondern FPS games though not sure what that guys been smokin. Snipers/shotguns have been underpowerd in CoD series for a long time. The M16 ruled the day in MW1, the MP40 in World at War, and one of the many assault rifles in Black Ops (more balance there). The last decent FPS game where the sniper was overpowerd that I played was Halo 3 and that was a long long time ago now.
I actually think the FPS genre needs more RPG elements to it to liven it up some more, and once they perfect a FPS MMO that might be the fashizzle if they do it right...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
I agree i havent played either one of these game series in years. im not a big fan of regular multiplayer games anywyas let alone games that come out every year. (although im not playing doom anytime soon either lol. Wheres planetside 2 ?)
Back to topic though; i dont think the ceos should trash talk anything they are ceos for god sake.
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
"Although I sure hope Battlefield 3 isn't planning on mixing jet dogfighting into the multiplayer: that is one gimick I wouldn't be fond of."
What the?! A gimmick? Air and ground vehicle combat is what the Battlefield series was built on. I've been missing the jets since what, Battlefield Vietnam. The multiplayer maps are designed with them in mind.
Man I just need to walk away from this thread.
Well, some FPS purists don't like any vehicles at all. You are going to have to get used to living in a world where people don't agree with you on every point.
I personally think vehicles can be fun (and sometimes not) but dogfighting just doesn't belong in my opinion: way to gimicky.
The original Infinity Ward developers (all of the greatest CoD games including MW1) hated anything to do with vehicles and refused to put them into their multiplayer modes. They felt very strongly about this from a PVP competetive standpoint.
But hey we all have different tastes and philosophies thats why some like Battlefield and some like CoD and some like neither...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
DICE: Don't Expect Yearly Battlefield Titles
Since Battlefield: Bad Company 2 released in March of 2010 and EA plans to release Battlefield 3 on October 25, it's not an outlandish stretch to speculate that Electronic Arts could be adopting the annualized franchise approach made famous by Tony Hawk (now defunct), Guitar Hero (now defunct), Call of Duty (selling like banned substances at a Phish concert). Speaking to Gamerzines, DICE executive producer Patrick Bach said the studio has no plans to go down that road with Battlefield.
"The business goals for us are not to release a game every year," he said. "To us, we need the time to be able to create the next game that consumers will hopefully like. If we were to release another big Battlefield title next year, that would mean that we'd have less than a year to build it, and that would mean that we'd have to have another studio building it for us, which would mean it wouldn't have that DICE seal of approval, which would mean they'd just have to release a copy of the game we just released. Ugh, no."
Though the annualized approach has gained a wider adoption over the past few years, Bach says Electronic Arts isn't forcing the concept onto the franchise.
"EA would never force us to release a game every year," he said. "I think that would dilute the vision of the franchise, and you will eventually kill the franchise by doing that."
To keep its content hungry fans satiated, DICE is much more content to release expansions like Bad Company 2's Vietnam pack.
"I think that's a more healthy way of expanding on the game experience. It's not a new game but a twist on your old game, and I think that's a healthier way of looking at a franchise rather than just trying to cram every single last penny out of it."
To read more about Battlefield 3, visit our BF3 hub.
DICE has stated they won't adopt a yearly model....