Activision plans pay-to-view game movies

[GamerMan316]

Is it April Fools Day?    


Activision plans to distribute feature-length videogame cinematics.

Boss-man Bobby Kotick made the prediction while discussing StarCraft II's hour-long pre-rendered cut-scenes at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in California.

"If we were to take that hour, or hour and a half, take it out of the game, and we were to go to our audiences - for whom we have their credit card information and a direct relationship - and say to them, 'Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?'... and say we have this great hour and a half of linear video that we'd like to make available to you at a $30 or $20 price point, you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever," Kotick said.

"Within the next five years you are likely to see us do that... There will be a time when we capitalise on the relationship that we have with our audience and deliver them something that is really extraordinary and let them consume it directly through us instead of through theatrical distribution."


Hopefully Kojima doesn't follow suit for the Metal Gear games.   

[nCogNeato]

Activision plans to distribute feature-length videogame cinematics.

Boss-man Bobby Kotick ...

"... $30 or $20 ..."

umm .... no.

[Handshakes]

Seems a bit steep for a guaranteed-to-suck movie.

[Failed]

I once tried watching the Final Fantasy 10 cut-scenes condenced into a 'movie' and it was useless .... you couldn't have a cohesive story unless they added extra parts, maybe in 5 years time like he says.

Maybe they'll develop a cinematic movie using CGI along with games to create a collective experience, i'd totally go for some of my fave games in a structured CG movie.

[GamerMan316]

Didn't want to create a new thread for this so i'll post it here, Kotick again showing what a complete f**ktard he is!   

Kotick: Sony, MS, EA will 'struggle' to challenge us in future
Exec says Activision is no longer competing with console publishers

Activision boss Bobby Kotick has claimed that traditional console companies such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo face a "struggle" to "figure out" an online future - one which the US publisher has already cracked.

In yet more incendiary comments about rival game makers, Kotick said that because of Activision's online dominance, it no longer considers itself competing with "console dependant companies".

Indeed, Kotick said that Activision's closest competitor in the online space was Facebook.

"Because we're in a lot of different businesses, we have a lot of different competitors," Kotick told the America Merrill Lynch Media, Comms and Entertainment conference.

"Our competitor online [is] Facebook in some respects. Even though they don't create content, they provide it. There are a lot of new social gaming companies that are emerging and take mindshare - not from our consumer, [because they're] a different demographic. But there's the potential that some of the social games will start appealing to our consumers so we're making a lot of investments in that area.

"But the traditional companies - the Electronic Arts, or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo or Disney - that make console-based video games, are going to really struggle [in future] to figure out how to get into these online business we're in today."

Kotick claimed that Activision's 2007 'merger' with Vivendi - which saw the French media powerhouse effectively buy the US publisher - has put it in a more secure position than any other games company, largely thanks to Blizzard's infrastructure.

"It was why we sold control of our company to Vivendi," he added. "We recognised that developing all of the capabilities that Blizzard had ourselves would probably put us in a place where we would have... not [only] a decline in our operating margin, but no operating margin. We would invest billions of dollars in all this online capability - and likely actually not produce a great result.

"There [was] so much built-up expertise at Blizzard when we did this merger - that we're now applying to Call Of Duty, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero - that we otherwise wouldn't have had access to. That puts us in a much better position than many of the very console-dependant companies we used to compete against."

Used to compete against. Bobby's above all that now.

Kotick used his presentation to claim that Activision is no longer simply aiming to be the "biggest interactive entertainment company" - but rather the "biggest entertainment company". As in, full stop. Wowsers.

[DFUSIONITE]

Didn't want to create a new thread for this so i'll post it here, Kotick again showing what a complete f**ktard he is!   

Kotick: Sony, MS, EA will 'struggle' to challenge us in future
Exec says Activision is no longer competing with console publishers

Activision boss Bobby Kotick has claimed that traditional console companies such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo face a "struggle" to "figure out" an online future - one which the US publisher has already cracked.

In yet more incendiary comments about rival game makers, Kotick said that because of Activision's online dominance, it no longer considers itself competing with "console dependant companies".

Indeed, Kotick said that Activision's closest competitor in the online space was Facebook.

"Because we're in a lot of different businesses, we have a lot of different competitors," Kotick told the America Merrill Lynch Media, Comms and Entertainment conference.

"Our competitor online [is] Facebook in some respects. Even though they don't create content, they provide it. There are a lot of new social gaming companies that are emerging and take mindshare - not from our consumer, [because they're] a different demographic. But there's the potential that some of the social games will start appealing to our consumers so we're making a lot of investments in that area.

"But the traditional companies - the Electronic Arts, or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo or Disney - that make console-based video games, are going to really struggle [in future] to figure out how to get into these online business we're in today."

Kotick claimed that Activision's 2007 'merger' with Vivendi - which saw the French media powerhouse effectively buy the US publisher - has put it in a more secure position than any other games company, largely thanks to Blizzard's infrastructure.

"It was why we sold control of our company to Vivendi," he added. "We recognised that developing all of the capabilities that Blizzard had ourselves would probably put us in a place where we would have... not [only] a decline in our operating margin, but no operating margin. We would invest billions of dollars in all this online capability - and likely actually not produce a great result.

"There [was] so much built-up expertise at Blizzard when we did this merger - that we're now applying to Call Of Duty, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero - that we otherwise wouldn't have had access to. That puts us in a much better position than many of the very console-dependant companies we used to compete against."

Used to compete against. Bobby's above all that now.

Kotick used his presentation to claim that Activision is no longer simply aiming to be the "biggest interactive entertainment company" - but rather the "biggest entertainment company". As in, full stop. Wowsers.

Give me crappy old facebook over modern warfare 2 any day. And seriously, he thinks he isn't even competing with Microsoft any more when they just had a massive opening weekend on Halo Reach. He seriously thinks that Tony Hawk games are better than EA's Skate franchise, and Guitar Hero is better/more popular than the Rock Band games. The guy is almost as deluded as Peter Molyneux and that's saying something!

[GamerMan316]

He's half right about the GH games, they do sell more than the Rock Band games, they just aren't as good, except for GH2 but that was made by Harmonix so it's bound to be good, everything else he says is just crap.

[Failed]

He's bonkers.

I hate articles that put [ xxx ] in what they've said to make it more legible. You should make him sound like the arse [he is].

[GamerMan316]

Bobby Kotick slags off EA

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has slagged off Electronic Arts - his chief rival.

"EA will buy a developer and then it will become 'EA Florida', 'EA Vancouver', EA New Jersey', whatever," Kotick told the latest issue of Edge magazine.

"We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that's what makes them so successful.'

"We don't have an Activision anything – it's Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer. That, to me, is one of the unassailable rules of building a publishing company. And in every case except for two, the original founders of the studio are still running the studios today.

"The only thing that we try to do is to provide a support structure to make them more successful. If you do a really god job – and a lot of our studios do – you get to pick what is, in my view, the most difficult thing to pick in the industry: to make original intellectual property."

Kotick is, of course, public enemy number one for most gamers after a year that's seen the CEO make some eyebrow-raising comments and fire COD creators Vince Zampella and Jason West, who went on to form Respawn Entertainment and sign with EA.

Only last week Kotick said Halo developer Bungie, which has signed a ten year deal with Activision, was "probably the last remaining high quality independent developer".

And who can forget the infamous "take all the fun out of making video games" quote from last year?

According to Kotick, though, EA's the big bad wolf.

"I've been an oppressed EA developer!" he said in response to the suggestion that EA has changed its ways.

"The thing is, it doesn't work that way – you can't be a floor wax and then decide that you're going to become a dessert topping.

"That doesn't work, it's your DNA. [EA's] DNA isn't oriented towards that model – it doesn't know how to do it, as a culture or as a company, and it never has."

Zing.



Mr Pot meet Mr Kettle, what a complete tool!!!   

[markav]

GGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

[GamerMan316]

GGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

That is awesome!

[sambo]

GGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Love it.

[markav]

GGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Love it.

Why thankyou 

[sambo]

Bobby Kotick slags off EA

EA response:
EA's VP of Communications Jeff Brown then pointed out that Activision's house isn't exactly in order.

"Kotick's relationship with studio talent is well-documented in litigation," Brown said. "His company is based on three game franchises - one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick's own hubris."