Now that Activision has merged up with Blizzard all under Vivendi it’s time to consider what to do with all the additional overhead, management, internal studios and sheer amount of people working on projects within their organization. In other words, it’s time to trim the fat and get leaned out for the long haul.
This isn’t unexpected news, the only way to grow more effective as a large company is to remove some of the access baggage that can slow you down and let your competitors take control. This is a sad job which nobody takes pride in (most normal people anyway) but it could mean the difference between rising to the top and sinking like a brick.
“We are focused on improving efficiency across the combined organization and are concentrating on businesses where we have leadership positions that are aligned with Activision Publishing’s long-term corporate objectives,” Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said in a statement. (gamespot)
It’s important to be aggressive as a large company, just like you would be as a startup company. There is a reason startup companies grow into powerful competitors that win, grow and eventually become (or be purcahsed by) larger companies.
As part of this move some staff will be migrated to new projects, persumably reporposed into other divisions or allowed to find new jobs somewhere else. This is called “realignment” by those in the management organization, and currently those up for realignment are:
- Radical Entertainment (Prototype, Crash of the Titans)
- High Moon Studios (The Bourne Conspiracy, Darkwatch).
- Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict, Ground Control)
- Swordfish Studios (50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Cold Winter)
These realignments along with other organizational changes will effect a few working game titles:
- Brutal Legend
- Ghostbusters
- Wet
- Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
- World at Conflict: Soviet Assault
- 50 Cent Blood on the Sand
- Zombie Wranglers
- Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
- Several Xbox Live Arcade titles
At this point we’re not sure which, if any, will continue to be developed under Activision and which will be sold off to other companies or retired. Surely, those money making titles will be sold off if Activision has no plans to finish them.
Again, it’s hard to consider this a bad decision. This is a decision of growth over having too many “Cooks in the kitchen” making soup. It’s better to have rock solid titles of epic proportions than a large pool of mediocre titles with minimal sales and bad reputations, and that’s why they spend a lot of time in the office working on this and having a type of office chair for long hours on a computer is really helpful in this area.
It’s not that the titles they’re questioning are necessarily bad, but are not the leading titles in their space and are should be either given a stronger team to work on them or retire them entirely. To build a stronger team with passion and direction it might be best to sell the franchise(s) to other organizations so they can do it right with time and attention to detail.
(Thanks, gamespot)
Tech Cruch is
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
or
The Godfather
Mass effect 2
I’m just going to answer the QOTW seeing that I’m going to write a lot.
QOTW: Why did you have to choose this question? I have such a big problem with picking favorites, everything has its good and bad, and sometimes they are so different that I just can’t compare them.
At least I don’t have such a huge list, seeing that I only really got into gaming in 2009, but I still went back to play plenty of old games.
Looking through lists and lists of best games of that decade, I have narrowed it down to Super Smash Bros Brawl, LoZ: Twlight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy and Batman: Arkham Asylum. 4 completely different games, don’t even know where to start.
*Back after watching a couple of videos, refreshing my memory on each of the games*
While watching Super Mario Galaxy, I couldn’t help but think how much better the sequel was, which also removed a lot of the already little cons it had Seeing that, I’m going to have to rule it out.
Comparing the most similar games, Twilight Princess and Batman, I’m going to have to go with Batman by a few marks, I’ll list the reasons if it wins out in the end.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is great and all, but I’m going to have to go with Batman simply because fighting is not one of my favorite genres and Action/Adventure is actually at the top to me.
Batman: Arkham Asylum. It is an all-out great game. It never outstays its welcome, the pacing is almost perfect. Awesome and intuitive combat, stealth missions that make you plan a whole attack, very original boss battles, good storyline, tons of interesting secrets to collect, lots of cool gadgets at your disposal, upgrades that actually matter, and overall making you feel like a badass. I have a hard time remembering if I ever played a game twice, but I’m glad to say I did with this one.
I’m sorry that I wrote so much on this topic, but it needed to be done. You may skip reading out all the rambling parts during the podcast.
@QOTW
Morrowind. I don’t even know where to begin expressing my love for this game. I will attempt to keep it short.
When I was 15, I had no job. My mother was convinced that wasting £40 on a game was bad. So I bought games that would provide me with enough content to keep me busy for a while. Morrowind was a gold mine.
I bought it for Xbox. It had everything I ever wanted. A large explorable world full of NPCs. Hundreds of quests. Dozens of guilds. And freedom. Freedom to do anything you ever wanted. Be whatever you wanted. That’s what I loved the most.
Too keep things short I will bullet point the most notable features that I remember:
-Every item had a shape and form. I remember stacking my looted gems on a shelf because they looked fantastic.
-The rich Elder Scrolls lore. The races. The continents. Everything was well thought through, well described and well implemented. The world of Morrowind was truly alive. And interesting.
-You assumed the role of Nerevarine, the incarnation of an ancient war chief. Your coming was predicted by a prophecy. However, unlike in other games where you just fit the prophecy from the start, in Morrowind you had to twist and bend the whole political world to be accepted as an incarnate. Made you feel important.
-The world of Morrowind was dark. Depressing. Alien. Nothing that it’s sequels can ever match. Everything was going to hell fast and you were at the front of it all. And the dungeons with the Sixth House Cult could be as scary as a survival horror.
-A few years later I purchased the game for the PC. Bethesda bundled it’s Game of the Year with the TES construction set. The number of fan made mods available was amazing. It was like playing a whole new game.
-Real world issues. Racism. Bullying. Homosexuality. Stuff you don’t find in your average Zelda game.
I still have lots to say, but that would take to long. As an after word, Morrowind was my favourite game not just of this decade, but ever. Although I enjoyed Oblivion and Skyrim, they can never match the delight I experience from playing Morrowind.
@QOTW Kingdom Hearts. it just has a charm that was never matched by its sequels along with solid gameplay and story and a certain wow factor compared to other action rpgs at the time. ive clocked over a hundred hours with mulitiple playthroughs and its enjoyable every time.
Battlefield 2 is still my all time favourite game of this decade
There’s been a lot of great releases over the 2000’s decade. Thinking back, there were soooo many possibilities over several different consoles so it’s difficult to really chose. So, here’s a breakdown
PC: Counter Strike (Original Addon Version)
Xbox 360: Modern Warefare (the first)
Playstation 2: Katamari Damachi (Soo addicting)
Sega: Streets Of Rage or Kid Chameleon
SNES: Street Fighter
NES: Blaster Master / Metroid (I was in love with those 2)