Once upon a time, Activision Blizzards CEO Bobby Kotick kicked a few franchises to the curb: Riddick and Ghostbusters. No doubt, this was a result of the Activision and Blizzard merger requiring some resources to the merged together while others were cut from the lineup. Phil Harrison, the new big suit at Atari/Infogrames has raised these little birds from the ashes with a dream to build them into 100-million dollar franchises.
While Bobby Kotick said the titles, “don’t 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,” Phil Harrision sees it as a personal challenge to prove him wrong.
“What Bobby, perhaps unhelpfully said, was that those games were franchises which wouldn’t make $100m of revenue and generate sequels. If that’s his benchmark, then fine — and we’d love to aspire to the same benchmarks. But you know what? I would love to turn Ghostbusters into a $100m franchise, just to prove him wrong.” (1up)
In many ways, this is the difference in attitudes from a large firm compared to a smaller firm with strong goals and a vision for success. Activision Blizzard is big now, perhaps the biggest publisher in the industry, they can’t be bothered with minuscule 80-million dollar franchises. Others, like Atari, strive to take a title from nothing to something of greatness. Granted, Atari’s failed in a lot of franchises, but with their new ex-Sony executive behind the helm things could turn around and this might be the first step.
Most of the best game franchises in existance today started from nothing but a dream. Big publishers don’t have time to dream, they’re too busy making money off the fanboys of their current franchises.
🙂 Now that is a nice surprise! Glad to hear the old crew again.
@NOLF:
NOLF was a pretty cool game. The developers also released modding tools and a part of the source code as an SDK, and that created quite a community around it.
The game was geared around comedy; too bad they don’t make any games like that.
Don, it’s LithTech, not LeechTech.
@ Sony could be facing “serious trouble“:
Sony IS in serious trouble. PS3 never selling too well, then getting its root key exposed, then PSN getting hacked, then Vita tanks, then they change the EULA to have users dismiss their rights to class action lawsuits … man! 2011 was not the year for Sony.
@Take Two CEO states “strong become stronger” with next-gen transitions:
What’s a bit weird (and worrisome) is that the company is in a good shape because of its franchises. Really? No new games, just rehashes of the same?
@Developer Starbreeze fears Syndicate may be “too hard“:
Well, the difficulty can ramp up, as long as it ramps up instead of being a vertical wall of a learning curve.
Ninja Gaiden was ok-ish. Contra was also ok-ish. Granted, at the time I was playing those, I had all the time in the world to try again after a failure.
Now, emulators can create saves, so …
@1% violent videogame tax:
Good luck with that. 90% of the games are violent.
@Ubisoft cuts off legit players With DRM server migration:
Something tells me that the backlash they will get for this will not change their mind about this particular DRM system.
The article has said it all: so far, DRM only hampered legit customers.
That was a really nice surprise! I had never listened to a podcast made by them, but I really enjoyed it. Seeing as this was only published on a Sunday, is there still going to be an episode on Thursday?
@Developer Starbreeze fears Syndicate may be “too hard“: I agree. The least they can do is TRY to make an easy mode, or maybe they could implement a quick-save feature which is the only thing that keeps me playing hard games.
@Ubisoft cuts off legit players With DRM server migration: I have no idea why they are still trying with DRM. Can’t they try to find some other system, it’s already evident that DRM drives customers away.
When I heard Don’s voice before the intro music I smiled. Then Jennifer did the intro. Hard to believe that it was almost a year ago when the handover happened and the Episode 200 quiz happened.
I don’t get too much time to post up a comment normally, but I wanted to say thanks to the old crew for gracing my ears once again. As one of the first podcasts I subscribed to, the “married couple and their pal” were part of my weekly routine. I hope they get a moment to see the comments from the old listeners who loved them.
Not to say that the new crew are bad (except Paul – Hate mail!), but I haven’t found things flowing quite so well as you clearly can’t record in the same room like Derrick and Jennifer.
So from someone who has listened to all 250 episodes, thanks.
hahaa. I was right I guessed it right thanks jonah for bringing them back for this episode but I sure do hope they could stay permanently I’m not saying that the new guys suck ,just sayin I miss the old days. Do I get an award for guessing the special happening right? Jk
@sony could be facing big trouble
there’s no doubt that sony is indeed facing a big problem coz the ps3 the vita the issues and almost everything they have done last year was a failure….uhhmm maybe they should consider quitting and make tv’s instead
@ ubisoft drm server migration
This is the main reason I bought a cracked copy of assasins creed revelations.hahaaa advantages
Wish the old guys could really come back and join the new guys
It was great to hear Derrick, Jen, and Don’s voices again. This was a really, really pleasant surprise.
Hope all of you and your families are doing well.
computer specs anyone?,coz I’m still really curious about it
Thanks folks, it took a lot of effort and scheduling to find a date that all three of us could pull off-crazy lives lately.
Too bad it’s so tough to build a career/job out of podcasting otherwise doing these things all day (Leo Laporte style) would be nothing but a gift. Unfortunately, real life and other opportunities struggle to take up time.
I’m overjoyed that many of the original listeners keep going far after the core group of the show has moved on. Jennifer and I created the podcast roughly five years ago and to know there is still a team pushing on with it is pretty crazy.
Perhaps that’s what happens when people do it with a passion over a profit. Granted, profit is always nice too 😉