The Infinity Ward mess has been nothing but a huge headache for Activision Blizzard, and many believe it's a sign of how things work at other Activision studios. If anything, however, Activision Blizzard head honcho Bobby Kotick says that his company treats its studios the right way and preserves studio culture, while rival Electronic Arts suffocates its development teams.
Speaking in the latest issue of Edge, Kotick commented, "The core principle of how we run the company is the exact opposite of EA. EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida’, ‘EA Vancouver’, ‘EA New Jersey’, whatever. 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 studios 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 good 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."
Of course, EA has been talking about its own city-state development structure for the longest time. EA says it provides its studios with autonomy. Kotick asserts that EA hasn't changed as much as it says it has.
"...you can’t be a floor wax and then decide that you’re going to become a dessert topping," he said. "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... Look, EA has a lot of resources, it’s a big company that’s been in business for a long time, maybe it’ll figure it out eventually. But it’s been struggling for a really long time. The most difficult challenge it faces today is: great people don’t really want to work there.
"It’s like, if you have no other option, you might consider them. They have some… the team that makes Madden is a really great team, it’s been able to manage, capture and keep some good people. But we have no shortage of opportunity to recruit out of EA – that’s their biggest challenge: its stock options have no value. It’s lost its way. And until it has success, and hits, and gets that enthusiasm back for the company, it’s going to have a struggle getting really talented people, which is going to translate into less-than-great games."
Update: EA is certainly not pleased with the criticism from their main rival. The company has now slammed Activision right back. Read that story here.
3 Comments
September 27, 2010
"... its stock options have no value."
He's absolutely right about that. Most developers are looking for that stock option carrot. It's a huge bargaining chip for the publisher when hiring and retaining good people. EA's stock has sucked for years and years.
September 27, 2010
These comments are made largely for ATVI's shareholders, not the dev community as a whole.
Kotick does make some good points, but once again he comes off as being a bit of a jerk.
September 27, 2010
Bobby Kotick keeps his PR staff busy... if there are no fires burning, he creates some. I'm sure they wish he would just concentrate on running the company and avoid speaking to the press. He's not doing himself or his company any favors, regardless of the truth of what he says in these sorts of quotes. The story is now about him when he makes comments, and the best thing for Activision would be for the stories to be about their products.
We don't see stories about EA's chairman Larry Probst insulting someone or badmouthing some company... Larry's busy trying to make his company do better. Which is what Bobby should be doing.