I guess I was 3 years too early in my prediction from the previous Video Game Industry thread from two weeks ago.
krapst78 on
Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father prepare to die!
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
0
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited October 2010
Yeah, apparently "loss of evilness" is bad for your stocks. Seems like ever since EA stopped being a shitty ass company they haven't been doing as hot. Meanwhile Activision is making billions thanks to WoW and Call of Duty (for as long as that still lasts anyways)... *sigh*
Maybe if we're lucky the company will restructure and Blizzard will be the dominant position.
BLIZZARD-ACTIVISION
Coming to a fantasy-world near you.
Honestly I think if Kotick just left the company like at least 80% of the bad shit would go away. Or at least it wouldn't be public as hell. It seems like the majority of the crap spewing from that company is entirely his fault.
Hey, don't complain about the evil if you're still buying their stuff. You're not, are you?
This is dumb
Don't be dumb
Plenty of good games come out under Activision, and refusing to buy their product just because they're a shitty company is going to hurt a good developer more than it would hurt a bad publisher.
Singularity and DJ Hero were both awesome IPs published by Activision, and I was more than happy to support Raven and FreeStyle Games.
Activision still sucks and I'm still free to talk shit about them (because they are horrid).
Hey, don't complain about the evil if you're still buying their stuff. You're not, are you?
This is dumb
Don't be dumb
Plenty of good games come out under Activision, and refusing to buy their product just because they're a shitty company is going to hurt a good developer more than it would hurt a bad publisher.
Singularity and DJ Hero were both awesome IPs published by Activision, and I was more than happy to support Raven and FreeStyle Games.
Activision still sucks and I'm still free to talk shit about them (because they are horrid).
Sorry but you're the one being dumb here Vow. You can't on the one hand wish for a regime change while on the other funnel money into said regime's pockets. Well, you can but your words are pretty hollow, since you're only encouraging said regime to be complete assholes.
Even if I didn't know anything about Activision, I doubt I'd buy any of their games. I've never been a Blizzard fan, only play CoD's single player (so rental), was never interested in the music rhythm genre, got bored of Tony Hawk years ago and their licensed games are almost always of a very low quality (including Spider-Man 2, which had neat swinging mechanics and terrible everything else).
Hey, don't complain about the evil if you're still buying their stuff. You're not, are you?
This is dumb
Don't be dumb
Plenty of good games come out under Activision, and refusing to buy their product just because they're a shitty company is going to hurt a good developer more than it would hurt a bad publisher.
Singularity and DJ Hero were both awesome IPs published by Activision, and I was more than happy to support Raven and FreeStyle Games.
Activision still sucks and I'm still free to talk shit about them (because they are horrid).
Sorry but you're the one being dumb here Vow. You can't on the one hand wish for a regime change while on the other funnel money into said regime's pockets. Well, you can but your words are pretty hollow, since you're only encouraging said regime to be complete assholes.
I couldn't have said it better. Don't rob Peter to pay Paul.
The point he's making is that he can't support the developers without supporting Activision
Exactly. Disney does a lot of screwed up things but I still love Pixar. There is nothing wrong or incongruous with buying stuff that is awesome and simultaneously criticizing the parent company.
If you swore to never buy anything from a company that does things you disagree with, you'd basically be Amish.
The point he's making is that he can't support the developers without supporting Activision
Exactly. Disney does a lot of screwed up things but I still love Pixar. There is nothing wrong or incongruous with buying stuff that is awesome and simultaneously criticizing the parent company.
If you swore to never buy anything from a company that does things you disagree with, you'd basically be Amish.
And that's the truth of it, Sporky. If you're looking for a big company that hasn't done some bad things, you're probably out of luck. Activision gets a lot of shit for doing stuff that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have undoubtedly done but don't get called evil for (well, maybe Microsoft does).
While I'm really just playing devil's advocate here, there's something that genuinely bugs me about the hypocrisy of calling Activision "evil" but being unable resist buying their games.
Nothing hypocritical about it. Activision is evil but FreeStyle Games is not. Two different things to be judged on their own merits. If you like FreeStyle, you should buy their games so that evil Activision doesn't kill the studio for poor sales.
Now, it would be hypocritical if he was calling Activision evil and then schmoozing up and making large donations directly to the people making those evil decisions. But he's not. If any of his money makes it to them, that's a necessary evil to make sure the little guys get some too.
Basically I think everyone's misinterpreting what is meant when it is said that Activision is evil. That's not a blanket statement. It is implied that the decisions of Activision's management are evil, while many other aspects of the company are not. And as any normal consumer would do, you try to support the good and discourage the bad.
I have absolutely no problems with never buying anything Activision, but at least half of that is because they never make anything that appeals to me.
Given that they ran Guitar Hero into the ground, nor do I anymore.
It's too late to try to claim a moral high ground either way, because doubtless you've bought something from them in the past which very slightly helped put them where they are today.
If you haven't then you're good, you can claim you're better than all of us because you're good at boycotting evil companies.
I have absolutely no problems with never buying anything Activision, but at least half of that is because they never make anything that appeals to me.
Given that they ran Guitar Hero into the ground, nor do I anymore.
It's too late to try to claim a moral high ground either way, because doubtless you've bought something from them in the past which very slightly helped put them where they are today.
If you haven't then you're good, you can claim you're better than all of us because you're good at boycotting evil companies.
I haven't. No Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, nothing this generation. The only Activision game I think I own is Tony Hawk 3 on Gamecube. Would that be before their evil years? If so, I guess I'm downright saintly. ;-)
The point he's making is that he can't support the developers without supporting Activision
Exactly. Disney does a lot of screwed up things but I still love Pixar. There is nothing wrong or incongruous with buying stuff that is awesome and simultaneously criticizing the parent company.
If you swore to never buy anything from a company that does things you disagree with, you'd basically be Amish.
There's nothing specifically wrong with it but if you really have a problem with them, don't support them at all. You just have to deal with it if Raven or FreeStyleGames are somehow hurt in the process (though given it's Activision we're talking about and both developers are owned by them, you could probably justify to yourself that they were fucked either way).
And yeah, like Xagarath I've no problems not buying anything from Activision. I've only got 2 games with Activision logos on them, one is Doom 3 (which I got for an absurdly cheap price) and the other is Call of Duty Classic (which my brother wanted, so I went halves with him).
...
Nintendo sank to a first-half loss, its first in seven years, as a rising yen and long-delayed release of its 3-D gaming machine set the scene for a weak full-year result.
Kyoto-based Nintendo Co., which makes Pokemon and Super Mario video games, said Thursday it posted a 2.01 billion yen ($24.7 million) loss for the six months through September. First-half sales dropped nearly 34 percent to 363.2 billion yen ($4.46 billion).
Nintendo last month shocked the gaming world by announcing its much awaited 3DS, a handheld packed with glasses-free 3-D technology, wouldn't be ready for the year-end shopping season when Nintendo rakes in about two-thirds of its earnings.
It will be released in February in Japan -- missing Christmas and then January, a key sales month because of the New Year's gifts Japanese children get. Releases for Europe and the U.S. will follow in March.
...
Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said the yen's strength against the dollar, which reduces earnings brought back to Japan, drove down first-half sales by 28.1 billion yen ($345 million).
Because of 3DS delay, Nintendo last month slashed its full-year earnings forecast to 90 billion yen ($1 billion) profit from 200 billion yen ($2.4 billion) profit. That would represent a 61 percent plunge in profit from the previous year.
It is expecting full year sales to drop 23.3 percent year-on-year to 1.1 trillion yen ($13.5 billion).
...
The article tries to put some of the blame on the "long-delayed" 3DS, but it looks to me like the Yen-Dollar conversion is the real cause of the lost revenue.
Also, were we "shocked" that the 3DS wasn't coming this holiday? Disappointed perhaps, but I think most of us saw a 2011 release coming.
There's nothing specifically wrong with it but if you really have a problem with them, don't support them at all.
Nope. If you really have a problem with them, do whatever you feel like, because you're not going to be able to make any impact on the company by your individual actions either way. Buy a game to support devs you like, but feel free to criticize the people who own that studio.
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Cripes. And people say that Nintendo is sequel happy.
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
There should be a few more Guitar Heroes, right?
Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009)
Guitar Hero On Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (2009)
So that's 11 or 12. Although, I do get what you're saying.
There's nothing specifically wrong with it but if you really have a problem with them, don't support them at all.
Nope. If you really have a problem with them, do whatever you feel like, because you're not going to be able to make any impact on the company by your individual actions either way. Buy a game to support devs you like, but feel free to criticize the people who own that studio.
Well shit, with that logic who cares about voting? It's not like your individual actions is going to make any real impact on who wins.
There's nothing specifically wrong with it but if you really have a problem with them, don't support them at all.
Nope. If you really have a problem with them, do whatever you feel like, because you're not going to be able to make any impact on the company by your individual actions either way. Buy a game to support devs you like, but feel free to criticize the people who own that studio.
Well shit, with that logic who cares about voting? It's not like your individual actions is going to make any real impact on who wins.
I agree, but note I said "do whatever you feel like."
You don't get to dictate what someone should do, or needs to do, or ought to do. You don't get to feel superior because you "follow the rules" of boycotting something properly if you dislike it. There are no rules. If you think Activision is evil but one of their studios is not, behave as you see fit.
Scott Henson, the new studio manager of Microsoft owned developer Rare, has told MCV that he expects the studio to work exclusively on Kinect-compatible software going forwards.
“Kinect will be the main focus for Rare going forwards as it’s a very rich canvas,” he told MCV. “This is just the beginning of an experience that will touch millions of people.”
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
There should be a few more Guitar Heroes, right?
Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009)
Guitar Hero On Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (2009)
So that's 11 or 12. Although, I do get what you're saying.
Also Rock Band's were more spread out, while Activision clustered their releases in 08 and 09.
...
Nintendo sank to a first-half loss, its first in seven years, as a rising yen and long-delayed release of its 3-D gaming machine set the scene for a weak full-year result.
Kyoto-based Nintendo Co., which makes Pokemon and Super Mario video games, said Thursday it posted a 2.01 billion yen ($24.7 million) loss for the six months through September. First-half sales dropped nearly 34 percent to 363.2 billion yen ($4.46 billion).
Nintendo last month shocked the gaming world by announcing its much awaited 3DS, a handheld packed with glasses-free 3-D technology, wouldn't be ready for the year-end shopping season when Nintendo rakes in about two-thirds of its earnings.
It will be released in February in Japan -- missing Christmas and then January, a key sales month because of the New Year's gifts Japanese children get. Releases for Europe and the U.S. will follow in March.
...
Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said the yen's strength against the dollar, which reduces earnings brought back to Japan, drove down first-half sales by 28.1 billion yen ($345 million).
Because of 3DS delay, Nintendo last month slashed its full-year earnings forecast to 90 billion yen ($1 billion) profit from 200 billion yen ($2.4 billion) profit. That would represent a 61 percent plunge in profit from the previous year.
It is expecting full year sales to drop 23.3 percent year-on-year to 1.1 trillion yen ($13.5 billion).
...
The article tries to put some of the blame on the "long-delayed" 3DS, but it looks to me like the Yen-Dollar conversion is the real cause of the lost revenue.
Also, were we "shocked" that the 3DS wasn't coming this holiday? Disappointed perhaps, but I think most of us saw a 2011 release coming.
I saw this on Engadget and the comments were infuriating. Everyone's calling out Nintendo's decline to being kiddy and not having core games and that they've been sitting back raking in money as if they haven't been working on the next big thing.
Do they not realize (they probably don't) that 1/5 of Nintendo's sales in 2009 were from Nov/Dec? They'll likely do similarly this year. Unless somehow Kinect and Move actually launch well and steal some of those sales.
Obviously going into year 4 sales are going to start declining, plus the Wii hasn't had a price drop in a while, and only recently dropped to $180 iirc. Nintendo isn't playing strongly right now, but they don't really have to either.
And yeah, the yen-dollar conversion is TERRIBLE to them right now.
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
There should be a few more Guitar Heroes, right?
Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009)
Guitar Hero On Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (2009)
So that's 11 or 12. Although, I do get what you're saying.
The difference is that we have yet to have more than 2 mainline Rock Band titles in a year, and never had two full-price Rock Band titles in one year.
Whereas in one year, we had Metallica, Smash Hits, and Guitar Hero 5 and Van Halen all come out in one year. Oh, and Band Hero too (but Activision probably wishes we forgot that one happened)
5 60$, full price music games from Activision last year. They drove the market right into the fucking ground. It was like if you released 5 Halo games or 5 CoD games in one year.
Whereas Rock Band had Lego (a budget title) and Beatles Rock Band. And that was the first year that more than one Rock Band mainline game came out.
Also, you can add Guitar Hero: 80s to the list as it came out right before 3, within a month or so actually.
So yeah. Rock Band is nowhere near Guitar Hero in terms of "stop putting out games, please"
FyreWulff on
0
HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
There should be a few more Guitar Heroes, right?
Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009)
Guitar Hero On Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (2009)
So that's 11 or 12. Although, I do get what you're saying.
Also, don't forget the phone games:
Guitar Hero Mobile (2008)
Guitar Hero 3 Backstage Pass (2008)
Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 Mobile (2009)
It was really the 2008/2009 period that everyone rags on Guitar Hero for. In those two years, three GH games came out for DS, four came out for phones, and five (!) were released on consoles. That's a glut of product.
In that same two-year period, Rock Band released one PSP title, one mobile title, and three console titles. I think everyone agrees that they shouldn't have released Lego Rock Band; if they hadn't, then you would have just had RB2 and Beatles in those two years, which wouldn't have been bad at all.
Edit: I know the speculation is that it's been canned, but wasn't Guitar Hero: Megadeth supposed to be released this year as well?
Hedgethorn on
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
I'm thinking that if it wasn't for contractual obligations, Activision would have cancelled GH: Sammy Who.
It would explain the complete lack of polish for the game.
The entire DLC library can be played in Rock Band 3, and 95% of the songs from the previous disc titles also export and are still playable in Rock Band 3. Even though DLC is over for RB1 and 2, that's still 2000+ DLC songs available.
Or did people expect Rock Band 1 to be supported into eternity?
Up until Rock Band defined it, everyone always assumed music game DLC was specific to that game and exporting the tracks into future versions 3 years later was unheard of.
The entire DLC library can be played in Rock Band 3, and 95% of the songs from the previous disc titles also export and are still playable in Rock Band 3. Even though DLC is over for RB1 and 2, that's still 2000+ DLC songs available.
Or did people expect Rock Band 1 to be supported into eternity?
Up until Rock Band defined it, everyone always assumed music game DLC was specific to that game and exporting the tracks into future versions 3 years later was unheard of.
DLC is done for RB1 and 2?
And yeah, they made it sound like if you bought RB1, you could play all the DLC through the end of this console generation. They almost made it sound like they weren't going to do yearly iterations, though I understand that'd be kinda ridiculous.
It would have been awesome if there was ONLY RB1, 2, and 3 and none of the other junk that's come out. Perhaps disc-only add-ins for stuff like Beatles (impossible, I know, but still) or band packs along with the single-track DLC that's been in steady release, but none of these ridiculous side-games.
It's nice that the DLC is downloadable (mostly) from the other discs, but it'd be nice if they made the tracks downloadable individually from the store too (do they? I haven't really looked myself, but as far as I was aware if it was on a disc it wasn't in the store).
I wish they would make a downloadable digital version of the game with no songs for like $5 or something, and then you can just pay for the DLC songs you buy. That would be cool.
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
There should be a few more Guitar Heroes, right?
Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009)
Guitar Hero On Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (2009)
So that's 11 or 12. Although, I do get what you're saying.
The difference is that we have yet to have more than 2 mainline Rock Band titles in a year, and never had two full-price Rock Band titles in one year.
Whereas in one year, we had Metallica, Smash Hits, and Guitar Hero 5 and Van Halen all come out in one year. Oh, and Band Hero too (but Activision probably wishes we forgot that one happened)
5 60$, full price music games from Activision last year. They drove the market right into the fucking ground. It was like if you released 5 Halo games or 5 CoD games in one year.
Whereas Rock Band had Lego (a budget title) and Beatles Rock Band. And that was the first year that more than one Rock Band mainline game came out.
Also, you can add Guitar Hero: 80s to the list as it came out right before 3, within a month or so actually.
So yeah. Rock Band is nowhere near Guitar Hero in terms of "stop putting out games, please"
No, it's really close actually considering how RB has had just about the same percentage drop in sales year over year.
Xenogears of Bore on
3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
I think that has more to do with general interest in band games just dropping.
Posts
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31168/Report_Zyngas_551B_Valuation_Higher_Than_RetailCentric_EA.php
I guess I was 3 years too early in my prediction from the previous Video Game Industry thread from two weeks ago.
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
I buy Blizzard games to support Blizzard, not Activision :P It's a shame that doing so supports both however
That being said, I don't buy pure Activision games after Guitar Hero 3 sucked so bad. Amd I've never been a Call of Duty fan anyways.
BLIZZARD-ACTIVISION
Coming to a fantasy-world near you.
Honestly I think if Kotick just left the company like at least 80% of the bad shit would go away. Or at least it wouldn't be public as hell. It seems like the majority of the crap spewing from that company is entirely his fault.
This is dumb
Don't be dumb
Plenty of good games come out under Activision, and refusing to buy their product just because they're a shitty company is going to hurt a good developer more than it would hurt a bad publisher.
Singularity and DJ Hero were both awesome IPs published by Activision, and I was more than happy to support Raven and FreeStyle Games.
Activision still sucks and I'm still free to talk shit about them (because they are horrid).
Sorry but you're the one being dumb here Vow. You can't on the one hand wish for a regime change while on the other funnel money into said regime's pockets. Well, you can but your words are pretty hollow, since you're only encouraging said regime to be complete assholes.
Even if I didn't know anything about Activision, I doubt I'd buy any of their games. I've never been a Blizzard fan, only play CoD's single player (so rental), was never interested in the music rhythm genre, got bored of Tony Hawk years ago and their licensed games are almost always of a very low quality (including Spider-Man 2, which had neat swinging mechanics and terrible everything else).
I couldn't have said it better. Don't rob Peter to pay Paul.
Exactly. Disney does a lot of screwed up things but I still love Pixar. There is nothing wrong or incongruous with buying stuff that is awesome and simultaneously criticizing the parent company.
If you swore to never buy anything from a company that does things you disagree with, you'd basically be Amish.
And that's the truth of it, Sporky. If you're looking for a big company that hasn't done some bad things, you're probably out of luck. Activision gets a lot of shit for doing stuff that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have undoubtedly done but don't get called evil for (well, maybe Microsoft does).
While I'm really just playing devil's advocate here, there's something that genuinely bugs me about the hypocrisy of calling Activision "evil" but being unable resist buying their games.
Now, it would be hypocritical if he was calling Activision evil and then schmoozing up and making large donations directly to the people making those evil decisions. But he's not. If any of his money makes it to them, that's a necessary evil to make sure the little guys get some too.
Basically I think everyone's misinterpreting what is meant when it is said that Activision is evil. That's not a blanket statement. It is implied that the decisions of Activision's management are evil, while many other aspects of the company are not. And as any normal consumer would do, you try to support the good and discourage the bad.
If you haven't then you're good, you can claim you're better than all of us because you're good at boycotting evil companies.
I haven't. No Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, nothing this generation. The only Activision game I think I own is Tony Hawk 3 on Gamecube. Would that be before their evil years? If so, I guess I'm downright saintly. ;-)
There's nothing specifically wrong with it but if you really have a problem with them, don't support them at all. You just have to deal with it if Raven or FreeStyleGames are somehow hurt in the process (though given it's Activision we're talking about and both developers are owned by them, you could probably justify to yourself that they were fucked either way).
And yeah, like Xagarath I've no problems not buying anything from Activision. I've only got 2 games with Activision logos on them, one is Doom 3 (which I got for an absurdly cheap price) and the other is Call of Duty Classic (which my brother wanted, so I went halves with him).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nintendo-sinks-into-the-red-apf-2134372074.html?x=0
A few choice quotes...
The article tries to put some of the blame on the "long-delayed" 3DS, but it looks to me like the Yen-Dollar conversion is the real cause of the lost revenue.
Also, were we "shocked" that the 3DS wasn't coming this holiday? Disappointed perhaps, but I think most of us saw a 2011 release coming.
@ShiftyPumpkin on the Twitterings. Book the Faces at [facebook.com/PerceptivePumpkinProductions]
Rock Band (2007)
Rock Band 2 (2008)
Rock Band Unplugged (2009)
The Beatles: Rock Band (2009)
Lego Rock Band (2009)
Green Day: Rock Band (2010)
Rock Band 3 (2010)
7 games in total
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)
Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 (2009)
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010)
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (2008)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009)
Guitar Hero Smash Hits (2009)
7 games, 8 if you include Band Hero.
Why does Activision get so much flak for "running guitar Hero into the ground" when Harmonix are just as much to blame. Activision also never nickel and dimed their customers with DLC either.
also claiming to boycott a company got old in 2008 when the people on this forum were frothing at the mouth at EA buying up the NFL license.
Cripes. And people say that Nintendo is sequel happy.
There should be a few more Guitar Heroes, right?
Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009)
Guitar Hero On Tour (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (2008)
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (2009)
So that's 11 or 12. Although, I do get what you're saying.
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Well shit, with that logic who cares about voting? It's not like your individual actions is going to make any real impact on who wins.
I agree, but note I said "do whatever you feel like."
You don't get to dictate what someone should do, or needs to do, or ought to do. You don't get to feel superior because you "follow the rules" of boycotting something properly if you dislike it. There are no rules. If you think Activision is evil but one of their studios is not, behave as you see fit.
Sadface times 47.
Also Rock Band's were more spread out, while Activision clustered their releases in 08 and 09.
I saw this on Engadget and the comments were infuriating. Everyone's calling out Nintendo's decline to being kiddy and not having core games and that they've been sitting back raking in money as if they haven't been working on the next big thing.
Do they not realize (they probably don't) that 1/5 of Nintendo's sales in 2009 were from Nov/Dec? They'll likely do similarly this year. Unless somehow Kinect and Move actually launch well and steal some of those sales.
Obviously going into year 4 sales are going to start declining, plus the Wii hasn't had a price drop in a while, and only recently dropped to $180 iirc. Nintendo isn't playing strongly right now, but they don't really have to either.
And yeah, the yen-dollar conversion is TERRIBLE to them right now.
The difference is that we have yet to have more than 2 mainline Rock Band titles in a year, and never had two full-price Rock Band titles in one year.
Whereas in one year, we had Metallica, Smash Hits, and Guitar Hero 5 and Van Halen all come out in one year. Oh, and Band Hero too (but Activision probably wishes we forgot that one happened)
5 60$, full price music games from Activision last year. They drove the market right into the fucking ground. It was like if you released 5 Halo games or 5 CoD games in one year.
Whereas Rock Band had Lego (a budget title) and Beatles Rock Band. And that was the first year that more than one Rock Band mainline game came out.
Also, you can add Guitar Hero: 80s to the list as it came out right before 3, within a month or so actually.
So yeah. Rock Band is nowhere near Guitar Hero in terms of "stop putting out games, please"
Also, don't forget the phone games:
Guitar Hero Mobile (2008)
Guitar Hero 3 Backstage Pass (2008)
Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile (2008)
Guitar Hero 5 Mobile (2009)
It was really the 2008/2009 period that everyone rags on Guitar Hero for. In those two years, three GH games came out for DS, four came out for phones, and five (!) were released on consoles. That's a glut of product.
In that same two-year period, Rock Band released one PSP title, one mobile title, and three console titles. I think everyone agrees that they shouldn't have released Lego Rock Band; if they hadn't, then you would have just had RB2 and Beatles in those two years, which wouldn't have been bad at all.
Edit: I know the speculation is that it's been canned, but wasn't Guitar Hero: Megadeth supposed to be released this year as well?
It would explain the complete lack of polish for the game.
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The entire DLC library can be played in Rock Band 3, and 95% of the songs from the previous disc titles also export and are still playable in Rock Band 3. Even though DLC is over for RB1 and 2, that's still 2000+ DLC songs available.
Or did people expect Rock Band 1 to be supported into eternity?
Up until Rock Band defined it, everyone always assumed music game DLC was specific to that game and exporting the tracks into future versions 3 years later was unheard of.
DLC is done for RB1 and 2?
And yeah, they made it sound like if you bought RB1, you could play all the DLC through the end of this console generation. They almost made it sound like they weren't going to do yearly iterations, though I understand that'd be kinda ridiculous.
It would have been awesome if there was ONLY RB1, 2, and 3 and none of the other junk that's come out. Perhaps disc-only add-ins for stuff like Beatles (impossible, I know, but still) or band packs along with the single-track DLC that's been in steady release, but none of these ridiculous side-games.
It's nice that the DLC is downloadable (mostly) from the other discs, but it'd be nice if they made the tracks downloadable individually from the store too (do they? I haven't really looked myself, but as far as I was aware if it was on a disc it wasn't in the store).
I wish they would make a downloadable digital version of the game with no songs for like $5 or something, and then you can just pay for the DLC songs you buy. That would be cool.
No, it's really close actually considering how RB has had just about the same percentage drop in sales year over year.
It's out of the fad phase and all that.
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They expected them to pull a Dreamcast?
Here's the 3DS, and it's in stores, NOW! Go, go, run out and buy one! It's amazing!
o_O