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Seriously, Why would Activision drop Ghostbusters
BrotherVoodoo
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
First off, let me say I am completely impartial. I fucking love ghostbusters.
However, so does nearly everyone you run into. People love the flicks, the cartoons, the action figures. It's a great property.
2nd, this isn't some bootleg third world developer with crappy voice talent.
It's got the originals, and it's got writing by the originals too. Obviously Aykroyd and Ramis haven't been on huge hot streaks lately, but they're still capable. Plus they roped in Murray.
I just can not for the life of me see how this game could not do ridiculously well, unless it is really bad. We're talking like atrocious bad, I mean, I think if it's playable and gets semi decent reviews it'll be pretty great. I'm not saying it's gonna be Call of Duty/Gears of War/Halo 3 type shit, but I place it's chances of failure quite low.
Anyone else shocked that Activision would drop such a property, especially considering it seems ripe for sequels and with a supposed movie coming out in a few years time, another game and a great tie-in?
However, so does nearly everyone you run into. People love the flicks, the cartoons, the action figures. It's a great property.
2nd, this isn't some bootleg third world developer with crappy voice talent.
It's got the originals, and it's got writing by the originals too. Obviously Aykroyd and Ramis haven't been on huge hot streaks lately, but they're still capable. Plus they roped in Murray.
I just can not for the life of me see how this game could not do ridiculously well, unless it is really bad. We're talking like atrocious bad, I mean, I think if it's playable and gets semi decent reviews it'll be pretty great. I'm not saying it's gonna be Call of Duty/Gears of War/Halo 3 type shit, but I place it's chances of failure quite low.
Anyone else shocked that Activision would drop such a property, especially considering it seems ripe for sequels and with a supposed movie coming out in a few years time, another game and a great tie-in?
BrotherVoodoo on
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Their words, not mine.
....Really? They just came out and said it and didn't even give a shit?
Anyway, Activision dropped all the stuff Hahnsoo1 mentioned because they bought Vivendi pretty much purely for Blizzard's stuff, then dumped everything else it was publishing. Activision's reasoning, which I swear I'm not making up, is that they only want to publish titles that are guaranteed to sell bazillions and can make sequel after sequel. Which Ghostbusters, 50 Cent and Brutal Legend apparently couldn't, even if they'd pretty much make a guaranteed profit anyway since they were all largely complete already.
Yeah, it was massively dumb, just like Activision's plan to release at least one new Guitar Hero game a month from here on out. I'm not making that up either.
Activision's business plan is insane.
Edit: Yes, Jebral, they really said that.
Sure you could.
ENTRANCE THE GHOSTS WITH YOUR ROCKIN' RIFFS WWEEEOOOWWWWW
How old is this? That's a 2007 comic.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
At least they were honest.
edit: adding the other two definitions just for fun. :P
It is still fun (and appropriate) to quote it out of context.
Yeah, I know it's old. But as if I wasn't really excited before, seeing all of the coverage makes me think it will be a very polished, very well done game. So the surprise is still there. Plus I just wanted to make the post now since I forgot too 8-10 months ago.
It just seems to me Activison, despite putting out some top notch quality games is making incredibly stupid business decisions. I mean, guitar hero, call of duty and tony hawk were all original ideas at one point, that's what really helped them get back into top form (I know they bought the guitar hero franchise but I digress) but it just seems odd to ditch part of the formula that was working.
It was the other way around. Vivendi bought out Activision.
They didn't drop ALL of Vivendi/Sierra's games, they still kept Prototype, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. So get prepared for Prototype 2 next year and then Prototype: Mars and Prototype: Crusades.
SPI: Technically yeah, they did. And then Vivendi merged Sierra into Activision, who then proceeded to get rid of nearly everything Sierra was developing.
Personally, I like the way things have turned out. Atari picked up Ghostbusters and Chronicles of Riddick, EA picked up Brutal Legend, Ubisoft picked up Massive Entertainment and World in Conflict and Codemasters picked up Swordfish Studios. All of them are far more likeable than Activision, even Atari, who seem to be pulling themselves out of the gutter.
From a business standpoint, it's absolute gold for the short term.
Problem is, when you're shitting out sequels at the rate of 1 per month, people are eventually going to get tired of them and stop buying them. And when you've sold off/completely ignored other games solely for the fact that they could not be "exploited", you've got nothing else to release to recoup your losses.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The short term is already over. If Activision is still making money it's because of WoW only.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Nope, Square Enix are the ones that are buying out Eidos (who still own Tomb Raider).
Infogrames (who own Atari) just restructured themselves last year, so we may not see the results of that for a little while longer. I'm interested in seeing what they do though.
lowlylowlycook: Don't be ridiculous. Guitar Hero sales may be falling but they still sell millions of units and that isn't even including DLC. They've got Call of Duty too.
It's not clear cut and I'm no accountant, but last quarter they lost money according to normal accounting rules (GAAP) but made a little money with some changes involving deferred revenue they were mildly profitable. That deferred revenue seems to be WoW related or perhaps even mostly having to do with WotLK.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
and this switch happened exactly when Activision beat EA as #1 selling publisher, yes.
I don't see how Brutal Legend couldn't be whored out.
Hell.
There could have been a Brutal Legend Guitar Hero crossover game.
Activision still releases good games that aren't "Sports n+1" every year. Not that I dislike FIFA or NHL or anything but that's the only thing they do that fits my taste anyway. I would never in the life of me buy a FIFA game every year though because seriously they don't fix those games up enough to justify it as a brand new game to me.
So EA is still the devil.
Right, because sports games are the only thing EA ever does.
That's because some developers have to make a deal with the devil (be it Activision-Blizzard or EA) in order to see widespread release and gain some form of marketting support. Most of the "good" games that I see coming out of either AB or EA are strictly in the form of a developer-distributor relationship. The games that come from in house, with the exception of Blizzard, all tend to generally suck. I think that's why EA does so many sports games. You don't have to be creative, you just have to put together decent mechanics and license the content from *insert sporting league here*.
You didn't like Dead Space or Mirror's Edge?
Or Henry Hatsworth?
Also, Battlefield: Bad Company
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
EA made some serious changes once they got that new CEO and those changes trickled down from using EA sports to fund EA sports and pocketing extra, to using EA sports to fund EA sports and fund some "new" games, and pocketing extra.
I'm sure there's more to be said but it's probably beating a dead horse.
EA isn't pocketing anything. They are losing money big time. Unlike Activision there is no ambiguity in this case.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
That idea is beyond awesome.
to the max.
Then again, Activision's strategy caused them to somehow lose money over Christmas, despite the release of Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and WoW stuff.
You'd have to be blind or living in a cave to ignore how much EA has changed over the last couple of years. There's a reason why a lot of independant companies (like Valve and id software) are shacking up with EA, some of which (including Valve and id) left Vivendi or Activision.
Activision, meanwhile, pumps out Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk games every year (more than 1 a year in Guitar Hero's case).
lowlylowlycook: I'm going to guess those were restructuring costs. There's no way Guitar Hero wasn't profitable, or Call of Duty: World at War.
Btw, Burnout Paradise mofos.
Actually their revenue is higher than ever. The problem that all of these companies have is that costs are out of control, especially for PS360 games. It really has nothing to do with the recession.
Unco-ordinated: Maybe when the annual reports start hitting I'll put together a big thread on industry financials. But to my (limited) knowledge, there were no large charges at Activision, certainly in explaining their loss the execs didn't mention anything like that.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)