Kotick Admits Activision's Spider-Man Games "Sucked"
Activision boss Bobby Kotick thinks that the publishing hulk could stand to learn a thing or two from its Blizzard fork in terms of quality control.
Bobby Kotick has become the bogeyman of the games industry these days. On that point's nary one man that gamers love to hatred much (unusual than Thompson, J. Beaver State Atkinson, M. of course), which is interesting because he's also undoubtedly one of the most powerful figures in gaming right now. But it seems that you can't turn a box without gamers and press alike blaming him for all single wrong in the industry from the lack of holy servers in Modern Warfare 2 to, I don't know, killing babies in Dante's The pits.
Which is wherefore information technology's interesting that the guy comes unsatisfactory so… well, reasonably in the feature interview in the latest Game Informer. There's some interesting stuff in there, from his experience addicted to Sierra games in college to his enamor into the industry in the '80s, but as wel happening more relevant stuff, like Kotick's thoughts on franchises, the value of new Information processing, etc. This same question has generated news already, from the existence of a original DJ Hero, to a prediction about PC developer Rash that went precise, real wrong.
It's actually speaking all but the Blizzard branch of the Activision-Vivendi merger where we hear one of the virtually frank admissions of demerit from Kotick in quite some time. In relating an anecdote about incomparable of the first conjoint management presentations between his folks and Snowstorm's, Kotick recalled how Microphone Morhaime, Alice Paul Sams and Rob Pardo were stunned aside Activision producers behind movie games and kid-concentrated games WHO were shot for Metacritic dozens around the 75-80% swan.
Their reaction, says Kotick, was basically "Why would you ever target an 80-rated gritty?" The producers answered that, since they saw most game reviewers A having biases against kid games and movie games and grading them down in turn, an 80 was "a good rating for a kid's gamy operating room a movie game."
"I remember walk out of the meeting saying, 'Wherefore would we make an 80 rated game?' Even adjusting for music genre. … I was thinking that when we did the great Wanderer-Man PlayStation game, we got a 95 rating. You can make a great game. Our Spider-Man games have sucked for the finish five age. They are bad games. They were ill rated because they were bad games."
"If you put on't do web-slinging right, what is the fantasy of Spider-Man? But I think that was ane of those wake-up calls."
The five games in question, American Samoa noted aside D'toid, are Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Wanderer-Man 3, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, Spider-Man: Battle for New York, and Ultimate Spider-Humankind. (If you count from 2009 or 2010, this might also let in 2004's Wanderer-Mankin 2, as well).
It's smooth a identical frank statement from a man infamous for his headache with the bottom line, and to be honest, information technology's a trifle refreshing. It would likewise be genuinely rather ironic (and amusing) if this were evidence of a newfound commitment to quality from Activision even as every the rest on of the major publishers start swinging rear in the opposite direction from their fugitive gaming Rebirth.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/kotick-admits-activisions-spider-man-games-sucked/
Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/kotick-admits-activisions-spider-man-games-sucked/