Why Activision is the most stupid game company on the planet.

Controversial! Yes, I know the title sounds like I am nuts. Let me give some facts as to why I have come to this very accurate and dangerous conclusion:

REASON #1: Activision is primarily a publishing company, but they are in denial. There aren't many games these days that are made in house by Activision. Most of the time, one of their developing partners will make the game and they will publish it. Unfortunately, Activision apparently does not know this themselves. They still feel that they have a big developer influence. There is a balance between developer and publisher. Publishers do NOT make the game. They plan advertising and marketing. This is important, but it isn't game development. Activision continues to try and influence developers into making a game that they would prefer. This is ridiculous. It cramps up developers from getting their jobs done and it prevents creativeness. For example, the great developer Infinity Ward, known for the first few Medal of Honors and of course the Modern Warfare series, is a partner with Activision. They keep relative distance from the publisher in terms of influence, which is a good thing. This keeps them from being tied down by things such as marketing and release date, which in turn actually makes them more able to push out a game every 2 years. Now look at a company like Neversoft. Tony Hawk was a successful franchise until EA's heavyweight Skate came out. An obvious influence came upon Neversoft to push a game out every year, and they just continued to get worse and worse to the point where the Tony Hawk franchise was taken away from them and put into the hands of Robomodo, who are now making Tony Hawk Ride (which I'll get to later). Neversoft is a good company. Developers can't make games every year and make each game quality.

REASON #2: Activision seems to think gamers need a peripheral every second. Why in the world does every game need to have a plastic thing to go with it? In a game such as Guitar Hero, this makes sense. You need that plastic guitar. That is the controller. It makes sense because the game is meant for that. But every Guitar Hero now has a completely different set of instruments. No one needs to buy a new instrument set every year. I bought Rock Band 2 years ago. I love music games. That is all I need, though. I don't need a new instrument set every year. My old one works fine. It is understandable that some people like the new instruments, and that is great. Sell the instrument seperately, and don't uprgrade them every time a new game comes out. Put them on a different development cycle, not related to the game. It is ridiculous that Guitar Hero 4 and Guitar Hero 5 drums look THE SAME because they are THE SAME. Activision apparently finds this to be a solution to bad games, too. They take Tony Hawk away for 2 years, just to come back with what looks to be the same Tony Hawk, except there is now a skateboard peripheral. Does this enhance the gameplay, or is it just something that is supposed to be cool due to its peripheral?

REASON #3: Activision has one hell of a big mouth. This company has a big ego, and thinks that they can say or do whatever they want in the industry. None of the things they do say are constructive either. Over the last 5 years Activision has been trying to raise the RRP (Registered Retail Price) of video games higher and higher. This goes along with their peripheral obsession. In England, Modern Warfare 2 currently has a RRP of £54.99, which converts to about $80.00 in America. $30 over RRP. There is no explanation for this either. Modern Warfare 2 has no peripheral attached to it (excluding the ridiculous Prestige edition of MW2, which has night vision goggles. Look, another plastic thing!). It is just a regular game, and they want to pump up the price $30? Trying to push the RRP of one game sets off other game publishers into pumping up their RRP for their games to keep up with competition and sales. Activision also thinks in can intimidate people. Activision's current president, Bobby Kotick, stated that "if we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony. When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console [PS3]." This of course created a stir. Activision, one of the richest game companies out there was not going to support Sony unless they drop the price. Basically, Sony's CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, stated this was crap. Activision was trying to intimidate Sony into dropping the PS3 price so Activision could sell more games on the PS3. Ridiculous.

SOLUTIONS! Here is my solutions for Activisions troubles. First, stop trying to be a development and a publishing company. Activision has so much more success in publishing and so much support from developers link Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Vicarious Visions, Bizarre Creations, Neversoft, and Blizzard that they do not have to even think about in house development. Secondly, be more like EA. EA is Activisions #1 competitor, and EA is winning. This is because EA is getting more support from developers and shying away from creating any new IP's by themselves. EA also has an entire section of the company (EA Partners) dedicated to the support of their development companies. Lastly, settle down a bit. Activision with its flaws has pushed out some great games. Now that they have a partnership with Blizzard, start thinking about creating and publishing good games. There is no need to intimidate anyone or raise prices. Activision is the top US publisher to date. They have no problems with money. There is no need to push RRP up, sell useless and stupid peripherals, and intimidate bigger companies.

There's my rant for the day. Enjoy and comment...