Kotick says firing West/Zampella was 'easy',

by **robometal cowboy** » 16 Dec 2012 20:38

Kotick says firing West/Zampella was 'easy',
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"You find out two executives are planning to break their contracts, keep the money you gave them and steal 40 employees. What do you do? You fire them." - Activision CEO Bobby Kotick

Kotick also talked a bit about not turning Call of Duty into a movie franchise. He feels that game-to-movie adaptations rarely work out, which would end up hurting the Call of Duty brand in the long-run.

Link

by **LinkMaster111** » 16 Dec 2012 20:42

Do you know what hurts Call of Duty in the long-run? Releasing the same bad game every year.

by **The_Dude1212** » 16 Dec 2012 20:44

I'll be the devil's advocate here, that's the sensible thing to do. From that perspective, kinda seems like a dick move from West and Zampella.

And at least he had the foresight not to make a pseudo-historical war movie based on video games instead of, you know, real wars.

I can only imagine the s***storm that would've went down.

by **CrispyGoomba** » 16 Dec 2012 20:56

@LinkMaster111 Seems to be working for them

by **amir_zwara** » 16 Dec 2012 21:09

@crispygoomba, agreed.

by **Swedish_Otaku** » 16 Dec 2012 21:15

Who the hell gave this minus...es?

by **Autosaver** » 16 Dec 2012 21:27

What happened to the lawsuit anyways?

by **amir_zwara** » 16 Dec 2012 21:29

@swedish_otaku, this is a nintendo fan site... Just mention cod, pachter, ea, halo, angry birds, or basically anything that is not all pro nintendo... And watch the minuses roll in. something about flock mentality ya know...

by **Darth Vader** » 16 Dec 2012 21:31

LinkMaster111 wrote:Do you know what hurts Call of Duty in the long-run? Releasing the same bad game every year.

Modern Warfare 2 was the only bad Call of Duty game since Modern Warfare, IMO. A gameplay style can grow stagnant without necessarily being bad

by **CorusFace** » 16 Dec 2012 21:39

why do people hate cod so blindly and devotedly? i actually enjoy the latest one (on wii u, of course). i would highly recommend it.

by **HammerGalladeBro** » 16 Dec 2012 21:43

I thought COD movies already existed, albeit with different names, unless he meant something with zombie nazis and whatnot.

by **Berrix** » 16 Dec 2012 21:44

amir_zwara wrote:@swedish_otaku, this is a nintendo fan site... Just mention cod, pachter, ea, halo, angry birds, or basically anything that is not all pro nintendo... And watch the minuses roll in. something about flock mentality ya know...

Knowing Bobby from a more... Personal level, I"ll minus anything he spouts considering how I know and what I had to deal with from him before.

But -- Regardless of my hate for him as a person, his firing of the other two was a logical move for what they planned on doing. Which comes to me as a surprise. But we're not going there,

by **internet** » 16 Dec 2012 21:49

i'm surprise he said that , i thought that would be against the very lucrative agreements they ended up make . I mean i don't like cod , although best fps on wii (pointer, coop online) , but if they agreed to pay those crazy amounts for the top 20 , they had to . And his decision was logical . As for the others guys , it was also , at the end of the day , those sums were huge so who cares if their next studio fails , it's ea that's going to pay anyway .
It's the reality of western gaming , at the right place at the right time , the amount of money is just too good to pass up . I wish the games were as exciting as those paychecks .

by **nGen** » 16 Dec 2012 21:50

Kotick better hope whatever game Respawn is working on doesn't annihilate COD when it comes out.

by **motherbra1n** » 16 Dec 2012 21:51

@HammerGalladeBro

just go watch a michael bay movie it's the same sort of crap

@amir_zwara

for a start everyone hates EA, if they don't they don't know enough about EA to hate them, secondly there is more COD hatred on other consoles than from nintendo fans, we simply agree with them, same thing with angry birds and kotick.

@nGen

sadly it most likely won't

by **zeeroid** » 16 Dec 2012 22:25

by **younghavok** » 16 Dec 2012 22:28

imo treyarch made the better CoD games anyway. WaW, Blops and Blops 2 are the best of the current gen CoD titles. On the topic though, I agree with Kotick for this. Thats a shady move on their part, they belong with EA

by **Totodile** » 16 Dec 2012 22:55

I was just thinking the other day we haven't heard from Bobby in a while.

by **patjuan32** » 16 Dec 2012 23:27

amir_zwara wrote:@swedish_otaku, this is a nintendo fan site... Just mention cod, pachter, ea, halo, angry birds, or basically anything that is not all pro nintendo... And watch the minuses roll in. something about flock mentality ya know...

Your comments show that you know nothing about this site or Nintendo fans. Maybe you should visit sites like IGN where they repeated slam COD, EA, Angry Birds, and anything Nintendo related. Also Pachter's comments can not be defended by anyone. He suffers from not knowing the industry he's chosen to represent.

by **mariomaniac45213** » 16 Dec 2012 23:49

@Darth Vader

Apparently you didn't play the terrible MW3 (not the campaign I don't play COD campaign but the terrible multiplayer).

@younghavok

Agreed!

by **kernal** » 17 Dec 2012 00:41

well, honestly, that makes sense.

by **Darth Vader** » 17 Dec 2012 01:38

mariomaniac45213 wrote:@Darth Vader

Apparently you didn't play the terrible MW3 (not the campaign I don't play COD campaign but the terrible multiplayer).

It was kind of boilerplate but at least the map design was solid. I hated MW2 and the horrible maps were most of the reason.

by **Einar1025** » 17 Dec 2012 02:08

Darth Vader wrote:
mariomaniac45213 wrote:@Darth Vader

Apparently you didn't play the terrible MW3 (not the campaign I don't play COD campaign but the terrible multiplayer).

It was kind of boilerplate but at least the map design was solid. I hated MW2 and the horrible maps were most of the reason.

Agreed, I hated MW2. Every time my brother made me play I loathed that game. Black ops 2 is almost as bad... Though the campaign for it was really good IMO.

by **AmicableWalrus** » 17 Dec 2012 10:38

I wouldn't take Kotick's word about this as gospel. Information released before the settlement suggested that Activision never intended to honor West and Zampella's very lucrative contract and were planning to dig up a firing offense so they wouldn't have to pay. There's a middle ground in all of this and we certainly haven't seen the entire picture of what really happened.

by **thegreatscp** » 17 Dec 2012 11:53

The case was settled... there was wrong-doing on both sides. West/Zampella were secretly in contact with EA about jumping ship, and Activision found out and threw them out of the office, refusing to pay them their promised bonuses.

West/Zampella shouldn't have been secretly in talks with Activision's single-biggest competitor, and Activision shouldn't have withheld their bonuses which they were undeniably due.