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Bobby Kotick has talked to Phil Spencer about Guitar Hero, Skylanders and Candy Crush

Bullet Club

Member
BoKo talks about those games in an interview with Venture Beat.

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Kotick:

You look at all the opportunities that we get with a company like Microsoft. I’ll give you one great example. Phil and I started riffing on things for the future. I’ll give you three that are really compelling. I wanted to make a new Guitar Hero for a while, but I don’t want to add teams to do manufacturing and supply chain and QA for manufacturing. And the chip shortages are enormous.

We didn’t really have the ability to do that. I had a really cool vision for what the next Guitar Hero would be, and realized we don’t have the resources to do that. And Skylanders too. One of the great disappointments of my career is that other people came in and they came out with crappy alternatives. And they dumped all of these crappy alternatives in the market, and basically destroyed the market for what was a really cool future opportunity. If you look at Skylanders, with its hardware and manufacturing and supply chain, there are the same kinds of things that we can’t do but Microsoft can.

And in these conversations I was sharing my frustration about not having enough social capability in Candy Crush. I really want to be able to have a Candy Crush experience where players can play games against each other. And they can socialize. And they can have voice over IP and video over IP.

That’s a more social game, but it’s rooted in being able to play the game against another person or other people. There is nothing but opportunity for the kinds of things that we can’t do on our own, and the resources that they have for us to just make a difference.

 

nush

Gold Member
I wanted to make a new Guitar Hero for a while, but I don’t want to add teams to do manufacturing and supply chain and QA for manufacturing. And the chip shortages are enormous.

We didn’t really have the ability to do that. I had a really cool vision for what the next Guitar Hero would be, and realized we don’t have the resources to do that. And Skylanders too.

That's because you shitcanned the whole team you had to do that Bobby. GH stopped making money because you flooded the market to make a quick buck. franchise life be damned and the last time you brought it back is was a microtransactioned filled mess with fucking shitty hardware (Because you shitcanned the team that made quality hardware).
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Skylanders... Good old physical DLC, these days it's only Nintendo left in the game... can't find what should be £15 figure with some sort of feature locked behind it like fast travel? Too bad they will be £45+ from scalpers LOOOOOOOOOL.

God I hope it stays dead.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
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animation 2d GIF by Jake
 

Three

Member
I really want to be able to have a Candy Crush experience where players can play games against each other. And they can socialize. And they can have voice over IP and video over IP.

Um, don't you already do this for your other games?
 

JLB

Banned
Who cares what this sleezeball has to say? Nothing coming out of his mouth is genuine.

He doesn’t give a shit about making any of those games better

I guess that if Kotick is for whatever reason reading your message, he might be thinking the exact same thing about you.
 

Ellery

Member
In our minds acquisitions like this always ignite the most optimistic future of new Starcraft games, World of Warcraft being great again, a possible Warcraft 4 in the not too distant future and all other kind of old forgotten IPs being revived and being brought back to glory, but the reality often differs from that and others things will get a priority like those mainstream and mobile games being mentioned here and also Microsoft doing this for the metaverse.

Still hoping Phil can kick Blizzard in the butt, but I doubt that Mike Morhaime, Chris Metzen, Rob Pardo, Dustin Browder etc. would come back or that anyone currently at Blizzard could replace those influential figureheads of a Blizzard that once was.

But alas nothing was worse than the downhill slope Blizzard was on for the past 10 or so years.
 
^ Well found arvfab, I hadn't read that.

Bobby Kottick: other people came in and they came out with crappy alternatives. And they dumped all of these crappy alternatives in the market, and basically destroyed the market
So he's saying that it wasn't Activision under his watch who destroyed the Guitar Hero market but instead that Rock Band did it? And that the Tony Hawk market was screwed by EA's Skate?

Good thing CoD still sells because EA's Battlefield would be at fault.

Boddy Kottick: "It wasn't me"
Regarding everything (including sexual harassment allegations, I guess)
 

BigBooper

Member
We got a lot of toys to life fans on gaf? A new Guitar Hero would be awesome. Imagine if that was exclusive. I don't think it'd make it a better game or anything, but people have been hungry for a new music game and there's seemingly no activity in developing Rock Band or something. Rocksmith turned into just a learning tool pretty much.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Well To me, those three games ships have sailed. Those are the least attractive games going forward. GH had it's time about 10 years ago. Skylanders, toys to life games are not popular at all anymore and Candy Crush was big years ago and it's mobile.
 

nush

Gold Member
LOL.

The idea that a $69 billion company can't do the things he's discussing is patently absurd. They just chose not to because they're not as profitable as their other IP.

They already did it for way less back in the day.

"In May 2006, video game publisher Activision announced plans to acquire RedOctane, completing the deal on June 6, 2006. Activision reportedly paid RedOctane $ 99.9 million in cash and common stock in the acquisition."

This went from WTF "Worst deal evah" reaction, to holy fucking shit best deal ever in just over a year.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
That sleezeball is extremely good at what he does. So yes, you can think on a personal level he is a PoS, but when it comes to business (and videogames are business, news at 11) you should listen to him. In an industry with a competition so fierce Activision is the largest 3rd party publisher: https://www.alltopeverything.com/top-10-biggest-video-game-companies/
He's good at maximizing profits, but that's not very interesting unless you own Activision stock. Most of us would rather see a more diverse portfolio of good games, rather than an efficient factory of a single consistently profitable bland cookie cutter IP that gets mediocre reviews and disappoints fans.
 
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