These boots were made for walking

When someone acquires a business, usually through sale but not always, part of the value of the property in the transaction is “good will.”  Basically this accounts for the value of the business beyond its physical assets.   Now some of you may say at this point “what has that got to do with anything?”  Well, when you are in the same business as Activision that is a very, VERY large part of their value.  That is why, of course, they were so keen to protect the intangible assets that constitutes Infinity Ward.  The problem is, of course, that the value of Infinity Ward goes far beyond Intellectual Property (IP).  To be blunt, no matter how good an IP may be, without the proper talent to carry it forward, as grand dad would have said, “it isn’t worth a tinker’s damn”.  And there, as the immortal bard put it, “lays the rub.”  Without the talent that made the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series great all you have is the equivalent of the proverbial “dumb blond”…

…she may look good for awhile. She may be fun to have on a date the first few times, but once you have had a bit of fun she is going to one boring individual to be around.

Think of it as the problems that has beset one corner of the produce industry (huh?). Yes, another tangent.  For some time now, those growers who produce the “red delicious” apple where so concerned about the way it looks that they began to ignore the way it tastes.  So what you ended up with was something that was all polish and no substance.  Start to ring a bell now does it?  Activision may be famous for putting polish on their products but no amount of polish will make up for a lack of substance.  Now mind you I am not saying the Call of Duty series lacks substance. Far from it – not after $1 Billion in sales.

But as Bobby Kotick et al may be finding out these days, while you can acquire a business, that doesn’t mean you acquire all the talent that goes with it and in this business that is a very large part of the value (see the term “good will”).  After all, that nonsense went out with the emancipation proclamation.

The news feed this morning contained word that two more Infinity Ward employees have left the company, bringing the total to six.  Perhaps not to shocking on the face of it, but when those two happen to be programmer Jon Shiring and lead designer Mackey McCandlish it’s worth taking some note.  When the six names of departed employees also include lead designer Todd Alderman and lead software engineer Francesco Gigliott  it just might be time for Activision to start looking for a ladder to start climbing down off its pedestal.  If the litigation between Activision and messers West and Zampella do not resolve in Activisions favor, and do resolve in the full light of day without the words “out of court settlement” then Activision may end up with so much egg on its face that it would take a bucket of cleanser so large that it would float the aircraft carrier Nimitiz to clean up its reputation.  

In the mean time it might behoove Bobby Kotick to begin pondering how many boots over at Infinity Ward are made for walking.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

(posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster)