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)

It’s hard to imagine that anyone who reads this web site (there are some of you out there we can hear you breathing) hasn’t heard of all that has transpired between Activision and the two former heads of Infinity Ward Jason West and Vince Zampella.  For those of you who have not heard of the suits, and counter suits that began with lengthy interogations and the seizure of computers by Activision (or at least the attempt) you can catch up with it all here in a source that comes to us via Scott Jennings Broken Toys Website with an analysis by of the legal proceedings here.  The claim by Activision studios is that “”West and Zampella’s misdeeds formed an unlawful pattern and practice of conduct that was designed to steal the [Infinity Ward] studio”.  The counter claim by messers West and Zampella is that Activision fired them as a way to deprive them of royalties earned from the sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

West and Zampella, apparently not to the surprise of Activision, have gone on to create the aptly named  Respawn Entertainment and have signed a deal with Electronic Arts.  In an article over at Arstechnica.com available here  Vince Zampella had this to say:

“Respawn Entertainment marks a fresh start for Jason and me,” said Vince Zampella, General Manager of Respawn Entertainment. “For the past decade we led a great development team and poured our hearts into creating an epic game franchise. We’re very proud of what we built—and proud that so many millions of fans enjoyed those games. Today we hope to do it all over again—open a new studio, hire a great team, and create brand new games with a new partner, EA.”

The right or wrong of it will of course, be decided by the California court system.  The response from Activision, cited in the La Times Business section noted above, is as follows:

“West and Zampella’s misdeeds formed an unlawful pattern and practice of conduct that was designed to steal the [Infinity Ward] studio, which is one of Activision’s most valuable assets — at the expense of Activision and its shareholders and for their own personal financial gain.”

Activision was  quoted as saying, “We look forward to continuing to work with Infinity Ward’s deep bench of proven talent on exciting new projects”.  Of course, there is little doubt that there is alot of talent over at what is left of Infinity Ward.  Still, Activision is starting to look like a guy who hires someone to go on a date with him at a restaurant  where he knows he will see his ex-girlfriend, so the ex will know “I am doing just fine without you.”

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick once said he would raise the price on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (which has already exceeded the $1 Billion sales mark) “if he could”. Now, if the article over at Arstechnica (available here ) is correct, we may see subscription fees for the Call of Duty Franchise soon, as Kotick is quoted as saying, “If you think about the success we’ve had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise”. No matter how the litigation turns out, right or wrong, Activision comes off a lot like the Gordon Gekko character in the movie Wall Street of whom Bud Fox asks “How many yachts can you water ski behind?” There are, of course, enormous sums of money involved. And considering we live in a society where there are businessmen would sell their mothers into prostitution for an extra dollar, the whole thing is starting to sound like the days of our childhood when “Oh ya? Well your mother wears army boots!” would have been shouted across the playground.  Now that I am older, hopefully wiser, and also a veteran my answer (where the claim actually true) would of course be…

Damn straight she does!

See you online

Julie Whitefeather

(posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster)

 The cartoon below is something that our own Fran put together early, early this morning. She saw it at breakfast and knew she just had to whip up a parody version.

Are they listening?

 As we have said all along, we desperately wanted Warhammer Online to succeed, after all, Julie is a fan of the tabletop version from way back.  It seems if you are Electronic Arts and you consider all that has transpired with what used to be our favorite game you decide to “cut bait” – or at least slowly whittle away at it.  It could be that some of the parties involved had a bad case of what our mothers used to call “selective hearing.” 

 But not all the “big guys” react in the same way when things go a bit sour. 

If you are the 800 pound Activision/Blizzard gorilla you simply stick your fingers in your ears and say “WE CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

 Now we will be the first to admit that the NPNM team are not fans of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games. As a result, when the news feeds came across our desks we tended to give them only a passing notice. So we would like to take a moment to thank a reader/commenter who goes by the name “McDonagh” for bring the matter to our attention.

 It seems that there is more violence in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 than some people would like in their games. Here is an excerpt about the part of the game that has raised more than a bit of a ruckas:

 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the latest in a series of ultra-realistic first-person war games, the last of which won a Bafta earlier this year for its story and character development. In the course of the ten hours or so the game will take to complete in solo mode, the player will assume a variety of roles in a global war against Russian ultranationalists led by Vladimir Makarov.

“Like many war-themed titles, the game – set five years in the future – features bloody conflict throughout, but Modern Warfare 2 is so harrowingly realistic at some points that an on-screen warning offers players the option to skip scenes they may find disturbing…One of the most controversial of these is an episode where your character must choose whether to kill unarmed civilians in a Russian airport in order to infiltrate a terrorist sect successfully. The scene is so genuinely shocking in its brutality that the game’s distributor Activision has already attempted to forestall criticism by issuing the following statement.” – Technology Times Online, full article available here:

I can't hear you!

Here is the statement, via technology times online, issued by Activision in response to the issue:

 ”Modern Warfare 2 is a fantasy action game designed for intense, realistic game play that mirrors real life conflicts, much like epic, action movies. It is appropriately rated 18 for violent scenes, which means it is intended for those who are 18 and older.”  - Activision, Distributor for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

In the mean time, it appears that the game has been banned from Russia and all copies of the console game recalled from store shelves, this comes to us via www.GamePolitics.com

“Every copy of the console version of Modern Warfare 2 has been recalled from stores in Russia due to the content of the “No Russian” mission, better known as the controversial airport massacre level. Likewise, Infinity Ward has released an official patch for the PC and Steam versions of Modern Warfare 2, entirely removing the mission from the game…The game’s content has raised the ire of the Russian gaming public as well as a number of politicians who object to its portrayal of Russia’s armed forces as terrorists who invade the United States and subsequently erect statues of dead terrorists in Washington D.C.” – Sol Invictus, of Hellforge, entire article available here.

Hellforge reports that a revised copy of the game will be available on Russian store shelves within the month.  However, Telegraph.co.uk’s Nick Cowen reports that Activision claims that the Russion Banning is a lie:

“However, Activision says these reports are untrue. An official statement released by the video game publisher said: ‘Reports that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been banned in Russia are erroneous. Activision only released a PC version of the game in Russia which went on sale on Tuesday, Nov. 10.’” – Nick Cowen, Technology Times Online, entire article available here:

One way or the other, if what Julie’s marketing teacher taught her back in grad school is true, there is no such thing as bad publicity – there is only publicity.  That being the case, it seems you can’t buy publicity like this.  After all, there is no better way to get someone to buy something than to tell them they can’t have it, or even that they might not be able to get it in the future.

In the end Bobby Kotick and Activision are “laughing all the way to the bank” as it is oft said. As we saw a bit earlier, the stock options Mr. Kotick just exercised are worth a cool $20 million and Activision, with Bobby Kotick at the helm, is even better shape:

“The debut of the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 looks sure to become the most successful product launch in the history of entertainment, with global first-day sales estimated at $500 million. Less than 24 hours after launch, first day sales of the controversial and violent new new game are set to exceed the previous record set by Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008 by $200 million.” –  Nigel Kendall, Technology Editor, Technology Times Online, entire article available here.

God Bless,

Sr. Frances (& Sr. Julie)