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Previous rants:

Guitar Hero/Rock Band (Part 4)
The Sims
EA Sports
Electronic Arts
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
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NOTE: I'm well aware that Activision have merged with Blizzard to become Activision Blizzard but regardless, this rant focuses more on the Activision side. Anything Blizzard-related is left out due to not covering that area very well for the time being. Maybe there'll be rant on Blizzard themselves at a later point or maybe not. It all depends how I feel in the near future. ANYWAY...

Boy oh boy oh boy. If you thought my rage from the bullshit with Virtual Console, Wii games and EA in general were bad, you have seen nothing until now. Activision is the real deal for the BULLSHIT in the gaming industry, most especially for their actions over the last few years. Yes, this rant contains excessive swearing and CAP LOCKS, surprisingly unlike most of my written rants so far.

If you're not too familiar with their history, then it might come to a surprise that they formed in 1979 and became the very first third-party gaming developers/distributors. The reason for forming the company to begin with was due to a dispute with the programmers and how Atari treated them at the time. Activision even earned respect for the right reasons during the 1980's for making Pitfall which is said to be a strong influence for the very early days of platformer games, possibly even an influence on Super Mario Bros.

You're probably thinking "How can a company who made a huge contribution to the early days of video gaming fuck up so badly in the later years?" Back when they formed, the company wasn't run by a dickhead known as Robert Kotick who is an evil man. This horrible excuse of a human being didn't become the CEO of Activision until 1991. Now to be fair, the company didn't start becoming terrible right away. Infact, they've done some good in the past such as making the 3D remake of Battlezone (very underrated FPS-RTS game and is one of the very few things that I liked about the company) and publishing most Quake titles.

When did things start to go wrong? Hmm, what about the Tony Hawk series? I'll admit, I did play the first game in the series and enjoyed it but never picked up any of the later titles and when looking at the series now, that was a good thing. Sure, the first game lacked a few things such as customization but ah well, that's something I can easily live without, especially when I lost interest in skateboarding years ago.

The problem with the Tony Hawk games is yearly releases à la EA Sports' FIFA, Madden and such. Although, there was an exception in 2008 when there was only a mere spin-off release but the rest still could have cut down with the amount of sequels, especially in some games they actually RECYCLE skate parks from other games!

It doesn't end there! While the Tony Hawk's yearly releases are what EA Sports do with certain series of games, this isn't even the worst actions from Activision. They, more especially Robert Kotick didn't become complete and utter douchebags until the current generation. What appeared to have corrupted their minds entirely are Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. Not saying these games are bad, especially when maybe if I ever gave some of the Call of Duty games a try, I might actually enjoy them but I digress.

Ever since they released sequels for Guitar Hero and Call of Duty in the recent years and the franchises became increasingly popular, Activision knew they could make millions from these games and begun making at least one sequel each year or rather several titles in a short amount of time for Guitar Hero. Sadly, it's become clear as day that they're only doing this to make as much money as they can and making sure Robert Kotick has a lot more than enough money to afford a mansion and a fucking Ferrari. Infact, Kotick openly made this statement on video games which had little to no guarantee on having many sequels:

"Don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises."

I swear to God, this was NOT made up! This is an actual statement from Bobby Kuntick and this proved that he only cares about the money and not whether the games will be a real success. THIS MOTHERFUCKER could care less if the next Guitar Hero game was literally a PIECE OF TURD he took. If it's shit that sells gold, that's all he'll care about, nothing more. This is THE reason as to why these greedy bastards care about Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Crash and Spyro but completely ditch Brutal Legend, Ghostbusters and Riddick despite their hype.

Just seeing Activision "exploiting" the Crash and Spyro franchises truly sickens me. Sure, if they didn't pick up those games, someone else would but the point still stands with Activision's true intentions. What really disgusts me about how they're treating Crash and Spyro is that they were two games series I loved when I was a child, more especially Crash since Crash Bandicoot was the very first PS1 game I ever played and that console made a huge impact on my gaming interests. A decade after that great moment, the franchise has been utterly destroyed and the chances of Crash to make a return to form is pretty much good as gone.

As for ditching non-exploitable games, this is another great example that the fuckers at Activision don't care about the quality and abandoned them simply because there was no potential abuse of making sequels for these games every year. For your information fucktards at Activision, most especially Bobby Kuntick, games like Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters were NEVER made to have annual releases like your precious Guitar Hero and Call of Duty! THIS IS NOT HOW GAMES SHOULD BE TREATED! These games were made to give the public a brand new game to enjoy themselves playing to, not putting as much money as possible in your fucking pockets! Care more about the heart and soul into making these games.

That's not even the lowlight of the whole company. Even after they claimed to have no interest in publishing Brutal Legend, they later insisted on taking it back due to its popularity from the public afterwards. Although the publishing issues have been solved, this still pisses me off even today. Those money whores only wanted Brutal Legend back just because they knew the game would put yet more money in their pockets.

You may be thinking "Hang on, how could Activision make any exploitations on Brutal Legend?" Word came from Double Fine that those greedy fucktards wanted to make a Guitar Hero sequel BASED on Brutal Legend. FUCK YOU ACTIVISION, YOU DO NOT TARNISH OTHER GAMES LIKE THIS JUST TO BENEFIT YOURSELVES, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS MADE BY A VERY TALENTED DIRECTOR! Take note that while they tried to make a Guitar Hero sequel from this game, they later claimed there was no potential to exploit the game so they left it behind and allowed another publisher to take care of the game while they were wiping their arses with dollar bills. Maybe Tim Schafer refused such game to come out and if he did, he has earned so much respect from me for that.

Every gamer is aware of the extreme hype of Modern Warfare 2 and since it's become so anticipated that Activision went and upped the RRP in the UK by £15, making it £55 due to more shit no-one cares about or even believe and that's just the standard edition. It really kills how the UK residents are penalized for such bullshit reasons and there hasn't been a game in the retail stores sold that high since the N64 days when some games actually went as high as £60. The highest one game should be right now is £40 but on the other hand, if they really want to sell Modern Warfare for that much, my advise to all Call of Duty fans is to wait until you can find a used copy. The other advice would be to wait until it goes down in price but of course, too many are desperate to get it when it comes out so no point in arguing that. OR, if you can somehow purchase the game for the price it should be at, no complaints there.

It didn't even stop there. Activision was asked a few questions by a guy named Tony Gikas about how they handled their business and Bobby Kuntick's response to the question regarding prices for new games was this:

"And Tony, you know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further."

YOU SWINE, THIS IS TRULY DESPICABLE! I don't care if this was just a joke, a comment like that only makes you look more of a disgrace than you already are. It's like he wants all the money from the consumers just for his sake. Goddamn, you truly are a selfish bastard Bobby. Even if you were joking, it's clear as day you want games to cost more for...Isn't is obvious by now?

For someone like Robert Kuntick who's on thin ice with all these controversial statements on the gaming industry, the last thing he should do is making such a joke. There was a huge backlash from this and joke or not he deserved every single hate comment for that. Do you see other well hated people like George W. Bush making jokes about anything that can make them look like worse individuals than they already are? Best be careful with what you say next time Bobby.

Not only that, he's also wanting Sony to lower the prices of their consoles and if they don't, he won't give Sony anymore support. This is really a lot coming from Mr I want to raise game prices. Sony already brought the PS3 down to a reasonable price and he thinks the prices need to go lower just to please him? IS HE EVEN AWARE OF THE CAPABILITY OF PLAYING FUCKING BLU-RAY ON THE PS3?! What a douchebag, the prices for PS3 and the PSP (not PSP Go!) are fine right now for what they are.

Another thing that makes Bobby Kuntick a wretched being is how he treats his workers. He has gone as far as saying, ""We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression." WHAT A SACK OF SHIT! Which kind of place would want to make people as miserable as possible? It's like he wants to treat his workers as slaves (except they get paid) and this is the last thing the head of a company should do in business. If I ever worked at Activision (god forbid), I would be seeking for a job elsewhere immediately but here I am still seeking for a first actual job. *sigh* What a shithole this country is.

It's not just Robert Kuntick who's a complete twat, there was actually a statement from Michael Sportouch (Senior Director of Guitar Hero) that retailers should stop selling their rivalry products just because they don't sell as many copies as Guitar Hero. Sorry dipshit, it simply doesn't work that way. There is no way in hell you can force ANY shop to decide what they can sell and what they can't and why he even made such a thought is beyond any sane person's mind. Other companies deserve a chance to sell some products in the gaming industry, unless you're EA Sports or Activision who milk the fuck out of their games to get as much cash as possible. So Michael Sportouch, consider yourself a selfish bastard and a representative that it's not just Robert Kuntick who's a complete jerk in Activision.

In conclusion, Activision may have been the very first third-party company in the gaming industry but that doesn't excuse them for their recent behavior. Tony Hawk, Call of Duty and Guitar Hero have become huge cash-in attempts and they are only keeping those games for that very reason. Any games that aren't going to sell billions will be ditched by the company due to lack of potential to "exploit" them.

As for Robert Kotick, he is the scum of the earth. He is one of the people I despise the most in the entire world for tarnishing video games and business in general. For clearly stating he wants to exploit video games for cash and won't be willing to give other games with little to no chance of surviving, he should be banned from contributing to video games entirely as well as not being involved in business. It's obvious he's only here for the money so do we really want him hurting business even more?

Because of Activision's huge success and with this cocksucking scumbag around, I fear for the future of video gaming. However, the more game companies that know not to become like Kuntick, the better. As a result of these actions, I never want to buy another game of Activision's, unless HE is no longer running the business or it's a second hand copy to show less support towards them.

I'm not done yet, though. There's still one particular topic that hasn't been covered in this rant. That one move from Activision that has triggered me to hate the bastards to hell and despising them more than any other game company out there. Stay tuned and let's hope I live through the next one. In the meantime, enjoy Nostalgia Critic's thoughts on the #1 douchebag and try to resist yourself from punching the monitor after seeing his ugly face:

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