[SpardaSon21]

In related news, Darth Kotick has come up with a plan to attract indie developers to make games for Activision.

I could say something, but Admiral Ackbar can say the same thing better:

[Droid803]

That...can't be good.

[mxlm]

Arise!

So, anyone been paying attention to the RealID flap? Yeah, okay, I'm convinced now. I'm also somewhat concerned, because while I don't play WoW and don't intend to, I will be playing SC2, and it now seems entirely possible that these mother****ers are going to make telling people my real name a, um, requirement. At which point I guess I'll stop playing.

Because it seems likely we're only seeing the first steps in what is an attempt to get in on Facebook's action. An attempt to get the Farmville crowd into WoW, and, well, Activision as a whole. At this point I'm expecting WoW, MW3, SC2 and so on to all use RealID in an integrated network.

[General Battuta]

Jesus. How the mighty have fallen. 

There is zero question in my mind that Activision is involved in this.

[mxlm]

Hearsay--and I stress hearsay--is that basically all the Blizzard folks are pissed, and have been told in no uncertain terms that while they're free to do whatever the hell they want with their gameplay, Battle.net and the acquisition of new players is entirely in Activision's hands now.

[Ravenholme]

To continue here: After the internet hate machine stepped into the gap (Finding the details of a bunch of Blizz-activision employees and posting them under the same kinda requirements that B/A was wanting to introduce), Blizz-Activision capitulated on that, and have removed the plans for that, but have warned in a rather stiffly-worded post that they intend to find other ways to excercise control over their forums.

So, one disaster averted, but perhaps another crisis looms in the near future.

[Spoon]

Remember when games were about having a fun time?
Why does it seem like the developers/publishers are trying their hardest to make it... less fun...?
I was going to say something else but then I clicked on that youtube link that showed all those cute little kittens in a sink and forgot what it was about.

Edit: Wow, after reading only half of the article in the first post, I'm already raging like the fist of the mother****ingnorthstar

Kotick noted that in the past he changed the employee incentive program so that it "really rewards profit and nothing else." He continued, "You have studio heads who five years ago didn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO's office pretty regularly. ... We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

Fffuuuuuu- why is this piece of trash in charge? I'm more and more hoping the game industry will just come crashing down and that only people that like to make fun games for fun will be the people that emerge from its rubble