He also seems to want to solidify the gamer opinion that he is indeed the Devil or has at least been forged in the fires of Mount Doom. With all the wonderfully exciting and positive news being belched out of the Tokyo Game Show, I thought it was about time to bring everyone back down to Earth and remind them that companies like Activision-Blizzard only want one thing: your money.
Of course, Activision-Blizzard is a company and as such they are entitled to want to make money out of their products. But this latest scheme from the company’s CEO and Emperor of Tears, Bobby Kotick, seems a little too profit-hungry even by his standards: charging us extra to watch the game’s cut-scenes.
I loved StarCraft II for a number of reasons, but one of the top reasons was the amazing pre-rendered cut-scenes that drove the plot forward. Blizzard is the king of this sort of media and I can’t wait to see the cut-scenes they’re making for Diablo III. Let’s just hope we won’t have to pay for them. Kotick recently made this statement at the Communications & Entertainment Conference in California while discussing StarCraft II’s cut-scenes:
“If we were to take that hour, or hour and a half, take it out of the game, and we were to go to our audiences – for whom we have their credit card information and a direct relationship – and say to them, ‘Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?’… and say we have this great hour and a half of linear video that we’d like to make available to you at a $30 or $20 price point, you’d have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever.”
But wait! It gets better:
“Within the next five years you are likely to see us do that… There will be a time when we capitalise on the relationship that we have with our audience and deliver them something that is really extraordinary and let them consume it directly through us instead of through theatrical distribution.”
I’m not too sure how to respond to that other than I pray it’s been taken out of context. If not, then we have roughly five years to form a Rebel Alliance to take out Darth Kotick’s evil Activision Empire and restore balance to the industry.
Source: Eurogamer
Last Updated: September 16, 2010
koldFU5iON
September 16, 2010 at 15:55
From what I can see he means to say you can buy the cinematics separately to the game I don’t think he’s suggesting that he’ll charge you for the cinematics that are already being played in the game … that’s just silly
lol “Please insert coin to watch cinematic” ya I don’t think so
Bboy
September 16, 2010 at 16:23
No, it sounds like he’s saying at some stage we feel we would be able to make a movie and release it via our gaming platform and have it beat all movie reocrds ever.
Uncle doesnt trust Bobby
September 16, 2010 at 16:58
:getlost:
Maxiviper117
September 16, 2010 at 18:52
Money, he forgets that we already shove out R600+ for a game and a DVD movie that you can buy of any movie costs like R150.
So I think that R600+ covers the part where they have to make cut scenes for games. They spend A hell of a lot more money to make top AAA movies (like R200-R500 million) and you can buy a DVD of that movie for only R150. Yet It cost like R50-R100 million to make a game and then make us pay R600. I’m sorry Am I missing something and I know that lots of people buy movies or go see them but that’s besides the point.
Q121
September 17, 2010 at 14:22
This will be AWESOME!!
i get so annoyed when i cant skip cut scenes… This way i wont ever buy them and not have to watch them 😀 sweet
mitas
September 17, 2010 at 14:47
i think he is trying to say ” we could sell them the whole games cinimatics as a movie “pre or post realse ” for a fee ???
Karl Thomson
September 18, 2010 at 15:42
I would pay good money for a DVD compendium of all the MGS game cutscenes. I reckon this could be a good idea if its for the right game, since some games (like MGS) really have astonishing cut scenes.
diesot
January 21, 2011 at 13:10
You guys are misreading his statement. Sounds to me like he’s saying they could make an entire movie and people would be willing to buy it. It wouldn’t be part of a game, it would be separate. No doubt it would be based on a game – such as the Halo short films – but it would be separate.