KatsBits Community
General Category => Public Discussion => Topic started by: kat on August 06, 2010, 05:18:35 PM
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According to an article on MCV, Activision is 'blaming' Raven for poor sales (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40308/Singularity-and-Blur-fell-short) of their recent Singularity FPS (http://www.singularity-game.com/) and not the poor marketing campaign/bad timing (released at the same time as other strong franchises from other studios) that was done for the game;
“Singularity fell short of meeting what is an exceptionally high bar within the shooter genre,” Activision COO and CFO Thomas Tippl told investors. “Fortunately, Call of Duty was the title that raised that bar and the shortfall of Singularity was offset by Call of Duty's catalogue and DLC performance."
That seems woefully misguided to be comparing the earnings of a new franchise to one that's been established for a good number of years with a $1+ billion turnover. Not sure what they were expecting
*/me rampant speculation, could it be that Activision is 'finding' reasons to let Raven go legitimately? If the studio is making a loss, in Activisions eyes I might add, then the publisher gives itself 'good reason' to call Raven a dead donkey and cut it loose, after all it's a big studio and probably costs Activision much more money than they're willing to spend given their recent tactics - it's easier to kill an established studio and cheaper to hire new help as they don't have the power to negotiate the same rates of return of the established studio; how much money will they have saved over the CoD debacle for instance.
Whatever is going on doesn't look good for Raven's long term prospects.
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interesting and from what i've seen of singularity, it's an excellent game, even better then the wolf single player, but maybe activision is thinking of those game's multiplayer modes which apparently are both disappointing. i also find it interesting that raven chose the unreal 3 engine for this new ip rather then stick with id tech.
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No industry news on this yet but according to this topic on PolyCount (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77423), so this is unconfirmed (and speculation, even though it's a Raven employee making the comment), Raven let go another 40 employees in the latest round of lay-off's.
...make it specifically known that Raven did layoff maybe 40(?) people today
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that's sad, and although i've never been interested in their multiplayer games, their singleplayer games tend to be more interesting and innovative imo then most ip's which other devs work on, ie the ww2 and modern warefare ones. maybe activision just wants to end up with non sci-fi or fantasy ip's?
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I'm not too sure about the 'theme' issue you mentioned per se, but... it's not exactly coincidental that their most successful games of recent are the sort you mention!. If they can gut Raven like they have then it wouldn't surprise me to see Activision being a bit funny with Infinity Ward (?) after the next CoD game is released.
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understood and agreed kat.
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Another topic on the subject (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77411) so I guess we can call this confirmed. [EDIT] Article in Develop (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41282/Job-losses-at-Singularity-dev) (originally reported on Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5661071/singularity-game-developer-hit-with-layoffs))
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500 jobs go in Activision restructuring (http://www.develop-online.net/news/36989/500-jobs-go-in-Activision-restructuring). And... Activision cull on studios and projects (http://www.develop-online.net/news/36987/Activision-to-axe-UK-devs-studios-and-projects). It was only really a matter of time before Activision would do a big cull to increase profits and offset quarterly tax spend by dropping nonprofitable projects. No confirmed official news on where these cuts are except they're happening.
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considering how much profit they make do you think activision really needed to do this cull, or are they mainly being greedy?
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"It's not personal. It's business."
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Ratty: It's not 'greed' per-say, Corporations have legal obligations to make money for their shareholders and investors by any means at their disposal, if that means reducing headcounts and associated overheads so the books look good they'll do it. "It's not personal. It's business."
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thanks guys, i think i understand the difference. although it still doesn't seem very ethical to me.