Thomas Tippl wants to improve Activision's image...
Tuesday, June 22 2010 @ 11:45 PM BST
by Vrandas
Tippl says he is “not ignorant of very vocal minority that has some very strong feelings”.
Very vocal minority ?????
Activision and their game developers are dominating the Google News Headlines with less then 6 talking heads and the majority of the CoD buying community can only ventilate their feelings on an official but censored CoD forum. These official CoD forums are made 'not-crawlable" for all search engines !
So 100.000x of frustrated (let's say) Cal of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players won't even get noticed when they all complain about the fact they are unable to play this expensive CoD game they just bought. Also the justified disappointment, because this last CoD title had some original working features removed and replaced by non working alternatives ( like those 'new' multi player client-host servers ), wasn't picked up by any of the major Gaming News Headlines writers.
So for years now, all Google News about the Call of Duty games gets written by the Activision's Public Relations/Marketing department. And 100.000x Activision customers don't get their honest opinion equally publiced so they can warn others not to make the same mistake.
“Obviously, we stay connected to what's going on in the communities so we're not ignorant that there's a very vocal minority out there that has some very strong feelings,” Activision's COO Thomas Tippl told IGN.
“Whenever you become no.1 in any industry, you automatically get a target painted on your back. You've got to be able to live with that. "
What is this paranoid feeling Tipple is talking about? Is the overall judgement from the (PC) gamers, that CoD Modern Warfare 2 was/is a BIG disappointment, to much honesty for him to handle? Will turning this majority into a "minority with strong feelings" create a better relationship between makers and buyers in the near future?
The CoD Community always said:
"Give us the game WE want and we will pay twice the amount of money YOU want."
But, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Actvision again showed that they preferred working with PR lies & Wallstreet dreams instead of just listening to their customers needs. And although the MW2 revenue was a record breaker, especially in the first week after its release (thanks to the well funded PR machine), that was it. Modern Warfare 2 didn't became a hype. And this only because most of the buyers wouldn't suggest this game to their friends and by not doing so there was no next huge wave of sales. So Activision still made a lot of money but also lost something very important for a successful franchise: future buyers.
So it's best to wait till after the actual release of Call of Duty: Black Ops to find out if this next CoD game is an improvement and worth buying.
(And this must be Mister Tippl's current problem to deal with.... the amount of CoD Black Ops pre-orders.)
