A while back, we talked about Activision CEO Bobby Kotick sending a somewhat ironic jibe EA’s way, claiming it “sucked the souls” out of its acquired studios. Well, I am sure you will ALL be glad to read that Electronic Arts doesn’t really care what Activision thinks. That’s a relief for all of us.
“The truth is, everyone laughed,” says EA’s Jeff Brown when talking about Kotick’s remark. “In the past year EA has made radical changes to decentralize the company and put creative control back in the hands of development teams. It’s too early to declare victory but if you talk to people like Patrick Soderlund at DICE in Stockholm, Mark Jacobs at Mythic in Virginia or Josh Resnick at Pandemic – they’ll probably tell you that it’s working.”
“They get a lot of resources and creative freedom. That freedom has already contributed new start-ups like Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge and Boom Blox and there’s a lot of others to be announced soon.”
I absolutely love this “war” between Activision and EA. It’s essentially two companies arguing over which one is the greater evil. These corporate wanking contests are rarely anything but stupid, but this is one of the siller ones I’ve seen in a while. To both Activision and EA — you are not the new Nintendo and Sega, so stop trying.
