Yesterday, Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer had some choice words about Activision CEO Bobby Kotick published in an interview with Eurogamer. Words like, “total prick,” as an example. After giving a talk at the Develop conference, Schafer took a question from the audience as an opportunity to address his remarks which he referred to as, “a mistake.”
I need to keep my mouth shut. It is shocking how you really can’t burn bridges in the industry. You start your own company and you don’t have to work for that jerky boss any more. Not naming names.
Then it’s like Empire Strikes Back – you walk in the room and ‘holy shit Darth Vader’s at the table.’ It’s such a small industry, you see the same people over and over again. No-one ever goes away.
Note that there isn’t even a whiff of apology for what he said. Nay, he upped the ante by not-so-subtly comparing Kotick to one of the most infamous war criminals of the Galactic Empire. Ouch.
Activision issued their own response to Schafer’s comments in the form of a press release yesterday, focused primarily on the claim that Kotick doesn’t like games. The mega-publisher’s PR department assures us that the CEO does, in fact, enjoy electronic entertainments but rarely has the time to partake of them with his busy schedule. A likely story. You don’t get where Kotick is by blowing your workday on Bejeweled.
Schafer: “I need to keep my mouth shut” [GamesIndustry]
