Believe me when I say I am only complaining about motion control and the like not because there's any inherent flaws with motion control, but because I know what most game companies will do with it.

Look at the Wii and its massive shovelware. It just doesn't seem worth it when you go to the store and see 1 or 2 games you'd like to buy and a million and one party games that both svck and you wouldn't even have more than 2 controllers to play anyways (I don't even know of a game that you'd need 4 Wii motes for on the Wii. Brawl can use gamecube controllers, which is awesome, since those feel far better than the Wii mote controls).

Basically, we just get tired of seeing NEW and EXCITING stuff from the gaming industry because we know exactly what large companies will do with, and to, those services or products; stuff as many shovelware, crap, rehashed games on them with stickers that say "JUST FOR KINECT!" or "JUST FOR PSMOVE!" without adding anything new (or, really, anything worth buying in the first place) to those products.

The point we're trying to make is that this is not about good vs evil, morality and ethics and all that good stuff.

It's just ridiculous that people call Kotick/Activision everything from the devil to outright idiotic. But being a savvy businessman doesn't equal being evil.
And if you're the most succesful gaming publisher than you can't be all that stupid and you're obviously doing something right(even if it's only great advertisemant) since people are paying for your product.

I'm by no means a fan of Activision-Blizzard and I don't actually play any of their games, but I am able to follow the rationale behind their business decisions.

But surely, the exact same thing has applied to every single innovation in the history of gaming?

Cell shading, 3D, Mode 7, ray tracing, lens flares, bloom, surely it's always been like that. Someone comes up with something new, and the bigger companies try to capitalize on it with sub-par titles.

Those are all graphical techniques, not something you need to buy a whole new peripheral (or four) just to play a game that doesn't utilize it properly.

So don't buy it in the first place!

Mhm let's not forget Nintendo for introducing that stupid anolog joystick for gamepads. Obviously that was also just a silly gimmick and gaming is off worse because of it, amirite?
Remember that silly dualshock peripheral for the PS1? I'm glad that never caught on.

EDIT: And those damn D-Pads they made popular with the NES too! Damn them and their stupid new fancy pants controllers, I wish we were all still using Atari Joysticks! Innovation is a terrible thing and nothing ever good comes of it.

The golden road is paved with shovelware.

If I wasn't going to buy something full of shovelware, chances are I wouldn't have half of my systems.

That's part of the challenge of being a consumer. You've got to purchase when you see something you like, and if something isn't to your tastes then refrain. Sometimes the real challenge is when a game is great, but comes from a publisher (such as Activision, or Ubisoft) that you don't want to support.

Voting with our wallets isn't the only way to protest, but it is the most effect, and yet is is also the hardest thing to do. Because damn it, I love Splinter Cell, but Ubisoft can go [censored] themselves.

Rest assured that the last incarnation did not leave more than one gulp of Splinter Cell in it, you have missed nothing.

I own Conviction.

No, I won't be buying the next one. I was willing to give them a chance after Double Agent, but..ugh. How could developers systematically dismantle the franchise like this?

That may be true, but I find that a person's measure is what they are willing and not willing to accept. Yes, this is how it works for the greatest profits - but it's not the only model available. There are entrepreneurs who charge enough to make a profit and not so much to aggravate their customers - there may not be such a thing as generosity in business, but there is good will. Sure, a monopoly would be the best thing in a business sense, but what about the social and cultural results? The games industry may be a business, but it's also a culture, and ultimately a culture defined by the gamers, one that thrives on imagination and innovation that the bottom line seems to smother.

Oh. Okay. Well, then you know what a wretched abomination it is. Then we shall in our mind share the anger and pain. ^_^
That's precisely the development movies have gone through as an industry. From small teams to bigger publishing houses, to unification of those, which to many left creativity and culture too far behind, to something more and more akin to what we see today - three quarters of the money going to blockbuster big time material with just a few titles, and the rest to dozens of movies made with smaller teams and infinitely more heart in them. Would bet that games will go through that development, too, with indie and small time teams filling the latter role.

You like putting words in people's mouths. No, I wasn't insinuating that.

Wii was innovative.

Kinect is just catching up.

Also, I get flack for hyperbole and then you do this? Bah. Besides, Nintendo didn't ask you to buy a new peripheral for a system you already owned to play games with it. Kinect does. PSmove does.

That's really what folks are complaining about. Some believe it might be or turn into a gimmick, while others think it has potential. But regardless of what someone thinks, it still comes down to this: Are you willing to shill out 100+ dollars for a new peripheral for a console you already own that might not have good games for it or just might not add anything worthwhile to the experience?

And that is why people are apprehensive about things like that, and things like subscription fees. We just don't know how well it will work out, and we definitely don't know how companies will use the opportunity. Will Kinect be plagued by shovelware like the Wii was, or will it have awesome new games worth playing? Even worse, will we see new games that REQUIRE Kinect as part of the game (imagine if Fable 3 required Kinect to grab people)?

New things get people angry because I've seen plenty of "NEW AND AWESOME" peripherals that became a boat for 3rd party companies to jump on and take a dump all over everyone.

Lame cliche response. I don't buy any console games anyways, FYI.


Way to miss the point. Those control methods were all utilized properly, and were just improvements on a simple joystick design. Motion control is 80% of the time shovelware, 15% of the time unneeded or done wrong, and 5% of the time first party Nintendo games. Yes I made those figures up, and I don't care what you say. :whisper:

Oh for the love of god, DON'T LET THIS DEVOLVE INTO A "MOTION CONTROL BAD!" ARGUMENT.

There are plenty Nintendo games that utilize Wii controls wonderfully.
My point is that there were many innovations in controls, some good some bad. But if you people outright say we don't ever want any new peripherals and want our controls to remain just they way they are forever, you're not giving the good innovations a chance.

The mouse you're holding in your hand was also once a new scary peripheral. And enough people back then would've told you it's a stupid gimmick and just using command lines is much more efficient(heck some people will still tell you that today ).

And I could accept that from Activision if they were willing to fund those smaller "labours of love" that will never make a huge profit, because they are what make gaming so great - if for every Halo there was a Psychonauts, or if for every CoD there was a System Shock. But they don't: all they do is shovel out more sequels, devise more ways to impart more profit, and that's it. And do those increased profits even go to those who work hardest to earn them, the developers themselves? Lawsuits over unpaid overtime and royalties being withheld suggest a cold corporate culture indeed.

Maybe some day, but not today...

Except these AREN'T NEW PERIPHERALS. We've SEEN these with the Wii. People were skeptical, and, for the most part, people WERE RIGHT. For 3 years this Wii has sat here with barely ANY GAMES because most of them are CRAP SHOVERWARE. There are gems out there for it, but the market is absolutely FLOODED WITH CRAP.

We've seen motion control. As I said before, Microsoft and Sony are just playing catch up because they didn't think of the idea first. The only way Motion control will become a legitimate peripheral is if we see it come into play for the next generation of consoles and if we can actually get a decent amount of good motion control games instead of a pittance because every third party developer and their mom are writing a party game to sell to soccer moms so the company can get JUST ENOUGH money to make the game slightly profitable.

Motion control is FINE. Its the idiot developers and publishers that ruin it.

Like was mentioned earlier, it can take new technology several years to really mature. Think about how long it took until 3D grafics became halfways decent looking.
The thing is, the market will sort itself out. If it's not ment to be, then those peripherals will flop. But maybe it'll be widely succesful and we'll see lotsa quality motion control games in the future. It's difficult to predict, but MS and Sony being on the bandwagon does increase the chances of devs taking it more seriously. But it's important that Sony and MS atleast try, as this stuff will shape the next generation of gaming. So I don't see why one needs to be so angry about it, since again this is not something forced upon you.

But I guess this is a little off topic now

Oh, you mean like the Power Glove, R.O.B, Power Pad, NES Advantage, Roll'n'Rocker, LaserScope or the SEGA CD?

True: I am changing from xbox to pc soon. But i wont be playing activision crappy titles (well the mp ones at least)

They are getting too greedy now, i wish i could see the day in the their boardroom when Kotick and all them say "wtf, people dont want to pay subscriptions for our games?!?!"

The problems with Psychonauts and System Shock was that hardly anyone bought them, if the customers are too thick to know a good thing when they see it, there's not really anything Activision can do about it.

Besides, I thought System Shock was rubbish.



...which was a load of ruckus aimed at Electronic Arts, not Activision.

They both experienced their share of lawsuits.

Then what were you saying?

I'm really confused here; Activision are 100% open about their goals, their methods and the specifics of how their systems work. They do not lie, they don't even distort the truth in any way. Heck, the only reason Bobby Kotick is disliked is because he's saying exactly what all the other big business executives are thinking. They do not pull the wool over people's eyes at all, yet they are depicted as the baddies.