Activision’s Bobby Kotick: EA steals studios’ souls

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick recently submitted himself to an interview where he said some not very nice things about Electronic Arts. While we can admit that the games giant has had trouble in the past as far as treating their employees are concerned, it’s certainly no reason to liken EA to Soul Reaper‘s Raziel, right? All the details in the full article, as well as the quote itself that Bobby Kotick himself released.

 

Electronic Arts has certainly had the bad rap in terms of treating their employees right, what with the previous hubbub about an alleged spouse of an EA employee airing out her complaints in an online blog.

Now, it seems that even its fellow publishers hold the same low opinion about EA, with none other than Activision CEO Bobby Kotick commending the games giant for the great job it did of stealing the souls of the studios it had managed to acquire. Ouch, we say. Ouch!

While we can certainly agree that Electronic Arts does have a few kinks in its system to work out in terms of employee satisfaction, Bobby Kotick’s statement seems just a bit too harsh. In an interview where he was asked about what his role in Activision is, as well as what he thinks about other competitors, he released this statement:

ItÂ’s about really being considerate of the culture in the game studios that Activision buys. ThatÂ’s the biggest difference between us and any of our competitors. We built a model that celebrates entrepreneurial, opportunistic, independent values.

ItÂ’s almost the opposite of Electronic Arts, which has commoditized development. It did a very good job of taking the soul out of a lot of the studios it acquired.

Again, ouch. There’s certainly no need to be so snippy, Mr. CEO Bobby Kotick! Haven’t you heard that BioWare, Pandemic and other EA studios have expressed satisfaction in being under Electronic Arts?

Not to mention that the most recent survey that EA conducted upon its employees netted favorable results, with 63% of the company’s 77% survey takers saying that they were excited and motivated about their job. So they’re not all that bad, right?

In any case, updates as we get them!