Activision, needed for steam?

[©λεєrio]

Activision. It's parent is Activision Blizzard, Inc. which also is the parent of Blizzard. Vivendi owns them all. We all know about the feud between Vivendi and Valve. Why did Activision choose to sell their titles through Steam? It must be because they know about the huge amounts of players available here and they want them to play their games, *cough* MW2 *cough*. They simply ignore the fact that Valve owns Steam, or they got some sort of agreement with valve that ignores Vivendis stubbornness of boycotting Valve completely.

What happens if Vivendi decides to cut back the activision titles on steam, remove steamworks/vac and leave the gamers with empty hands? would that even be possible? and what would the consequences for valve and steam be?

Soon Black Ops will get released and, presumably, take over the position as the most played multiplayer game on steam. Isn't this bad, they kinda conquers steam from the inside... Well I don't know.

Either I would like to see Activision leave Steam, I know it's quite useless and almost impossible since so many look forward / are playing the titles on steam. Or I would like to see some more communication between Vivendi/Activision and Valve, to forget about the past. Maybe Sierra could enter Steam after so many years apart from Valve? ^^

NOTE: This is just a theory that I'm not sure that even I believe it myself. Flaming is unnecessary, just write down your opinions in a nice way.

EDIT: Oh, I just wiki'd some and found out that Infinity Ward and Activision had some feuds too, last spring. And I also noticed that Treyarch is the one making Call of duty: Black Ops, the same that made Call of Duty: World at War. I wonder if IW will be able to purchase the Modern Warfare rights or even the Call of Duty rights and get themselves a new publisher. Then it's fine by me for them to stay at steam, but I do not trust Activision.

[arisaka]

All I know about Activision is that they are greedy as hell.

[Terminutter]

Activision itself would probably be an OK company, it's just the way that the CEO (Bobby Kotick) and higher-ups goe around. Kotick acts like he owns the entire industry, and will dictate what he expects to happen, and how he sees the customers. He has rained abuse at PC gamers, calling them all pirates, yet he also had a go at console gamers - stating that they were willing to fork out loads for a controller, and other things. He also states that he'd willingly make people pay more for the products.

The sad thing is he, along with the other higher-ups in Activision,are able to dictate what happens to a large amount of the video-game market. Some games published by Activision and the companies that it now owns, actually started off really good - Call of Duty, Warcraft and countless others are really good games. However, they are becoming too commercialised - they are getting more and more similar, with larger pricetags. (I am relieved that Black Ops isn't charging us PC gamers a tenner more, like MW2 did) Innovation seems to be a thing of the past in many games published by Activision.

As for why the use Valve's Steam, I assume it is because it is probably the best way to distribute PC games these days. If Vivendi were able to get in any other way, they probably would, but they know that they don't stand a chance when Steam has such a large portion of the market. Steam has a (limited) amount of DRM, and takes a relatively reasonable amount of money for each sale - Vivendi still gets the vast majority. As a bonus, any sale on Steam does not cost Vivendi anything in production - there is no tangible disk being bought. (which saves a few pennies, but still.)

Of course, this is probably wrong, but it's the way that I see the whole thing.
Kotick is the main issue though, IMHO. Kotick just doesn't play the games, and he doesn't have the passion that someone like Gabe Newell does 1 (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/activisions-bobby-kotick-brings-cash-but-not-heart.ars). He doesn't even hide the fact that he is only in it for our money, and does not actually care for the customers, as Valve or other good companies do. 2 (http://spong.com/article/18838/Activisions-Kotick-Id-Raise-Game-Prices-Even-More) 3 (http://www.geeks.co.uk/7282-activision%E2%80%99s-bobby-kotick-hates-developers-innovation-cheap-games-you) 4 (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/11/activision-if-we-cant-run-a-game-into-the-ground-we-dont-want-it.ars).

[kaleckh92]

If activision away from steam,then the only best publisher is valve,codemaster a few more.

♥♥♥♥ GAMES WHY PEOPLE GO IT THE HARD WAY DAMN BUNCH OF ♥♥♥♥♥♥S GREEDY ♥♥♥ HOLES FRAG YOURSELF!

[austinonline]

I wish a huge number of gamers weren't so spineless. Kotick knows he can say whatever he wants and people will still buy the games. If the next Call of Duty flopped big time, the shareholders may try again, if they flopped 2 in a row, the shareholders would NOT have it. Kotick needs to be shaken and realize he does not have full control. So far, even the haters, are proving that he does. They'll complain and then turn around about the products. Like I said, spineless. That being said, I own MW2 and MW3, but I will not purchase any more. But it would take ALOT of people to make a big difference and shake Kotick's stability.