Soapbox: Let's Give Activision a Bit of Credit, Yeah?

Urgh argh Chinese money Tencent Blizzard Activision Doritos

To be fair, gamers have been giving Activision credit for years. It's much easier than paying cash.

Considering your defense of advertisement on UFC and now this article defending Activision, a company well known for its abysmal anti-consumer behaviour, it's very hard to not see you as a corporate shill.

@Pat_trick Ok goodbye. Nice knowing you.

@nessisonett Can't express my opinion?

@Pat_trick Yes God forbid a website praise multiple remakes that were infinitely better than what was expected.

Everyone expected Activision to stumble on these remakes and the fact of the matter is they didn't.

Typical entitled gamer, gotta hate on everything regardless of the quality.

@torne Didn't hate the games, they're good.
But yeah, Activision is a greedy company that takes any opportunity to milk money from people. Toys from Bob, the company that developed the game is a different story, I wouldn't hate on them.

As long the game is complete in one disc or cartridge, it's already more than enough.
We don't need scandalous practices of half physical half digital codes.
That's wasting money and physical resources.

@Pat_trick Calling the site a corporate shill is just hilarious. Why visit this site if you’re going to slag off the ones running it?

@Pat_trick Nobody denies that Activision has shady practices. All Sammy said was give them credit for pumping out stellar remakes...

You jumped on them for being corporate shills and then people called you out on it... imagine that...

@nessisonett I didn't call the site, I said one of the editors, and it's frustrating to see one person frequently defending corporations that have predatory practices. And Bobby Kotick is a man that frequently takes damaging corporate decisions even to his employees. Maybe instead of praising Activision, it would be better to directly praise the developers and not the publisher.

@torne I disagree with giving them credit. I think Activision is a moral bankrupt company, but okay, you think I'm wrong. I won't argue anymore.

@Pat_trick you are so blindly ignorant as to how things work its borderline ridiculous.

The publisher puts up the money for these games. Guess what... toys for Bob is part of the activision group.

Bottom line is these games don't get made without activisions say so end of story.

@torne I know about all of this. It doesn't change the kind of corporation they are. The bottom line of every company is profit, but the means to get there on Activision's case in my opinion are extreme.

Major props to Activision. They're definitely hitting all the right nails on the head when it comes to remakes the last few years.

Without the N. Sane Trilogy's success, we probably never would've gotten the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, CTR NF and even Crash 4.

I'm not going to give Activision credit just yet. If they avoid putting microtransactions into Tony Hawk and Crash 4 post launch, then I'll start viewing Activision more positively.

As much as I love Nintendo, they deserve all the flack they're getting for these Mario releases. But what's sad is that everyone, including me, will buy them because they want nostalgia or to experience them for the first time (I'm the latter). N sane trilogy and reignited trilogy have FAR more work put into them, and were released at a much cheaper price than the mario 3d all stars. Nintendo really put in the minimum amount of effort this time

@Pat_trick Calling them a shill implies that they’re receiving money in order to praise these games. That’s absolutely an attack on the very credibility of this website. Either you heard the word somewhere on R/Gaming or you’re just seriously that dense. If they were receiving payouts from companies then Avengers wouldn’t have gotten a 6.

@Pat_trick Listen if you were to say this to me during the ps3/360 generation I would have been right there with you. But the fact of the matter remains that activision has done A LOT in terms of trying to make themselves better.

Take off the blinders you might actually find you can enjoy things more...

The criticisms of Activision Blizzard rarely center on their games to be fair. Sure, some criticised the annual CoD games for being bland, but it's normally criticized for its business practices. You know things like banning players who express freedom of speech in Hong Kong. Or making employees redundant the day before they're due to get permanent contracts after working for them for two years. Or making people redundant just before they'd be eligible for pay rises, contractual bonuses, or anything else they should be paying their staff. The retrofitting of micro-transactions to games is only a minor transgression when weighed up against the monumentally evil stuff they've got up to. Including illegally selling player details in countries like Germany to third parties. Or Bobby Kotick taking exorbitant bonuses while firing hundreds of staff who made him the money to pay himself exhorbitant bonuses, or the massive amounts of tax evasion they're involved with, which also includes claiming hundreds of millions in tax relief they wouldn't be entitled to if the weren't evading said tax. Yet another "bizarre" opinion piece that fails to grasp why they get the criticism in the first place.

Ah yes, Activision. The company that had to lay off 800 employees, and underpay the remaining, so their CEO could receive another nice fat bonus. The company that tried to silence simple human rights. And the very same company that thought Diablo Immortal was a good idea, oh wait, I mean, Tencent thought that was a good idea. The company that is willing to put MTX retroactively in their games so it doesn't negatively impact reviews. Did I mention tax evasion already?

The last bit Bobby Kotick deserves is ''a bit of credit''.

I mean sure, you can give them some credit for remaking games people already loved with care. But like, a lot of that work was already done for them by studios that aren't part of Activision. If Crash 4 is legit, I'll give them some due.

@nessisonett shill: "an accomplice of a confidence trickster or swindler who poses as a genuine customer to entice or encourage others."
So not necessarily money. And I said that it looked like he was, not something undeniable. I'm not sure he is. It's not an absolute attack more of what it seemed to be in my opinion. Just chill.

@Pat_trick Literally name one real life shill who did it for a reason other than money. You can’t.

@nessisonett its a waste of time to argue with him. Bad company = bad and can't publish anything worth praising.

Thats the blind logic we are dealing with.

Next: Why Oil Companies Are Good For The Environment!

😉

None of the games you mentioned interest me. I've played a couple of Call of Duty games in the past and those were enough for me!

Maybe they're not the Devil but they're not on the side of the Angels either. They're just a company that wants to make as much money as possible and CoD brings in the green. All the games you mentioned are remakes, not as if they were originally responsible for creating Crash or Spyro. Indeed it's probably hard to mess those up.

Again, another 'interesting' piece from PushSquare. Controversy sells I guess!

@torne I literally said that these are good games. But yeah buddy, I'm the blind one.
By the way, look at the other comments, I'm not the only one who is not very pleased.

@SirAngry It’s true that Acti-Blizz are up there with the worst corporate offenders. Same as Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and all the rest. Nobody boycotts Media Molecule’s games because Sony censored Hong Kong protest photos at their photography contest. People would boycott BioWare games because EA bad and Toys for Bob/Vicarious Visions games because they care so much about Hong Kong though.

@nessisonett there's plenty in politics buddy, any journalist on Fox News. To be honest there has been a history in games journalism of publications being a little too close to publishers and developers. The power dynamic between even a larger organisation like IGN and say EA or Activision is pretty one sided. The publishers don't really need IGN, but without access to them and their products IGN is dealt a serious blow.

There has been a little too much enthusiasm on here lately for 'playing devil's advocate' and 'Aren't dodgy publishers/their dodgy practices actually really good?' Little too much Brow-Nosing going on than I'd like to see.

@nessisonett not really the point, the article totally misunderstood why Activision Blizzard get the criticism they do. For the record I'd defend EA to the hilt as an employer, they're actually really good, their micro-transaction shenanigans though are a different matter entirely. I have chosen not to buy any Ubisoft Games until I see the Yves Guillemot and his Executive management team are held accountable for what has gone on in their studios, and I've worked in an Ubisoft Studio. People can make whatever choices they like, that's up to them, but this does completely miss all of the points critics of the company level at them.

I’d rather go with Activision than EA, I’ll tell ya that.

@SirAngry It’s unfair to blame subsidiaries for the actions of their corporate overlords. This is literally why I prefer these smaller companies to retain independence, they get sucked into these practices for no fault of their own. Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions haven’t done a thing wrong but because they’re owned by a corporate nightmare like Acti-Blizz they should get dumped on?

@Anti-Matter I don’t think there is anything on the Tony Hawk‘s Pro Skater 1 and 2 disk apart from for tutorial and the warehouse. It was not a problem for me as the game had finished downloading by the time I’d completed the tutorial.

Push Square on the cutting edge of copying last week's videos by many youtubers.

@nessisonett you're totally missing the point again. However, for the record those two subsidiaries are some of the worst offenders for treating employees like trash. The point is the corporate entity, Activision Blizzard is the one that receives the criticism, and that's who this article defends. The article totally missed the reasons they get the criticism they do saying it was about games or micro-transactions when it isn't so don't try to shift the discussion elsewhere, because that's not the discussion.

@BranJ0 I'm with you. Nintendo deserves all the criticism for this move, especially the limited release (although the people who expected a full remake of 64 in the odyssey engine were kidding themselves even before the reveal). What is invalid criticism is whining at Nintendo for not releasing x amount of games this year. Not like the top Nintendo developers and directors were trying to plan an entire theme park or anything.

My biggest problem with Activision is that their marketing budget is far superior to their dev budget. I couldn't care less about Call of Shooty, and good for them if it sells, but you know there is a problem when a game has over 3/4 of it's entire budget poured into marketing.

Just imagine how incredible it would be if the budget was reversed. Triple the dev budget and you would have a 30h solo campaign, better balance, and more everything. And less hate from people (like me) who say that each new iteration could be called "Generic FPS Ctrl+C Ctrl+V" (Apple doesn't exist in my perfect world)

Activision will not be getting any of my credit.....ever.

@AdamNovice I used to worship at the altar of Jim Sterling, but his act is growing rather tiresome. He's another one that's unfortunately becoming the human embodiment of kneejerk Twitter snark.

I think he's still super important for games discussion and I love that be routinely calls out traditional games media, but some of his recent ramblings are pushing it even by my "anti-AAA companies" standards.

@AdamNovice Jim's criticism of most corporate behaviour is spot on though. Working for these companies taints your soul just a little bit. I've never really come across any of his corporate criticisms that I thought were unfair or unfounded... except perhaps his weird fixation on all things Gearbox and Randy Pitchfork, sure they're not perfect, but there I think it's personal with Jim.

Let's face facts those Mario games are far better then the Crash or Spyro trilogies and as such have effectively held their value better. As for those trilogies Spyro wasn't even on the disc was it? Oh and Modern Warfare which was locked behind Infinity War for quite some time

I'm not giving any credit to a company that sacks 800 of its workforce whilst bragging about record income levels and paying its CEO $30 million. Then they add microtransactions to CTR after launch so that reviews don't mention them oh and now they've stopped supporting that game has that store closed?

Yeah, no. Activision doesn't deserve a modicum of credit for anything after an entire console generation of setting the standard for horrible business practices from these disgusting publishers.

Activision Blizzard are right up there with EA on my ***** list of companies I very rarely buy any games from.

The same way you can give EA credit for something like Jedi Fallen Order you can give credit to the Crash Remakes from Activision. Does this really make them any better in the grand scheme of things? No, they’re still absolutely abusing gamers in tons of their other games.

@SirAngry Jim Sterling supports a kickstarter that took 80k from gamers and they’ve still not seen a game to this date. Don’t hear him complaining about that do you.

@Fenbops did he really? I'm not exactly a subscriber of his to be honest with you. I might catch the odd video while bored, but I don't really watch him regularly enough. Don't really have the time. Out of interest what was the Kickstarter and when was it.

@SirAngry I think it was 2016, a game called chuck tingle or something. He was meant to be a voice actor in it, it raised over $85k and absolutely nothing has come from it.

They breathed new life into three of my favorite franchises. I'd say that's commendable. They're definitely improving and I'm looking forward to seeing what they bring us next!

As awesome as CTRNF is and I'm looking forward to Crash 4, we're only excited because of years of incompetence at Activision and sitting on an IP that's full of potential. A better publisher could have given us the Crash games we wanted years ago.

I'm definitely glad Activision are taking steps in the right direction, but as Captain Price once said "That was an improvement, but it's not hard to improve on garbage".

@Fenbops ah yeah... Zoë Quinn... not touching this subject with a barge pole. I guess she just ghosted backers right?...

No, not touching it, it's a trap.

Activision is like this beautiful girl that mess up and want you back.glad to see crash back .with the collection and part 4.word up son

@carlos82 Whether the Mario games are better than Spyro and Crash is debatable, but the difference in value isn't.

The Crash remakes are actual remakes, with completely new graphics and remade from the ground up and cost £35 at the time of release.The Mario games are ports with nothing changed, and cost £15 more. I'm fine with them preserving the original graphics, but do less and ask for more is insane, no matter how much of a classic Mario 64 is.

£50 means you're effectively paying £17 a game, all of them being well over 10 years old, and Super Mario 64 being 24 years old. In comparison, each original Crash/Spyro game is £4 on the PS store.

Absolutely loved what they did with Spyro, absolutely loved what they did with the Crash trilogy, enjoyed CTR (if it wasn't for the completely broken online aspect, which was a pretty huge part of it, I would have absolutely loved that too), and when I get THPS, I will 100% absolutely love that too.
I couldn't give less of a ***** what they do with their COD games and other franchises, the ones I am interested in are the ones they are smashing out of the park.
I also can't wait for Crash 4, though definitely prefer the artstyle from the trilogy.

I don't like Activision but yeah purely remake wise they have done a great job, THPS1+2 is easily one of the best remakes for sure.

@ThroughTheIris56 If Activision had of priced them at £50 would they have sold? Mario 3d All Stars is already the second best selling game in Amazon US this year at that price which shows the difference in value between the franchises. If we start comparing then isn't Ratchet and Clank a loose remake of the original? Or MediEvil, that doesn't fit into the Crash pricing structure, nor did Resident Evil 2 and 3. Crash 4 is £60 and CTR was stuffed with microtransactions so we've seen where they were heading. I don't see why the author brought up the comparison with Nintendo as remakes/remasters are priced vastly differently between most developers

@Kidfried just no

@Kidfried The games are definitely outdated, but I wouldn't say they need a remake. Part of the the fun with playing an old game, is to experience games how were back in the day. Besides, they're not unplayable, they'll take a bit of getting used to that's it. I only played Galaxy and Sunshine for the first time this year and they weren't difficult to get into.

@JapaneseSonic and that's fine, but when you defend a corporation you shoud expect challenge, if they don't want challenge then stick to the games and don't cross over into baiting territory and defenses of corporations who do some pretty appalling things. In playground parlance they started it, and I think they knew what they were starting. Also, I do actually think it's about time the games industry had some serious journalists that didn't just parrot and print companies press releases. Not just aiming that at Push Square by the the way, there are far worse culprits.

@carlos82 Yeah they probably would have sold, there's a lot of hype for Crash that's been building up over the years. While the fact Mario is popular is a factor, another pretty big factor is the fact it's a limited release. People know if they don't preorder, they may not get a copy like many Nintendo products. I wouldn't be surprised if half the preorders are from scalpers. Where are you even getting those stats?

And I think you've missed the point. Everything you listed is a full scale remake, they take far more time, effort and resources to make than a simple HD port. For example, the Medievil remake isn't as good as a deal as the Crash trilogy, but it's still cheaper than your average game. And again, it's more of a fair deal than Mario because it has had significant changes made to it, almost like it's a brand new game. Even more the case for the REmakes.

While £60 is overpriced, Crash 4 is at least a brand new game so deserving of full price. And as much as I despise microtransactions, CTRNF is extremely good value for money. It features courses from 2 games and they add lots of free content.

Allot of people here have said what's in my mind but in short the developers deserve all the praise and Activision has done so much wrong that it basically negates any praise they should receive.

@Juanalf Yep, kudos to the developers for actually making the game (that looks like it will be awesome). Activision haven't really done much other than say "yes you can make this".

@ThroughTheIris56 Amazon's own website shows these lists, the whole limited time thing is a bit strange and I have questioned in the past why 64 hasn't had a full HD remake but I'm not about to complain about having these 3 on my Switch even with just little touch ups.

The main point of the article praising Activision and having any comparison with Nintendo is a bit ludicrous to me when taking into account how they treat their workforce. One has a CEO who took a paycut in time of need to protect his staff and the other has one who regularly takes massive bonuses whilst laying off his regardless of how much money they earn

I still can’t believe people are pleased with CTR and the “support” it got. Most of the content people will never unlock unless paying silly money for the micro transactions.

It shows what a money grabbing mess the industry is in when we should give these “slack” for being only a bit bad and not as bad as others.

UFC franchise gave tons of free DLC and fighters in updates...

Did we cut EA slack....

No. Coz they still did way too much shady stuff. Activision is no different- a bad company can do some good stuff.

CTR was the most annoying experience in my game playing life.

Such a good game. Ruined. I want to still love it. The grind for unlockables is stupid though.

@carlos82 I too am fine with straight up ports in theory. The price doesn't bother me too much, what annoys me is the artificial scarcity made by making this a limited release. I'm more tempted to not buy it as a middle finger to that stupid practice.

The article itself isn't mentioning Nintendo or comparing it, just commenters. It's not even saying saying Activision is a good company, its just giving credit where its due which is fair enough. It's important to recognize the good aspects of an otherwise shady company.

I agree. I was thinking about this the other day. Outside of COD they really have become a way better publisher and I applaud them for it.

@Ryall what about people who don't have that luxury? Something you take for granted may be difficult for someone else 😐

"None of the big boys escape criticism, whether it’s Ubisoft for its perceived approach to copy-and-paste game design..."

Pretty sure the criticism is more levelled at the copy and paste approach to sexually abusing and exploiting it's employees for years on end.

@Kidfried True, making minor fixes to things like the camera could be a good idea.

I actually think Crash 2 and 3 have aged a lot better mechanically/control wise compared to SM64. And I played SM64 as a kid, whereas I didn't play the Crash trilogy until a couple of years ago.

Tony Hawk 1+2 was the only PS4 release I cared about this year, and Crash Team Racing was the only one I cared about last year. That really says something (although others might say it just means I have crap taste 😜)

@Kidfried I don’t get how Mario 64’s camera is dated? It’s one of few games that gives the player complete 360 degree control (providing it doesn’t get stopped by scenery but then you zoom in/out). Even later 3D Marios didn’t have that throughout, Galaxy’s for example was fixed in many places.

Donald Trump has done a few good things in his life, but that doesn't make up for the absolute mountain of atrocities with which he's associated.

Activision silences people for supporting human rights in Hong Kong, fires employees while making record profits and giving the CEO a bonus, proliferates gambling toward children, and is associated with a mountain of other issues. And these issues aren't in the distant past - they are actively ongoing. Funding a few good games doesn't negate all of that.

In fact, part of their PR strategy is to hope that you forget all about how it handled Blitzchung by making a Diablo announcement. A trained journalist would challenge these dynamics rather than fall for them.

@BranJ0 Minimum amount of effort has been Nintendo for about 10 years now.

@Pat_trick The term "anti-consumer" is a term with no objective meaning (the same for its opposite "pro-consumer"). This assumes that every consumer is the same and wants the same thing provided in the same fashion and there is a universally agreed upon good way and bad way, and this just isn't the case.

What you want, and what I want, could be similar, and could be completely different. How I want companies to approach that could be completely different too. A good recent example of this is the Microsoft tactic of cross generational games (more people can play the games, but the games are held back by the lowest common denominator) vs the Sony tactic of generational exclusivity (fewer people can play the games but they can push the boundaries of modern hardware). Neither one of them are anti-consumer, they are just different ways to approach a problem, with different people wanting different solutions.

@Constable_What Being apathetic is one stance, but not one that anyone cares to discuss; and not one that moves the needle anywhere.

And they are important discussions. Yes Activision is just a company, and who cares about a company? I don't. But a publisher does more than just slap their name on a title. They have a huge impact from start to finish. From funding (and whether that happens at all) to monetization. Its important to let them know when they did it right, and when they did not. Its also important to acknowledge when they have made better choices.

A good example of this (for me) is Microsoft. For the longest time a terrible company. I wouldn't touch anything Microsoft made for nearly two decades. Garbage products, even worse consumer practices. The last 5 years though? They have been making one good move after another. I am still not at the point where I will buy most Microsoft products, but I no longer think of them as the terrible company I once did. I think companies should get credit when its due.

As for Activision, I avoid 99% of their issues because I don't play online titles (and thats where a lot of their problems have been) so I don't really have a dislike for them.

The Crash and Spyro trilogies were solid. Definitely some love and care put into these games by the developers.

So Sammy I will give one smidgeon of credit to Activision for funding those games. It was a good decision and I appreciated it.

Of course, that one smidgeon of credit I have just bequeathed upon them is miniscule compared to their decades-long campaign of business malpractice from the perspective of the real gamer, not to mention their long and storied history of mistreating their workforce and developers.

Is that fair? Your article's thesis isn't wrong - I did give them the credit they are due. In the same breath, I'd also say they are one of the worst publishers out there.

But you aren't really arguing they are a good company, you just want to be fair in your assessment. That's cool. Hitler deserves credit for improving Germany's economy in the 40s, but uh... even though that statement is factually correct I'd avoid seriously trying to argue the point due to the wider context of 1940s Germany. Maybe a dramatic example, but you get what I'm trying to say.

It takes years of blood sweat and tears to build trust and a second to lose it. Activision has a lot of blood sweat and tears ahead of it if it wants to rebuild it's brand among the demographic of this site.

@Constable_What

Can't agree more - money is the universal language, not loud minorities. The masses decide, and in any particular subject or industry the masses are (in general) ignorant to the more nuanced inner workings of a thing. In this context this means a parent buying Crash or Spyro for their kid because of the colorful box art, knowing nothing else. They've never heard of Bobby Kotick and don't know Activision from CD Project Red.

This site represents an enthusiast circle, a niche and very small slice of the wider - and primary - audience. The mother looking for a Christmas present for Billy better represent the main target market demographic they are aiming at.

Activision doesn't cater to us specifically and by all rights they've done pretty well under Kotick's "enlightened" reign. If you measure 'good' in terms of profit and share price. Which is in fact how shareholders measure 'good', for better or worse.

This slimy executive has been great for Activision because he rejects the central premise most comments on her seem to implicitly hold, that Activision must cater to us (the enthusiast demographic). Sure we are a not insignificant portion of the market that they would like to capture too, but we are not the focus. The uneducated, uninformed buyer is the focus, being statistically larger and representing greater potential profits.

The shorter version of this is Activision is a complete ***** company by our standards, but they are laughing their way to the bank because Activision doesn't particularly care what we think as long as the share prices go up and the dividends are paid.

And another article that provokes freedom of oppinion then stampedes all over the person who speaks..whilst the "corporate shill" comment dosn't sit well with me i can see that point of view and i can also see that it was provocative but i have seen far worse comments levelled and far less vitriol dished out..activision are one of my least favourite publishers but unfortunatly i love warzone (i know the shame of it) and i play way too much of it..i dont really agree with the endless remasters but a few of them have been done exceptionally well and not all activisions either..i really dislike the whole mtx thing but i respect that there are people who do like to spend money on trinkets,skins whatever so i exercise my right to not buy into it unless there is something worth while (are expansions considered mtx?) Just in case somebody here decides i'm eternally wrong and damned to hell..it dosnt matter what our views are as activision et al are still going to pump out the remasters,fill games with ads and product placement and rape parents wallets with the scourge of the MTX so why does everybody get so irrate? If this web site cannot take criticism for an article they publish and respect another persons perspective (even if the words used could have been better chosen) then why publish it? Things get so damn feisty on here..its about the games and politics should not be a part of it..

@nessisonett "Urgh argh Chinese money Tencent Blizzard Activision Doritos"

Ah, my favourite Doritos flavour.

@Dodoo Mario 64 doesn't give you complete 360 degree control. You toggle between different preset angles. It also often stops you from moving the camera at all. You typically have 3 set distances and a few horizontal angles, or a completely fixed camera, that's it.

I don't love Activision but I certainly don't hate it either. Always willing to give credit where it's due and it's been a pretty solid generation for Activision. Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and Modern Warfare 2019 are two of the FPS I enjoyed most this gen right there with DOOM 2016 and Eternal. The Crash, Spyro and Tony Hawk 1+2 remasters were all well done and Crash 4 seems on track to be a great game. Granted I just stick to single player when it comes to these games so maybe that's why Activision doesn't annoy me as much as it does other people.

People here defending Activision are clearly ignorant of the practices involved by the company.

People don't hate Activision because they make bad games (that's purely a matter of taste), people hate Activision for their slimey, grubby and downright disgusting business practices. Just because some people here want to remain blithly ignorant of the matter, does not excuse the company from the facts in how they do business.

Activision deserves ZERO praise. They are a morally reprehensible company, corrupt to the core, and thoroughly devoid of any redeeming qualities (that is unless you're willing to put their games ahead of your integrity).

Does the writer know about the low paid workers, tax dodging, predatory game mechanics (which were clearly put into CTR in order to prep kids for btw) and obscene over payment of CEOs?

Two or three cheap, low risk remakes do not make up for all the nefarious practices Activision employ. You could even argue that the US taxpayers should get the credit for the games in question considering the money the company pilfers from tax schemes probably paid for their development with change.

@JapaneseSonic To be honest, this just isn't acceptable.

If you're a journalist, and responsible for putting out articles to the public, what you say has to be held to account. This is not a facebook wall post that you're sharing with friends, it's an article in the public domain, and therefore it needs to be accountable to cover the facts. Rather than just blindly praising a company, without explaining the reasons why people feel vitriolic disdain for companies like Activision.

Equally, I can see why some people are referring to the writer as a "shill", because he's provided zero context, but just tried to convince people why we should give Activision credit (when it's definitely not due).

As you can see, a lot of people here are completely ignorant of the reasons why, and articles like this don't exactly help holding corporate entities and their rubbish values to account.

@thedevilsjester Never thought of it that way. It's true and I agree with you. Maybe a better term would be needed when they charge for everything.

@KippDynamite agree 100% with you, but all too often games journalists don't live up to the journalist part of their job title. I think the industry and gamers in general deserve a far better level of actual journalism than it currently gets. However, I'm not sure there's a fiscal model out there that works for that sort of serious journalism, because you'd need advertising money from the very businesses you would be criticising.

@Grindagger and you my friend have hit the nail on the head. Sadly this is the second such "soapbox" article on here in quick succession that shows a distinct lack of even cursory knowledge about the industry, and that blindly defends something in the industry that deserves no defence without any context at all. It comes across as amateurish.

This playing devil's advocate is going a bit too far in my opinion, and totally misses the mark in this case.

No one has a problem with the quality of the games, even annual COD's get good scores and are generally accepted as good games; the problem is the way the company is managed, and certainly a few remakes won't sugar coat it.
Not even new games, remakes! The bar is very low indeed.
We've reached the point where we commend publishers for publishing games. Wow 🥳.

It's sad to see these articles, really. You'd think Sammy knows these things I've just said. I don't know if it's worse to not think about this obvious point I made, or thinking about it and discarding it because controversy sells.

@ThroughTheIris56 "This week Nintendo announced a trilogy of classic Super Mario titles for the Nintendo Switch, which has the most negligible of tweaks, and will retail for a limited time (!) at full-price. Could you imagine if Activision had taken the same path with Insomniac Games’ trio of PS1 classics?"

Ehm...read the thing?

@SirAngry don’t blame you

Yeah nah - the corporate ethics of Activision is something I don't like. I will always judge a product on its merits but a company that makes multiple people redundant while recording record profits and top level payouts and also does underhand tactics of changing games after review scores deserves scorn. I don't think games should be scored lower or anything but I also, as a consumer, weigh up me feelings before buying a product.

@JapaneseSonic not when it claims the criticism Activision Blizzard receives is based on their games, it's not. Just like the GaaS article it shows a distinct lack of understanding of what the debate in the wider community is, and a lack of knowledge, so I'm sorry but the writing staff here deserve both barrels.

I completed the N.Sane Trilogy (Didn't bother with relics in the first game), got basically all the content in CTR Nitro Fueled (Including the limited promo items and GP decals) and platinumed MediEvil (not acti, but still a ps1 era title that was a classic). I have yet to do the Spyro trilogy - It's been 6 years since I last played through all of the originals - so it's probably time to get the game now. So, I guess remakes this gen have had me hooked. It's nice to see the old classics with good graphics. Will get FF7 remake also, but still waiting on a patch for those poor textures.

@clvr Okay no need to be a ***** about it.

@JapaneseSonic I'm not sure how you can possibly try to make a strawman argument like this, that is completely disregarding an important aspect of the company in question.

It's akin to pointing out the good points of a serial killers personality, and how they might of done X amount of good things in their lives, leaving out.... oh, i don't know, the part about them being a serial killer.

Context, it's important.

Activision are a scummy company, and don't deserve any small amount of praise. Period. Certainly not when they have several high profile moral atrocities to their name that are often discounted in the same manner as this article, and the likes of you trying to trivialize an important integral factor of what this company stands for, in place of giving them some "credit" for a few recent game releases. Sorry, but excuse me (and others here that share my perspective) for having a memory that is longer than a goldfish.

@ThroughTheIris56 well, no need to insult me. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I've never been into being overly critical of publisher X, or lauding everything that Publisher Y has done. Focus on the games, buy the good ones, don't buy the bad ones. That's all it takes.

@JapaneseSonic I'm sorry you feel that way, truly I do.

Just to clarify I'm not here to shame anyone, merely point out some truths. I appreciate you have your own blogs and news outlets to read, that for whatever reasons you like to pigeonhole to cover certain criteria, just understand that not everyone sees the world in such a black and white manner when it comes to voicing their opinions on important matters.

@JapaneseSonic imho it's never silly to hold people accountable for ignorance. Ignoring it just breeds more ignorance.

Also no one is stating you have to be angry with push square, but it's not exactly hard to understand why people are. If you cant see that then there's not much more I can say on the matter.

This site is turning into a cheerleader for greedy billionaire exploiters. Smh.

...Also, nice passive agressive 'Real Gamer™' comment. Stay classy Sammy.

@Pat_trick opinion? That's an attack. Take that garbage to the youtube comment section where it belongs.

@naruball It has been over a day. Get over it. I'll take my opinion wherever the hell I want and if the website doesn't like it they can't always delete it or ban me. And by looking at your comments you're quite the keyboard warrior, YouTube fits you perfectly.