EA & Schafer Strike Back At Kotick

Yesterday in the playground Bobby Kotick called Ella Arts a rude name and made Ella cry. Today we find Bobby and Ella facing off once more, surrounded by crowds of school children chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. According to an EA spokesperson:

“Kotick’s relationship with studio talent is well documented in litigation, his company is based on three game franchises – one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick’s own hubris.”

Harsh words from Electronic Arts, although understandable after Bob Koticks’s recent outbursts. The three game franchises that were referenced are World Of Warcraft, The ‘Hero’ games and of course, Call Of Duty.

Sixth-former Tim Schafer has now entered the circle of screaming children and is facing off against Bobby K. You may recall Tim made some rude comments about Bobby but quckly realised his error and decided to keep his mouth shut. As part  of yesterday’s Edge interview Kotick attacked Tim saying:

“He was late, he missed every milestone, the game was not a particularly good game…”

The game Kotick was referring to is Brutal Legend. Let’s listen in and see what Tim had to say in reply…

“It’s sad that instead of just insulting me personally, he goes after the product of my hard-working team – a group of people he almost put out of work a while back. But what’s even sadder is that it took him two months to think of a comeback.”

Ouch! More news from the playground as we get it – look out for an update around lunchtime, Ella is rumoured to have stolen Bobby’s lunch money and Bobby will retaliate by pulling Ella’s pig-tails.

Source: CVG / Eurogamer

25 Comments

  1. Nice response from EA.

  2. Love the style of this article, new it was TC before even looking at the author.

    As for the content of the article, can’t we all just be friends?

  3. Go Tim!

  4. Nice tone of article, really does underline how childish this whole thing is

  5. ha ha, nice one Tim. Punch to the eye socket next.

  6. The article is spot on in tone TC, its exactly like a playgorund
    What an utterly depressing damnation of the industry executed by some of its leading figure-heads

  7. Good strong response from EA, but the fact that the most successful (by a very, very long way) company in the industry is built on those 3 franchises, reflects pretty poorly on gamers doesn’t it?

    How a company in such a ‘weak’ position can’t be beat by EA with their range of licensed incremental upgrade sports titles, franchises like Need For Speed, Sims and Battlefield (with its Bad Company spin-offs) and the occasional new stuff like Dead Space must mean that EA are making some awful internal financial decisions, like really really awful decisions – Although as a publisher which backed $50m flop APB its probably no surprise EA don’t know one side of a coin from another.

    • It helps what WoW is more addictive that crack. I can safely say I’ve never been tempted to try WoW, but I did cave and buy MW2.

      I’m so glad MoH is coming out, I can safely boycott Black Ops and make my small, insignificant stance against a company that openly treats gamers with such complete indifference.

      EA may not be all roses and lavender, but if they keep bringing out decent games there is no reason for Activision to get another cent of mine.

  8. “He was late, he missed every milestone, the game was not a particularly good game…”

    *points finger* With regret your fire

    • I’m on fiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrreeeeeee !

      Oh sorry, did you mean fired? D’oh!

      • I know fail…. that’s not like me

  9. Brutal Legend was good. Wanker.

    • It was alright, it wasn’t a bad game, it was just short…to me

    • I like Brutal Legend as well.

  10. I love it when big corporate giants behave like school children – however if this fight goes down to points I’ll hand victory to EA for that terrific summing up/put down of Activision! The thing is it does ring very true when you read it, unlike Koticks putdown of EA the other day…

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