Activision Employee Responds To Gamers' Frustrations News

Activision has made its fair share of poor moves in recent months and seemingly pissed off the gaming community with everything it does. However, in bringing honest and pretty frank answers to a Facebook group set up to raise awareness of gamers' frustrations, Daniel Amrich Activision's Social Media Manager has made an attempt to patch over the differences and bring some transparency over the issues.

Amrich describes the $15 pricing of the Modern Warfare DLC package as a "mistake", but admitted its success made it difficult to criticise: "when they're looking at a bottom line and going 'Hey, turns out people felt this content was worth it'".

Responding to the situation currently engulfing Infinty Ward, Amrich claims that the mass exodus of talent is likely to continue and claims that the people left "will have to reinvent the studio".

"More people will probably go too, looking for new situations. Maybe they will join Respawn, maybe not. I'm confused, because by leaving, they are giving up their bonus -- and the more people that leave, the bigger the bonus gets for the people who stay. I'd think if you are young and hungry and have a vision for a new game, IW would be a really good place to be right now. There are so many young and hungry designers, programmers, and developers out there, and I suspect some of them are already employed at IW, just waiting for their shot. When the dust settles, I expect to see some talented people step up and redefine the studio."

Responding to the release of multiple Guitar Hero games last year, Amrich claims he "wasn't a fan of last year's GH-apalooza."

"I thought, like many other people did, that it was too many GH games too soon and I got fatigued on it. That's why there is one GH game this year -- I think the lesson was learned, and it was learned financially. So...yeah, that was too aggressive a move and it showed.

I think people at Activision got overzealous and tried to push too much too fast. I could have handled GH5, DJ Hero, and maybe two other games...but counting the DS games, there was something like eight. Who has that much time and money? But they were thinking from a different angle and we all saw what happened. I think people were humbled by the way it turned out and we've obviously seen a return to more normal things this year (one GH, one DJ for 2010 -- that's it)."

Activision's Bobby Kotick has become the figurehead for gamers' anger, particularly from the misinterpretation of some of his comments about taking the fun out of game creation.  Amrich is equally frank with his opinions on his boss, claiming:

"And frankly, while I respect him as a businessman, I wish Bobby Kotick would not shoot from the hip so often."

I firmly do believe that a lot of what he has said has been willfully misinterpreted, but at the same time, he has to understand that the whole world is listening, not just the people in the banking community that happen to be in the room when he says stuff. So I would like to see him choose his words more carefully and give people another facet to his personality beyond just the businessman.

His comments at DICE intrigued me and it was nice and human to hear him admit some of his mistakes, but even then, I wasn't thrilled with some of his phrasing, and then the next week the IW thing blew up."