Ty's Rant: To boycott or not to boycott

To Boycott or not to Boycott

When Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released there was a momentous shift in what people began to play online. People I knew who never really played many video-games other than Halo and Madden once every other week suddenly were regularly playing Call of Duty 4. The Casual-Hardcore as i refer to them (people who only play a few games a year but games that would be considered hardcore) treated COD4 as the second coming. It's genius upgrade system hooked gamers feeding off everyone's need for inner-accomplishment and turning gamers into crack addicts. Now two years later Infinity Ward is ready to give gamers there next fix with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.



Now heres my problem and its a problem I think a lot of gamers who look at the business side of games may be facing. Activision is the company everyone loves to hate, they take a lot of shit from gamers for routinely producing rehashed versions of old games and sucking every bit of cash from the game until it's dry (ie: the Tony Hawk series). Bobby Kotick CEO of Activision has been the leader behind Activision for a little while now and when people hate on Activision often times the hatred is directed toward Bobby Kotick. Bobby Kotick has made it clear that the only thing he cares about when it comes to making games is how much money he can make out of it. He was recently interviewed by Gamespot where he stated;

"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

"really [reward] profit and nothing else"
"Mwah Ha Ha"

Bobby Kotick has made it clear that he doesn't care about Video-Games from a quality standpoint and merely look at it as a growing Cash Cow. This is the direction many gamers and I do not want to see games going in.

Now were on the verge of Modern Warfare 2 a game published by Activision and bound to sell millions of copies and be a quality game but no doubt the money from this game will only help Activision churn out 20 more Guitar Heroes and Tony Hawks. I just don't feel comfortable purchasing a game that supports (in my opinion) negative ideals and it is for this reason i refuse to purchase Guitar Hero or Tony Hawk games.

However I do realize that there are other people here, not everyone in Activision supports Kotick's ideals and Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward has some truly talented individuals who understand video games and are deserving for all the effort they've put into the game. Also I am sure Call of duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be a great game that i would certainly miss out on.

I will inevitably end up picking up Modern Warfare 2 at some-point but I'm considered my opinion on the game may be tarnished with the thought that I'm supporting someone I disagree with.


Until Next time ...