Activision Wants to Sell Cutscenes for $30
Just when you thought things were getting pleasant
Activision's CEO Robert - Bobby - Kotick has told business and banking bigwigs that he'd like to strip cutscenes from games like Starcraft II and sell them to "our audiences, who we have their credit card information a direct relationship (with)" for between $20-30.
This comes in during the same Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media conference as he announced that Activision would not charge gamers who had paid $60 for a game any additional sums for online - and that in-game advertising was a bad way to go.
According to IGN, Bobby told the audience, "If we were to take that hour, or hour an a half, and take it out of the game and we were to go to our audiences, who we have their credit card information a direct relationship, and say to them 'Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?'...
"... if we were to go to an audience and say 'We have this great hour and a half of linear video that we'd like to make available to you at a $20 or $30 price point,' you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever."
In fact, he mentioned that "Within the next five years, you are likely to see us do that. It might be in a partnership with somebody or alone, but there will be a time where we'll capitalize on the relationship we have with our audience; deliver them something that is really extraordinary and let them consume it directly through us instead of theatrical distribution."
So, would you be up for paying for cutscenes stitched together to make 'movies' for £20?
This comes in during the same Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media conference as he announced that Activision would not charge gamers who had paid $60 for a game any additional sums for online - and that in-game advertising was a bad way to go.
According to IGN, Bobby told the audience, "If we were to take that hour, or hour an a half, and take it out of the game and we were to go to our audiences, who we have their credit card information a direct relationship, and say to them 'Would you like to have the StarCraft movie?'...
"... if we were to go to an audience and say 'We have this great hour and a half of linear video that we'd like to make available to you at a $20 or $30 price point,' you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever."
In fact, he mentioned that "Within the next five years, you are likely to see us do that. It might be in a partnership with somebody or alone, but there will be a time where we'll capitalize on the relationship we have with our audience; deliver them something that is really extraordinary and let them consume it directly through us instead of theatrical distribution."
So, would you be up for paying for cutscenes stitched together to make 'movies' for £20?
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Comments
deleted 16 Sep 2010 20:26
1/5
Seriously!!
Well i wont be buying it i generally skip cutscenes and when the option to skip isnt there well it pisses em right off, i buy a game to play and forcing a story upon me unless its RPG or really reserved of a story ie halo, then its the skip start button pressed about 10 times.
Well i wont be buying it i generally skip cutscenes and when the option to skip isnt there well it pisses em right off, i buy a game to play and forcing a story upon me unless its RPG or really reserved of a story ie halo, then its the skip start button pressed about 10 times.
Tone 16 Sep 2010 22:50
2/5
Can activision sink any lower?
selling cutscenes for £20-30? you can buy Dvds for less than 10 or go to the cinema for less. And too be honest, i dont really know of cutscenes by activision that were Gripping enough to make a movie. the only people i suppose could get away with this would be Konami = mgs4 had about 6-8 hours of cutscenes all beautiful and i got the game for £5 (second hand, had it when first came out then sold and recently bought again).
Either he is purposely trying to sink the compnay or alienate its audience. either way i hope you burn or change activision
selling cutscenes for £20-30? you can buy Dvds for less than 10 or go to the cinema for less. And too be honest, i dont really know of cutscenes by activision that were Gripping enough to make a movie. the only people i suppose could get away with this would be Konami = mgs4 had about 6-8 hours of cutscenes all beautiful and i got the game for £5 (second hand, had it when first came out then sold and recently bought again).
Either he is purposely trying to sink the compnay or alienate its audience. either way i hope you burn or change activision
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deleted 16 Sep 2010 23:21
3/5
Tone wrote:
Can activision sink any lower?
selling cutscenes for £20-30? you can buy Dvds for less than 10 or go to the cinema for less. And too be honest, i dont really know of cutscenes by activision that were Gripping enough to make a movie. the only people i suppose could get away with this would be Konami = mgs4 had about 6-8 hours of cutscenes all beautiful and i got the game for £5 (second hand, had it when first came out then sold and recently bought again).
Either he is purposely trying to sink the compnay or alienate its audience. either way i hope you burn or change activision
selling cutscenes for £20-30? you can buy Dvds for less than 10 or go to the cinema for less. And too be honest, i dont really know of cutscenes by activision that were Gripping enough to make a movie. the only people i suppose could get away with this would be Konami = mgs4 had about 6-8 hours of cutscenes all beautiful and i got the game for £5 (second hand, had it when first came out then sold and recently bought again).
Either he is purposely trying to sink the compnay or alienate its audience. either way i hope you burn or change activision
well we know what happens in the industry when you become to cocky, really what is activison providing to the gaming world that cant be found elsewhere?
What is really funny about this is 5 years ago i would never image Activsion to be like this, I would of said EA was the one to watch yet, EA is turning around becoming less money grabbing and catering for an audience, bringing us titles to compete with what's out there, the NFS series was turned around into something good, FIFA kick PES from the top spot, Burnout gave loads DLC for FREE!! and with Dead Space, Medal Of Honor, and those talks about making a GTA style Game, Activison can keep there Year on Year COD, Guitar Hero Bollox and the rest of the churn and stick cutscenes up their arse!
DrunkenGamer 16 Sep 2010 23:39
4/5
On the whole I agree that this is primarily a cashin , However I would like to add one caveat, it is unless these 'CutScene Movies' Are included in the game boxes for free - there are a lot of RPG's that i have played thru once before and would love to recap on the story of, however i do not have the time to play through the whole game again
Even sticking with his example of starcraft, just before SC2 came out I replayed the original to recap on the storyline - Had i been given the option to just watch all the cutscenes as a movie, I probably would consider it
While paying for them separately would irritate me immensely, if I got it for free with the game (having already paid for the cut-scenes) then it would be fine for me to see that content available separately for people that did not want the game just to check out the story
I could see someone picking up copy of Dragon Age 2 when it comes out and not wanting to put in all that time to play Dragon Age if they hadn't already, A movie version of the story may be something that would like to have the option of
So while I agree that coming from Kotick its clearly all about the cash - However I can see at least some merit to the idea
Even sticking with his example of starcraft, just before SC2 came out I replayed the original to recap on the storyline - Had i been given the option to just watch all the cutscenes as a movie, I probably would consider it
While paying for them separately would irritate me immensely, if I got it for free with the game (having already paid for the cut-scenes) then it would be fine for me to see that content available separately for people that did not want the game just to check out the story
I could see someone picking up copy of Dragon Age 2 when it comes out and not wanting to put in all that time to play Dragon Age if they hadn't already, A movie version of the story may be something that would like to have the option of
So while I agree that coming from Kotick its clearly all about the cash - However I can see at least some merit to the idea
TimSpong 17 Sep 2010 16:25
5/5
If it was down to me, most games would have the cut-scenes ripped from them (unless they double as loading screens... in this day and age) and put anywhere else.
If people want to buy cut-scene movies, that's not my business. Hell, people pay for all kinds of nonsense.
Hrumph
Tim
If people want to buy cut-scene movies, that's not my business. Hell, people pay for all kinds of nonsense.
Hrumph
Tim