14 DAY TRIAL // An executive working for video game publisher Activision Blizzard has called out rival company Electronic Arts over the strong comments it has made about the future prospects of the Call of Duty franchise, saying that while competition is good for the industry it does not make sense to wish publicly for a rival product to fail.
Speaking during his keynote at the Gamescom 2011 event Eric Hirshberg, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Activision Publishing, has stated, “Competition is of course a good thing. It keeps us all on our toes and ultimately makes the games better. It’s healthy. But it’s one thing to want your game to succeed and another thing to actively, publicly say you want other games to fail.”
He added, “Recently a competitor of ours was quoted as saying that he wants to see Call of Duty ‘rot from the core’. I’ve been asked countless times to respond to this comment and I’ve generally chosen not to. My job is to help our incredibly talented, passionate teams to make the best games they can, not to throw insults around at others. But I actually feel this kind of rhetoric is bad for our industry.”
Hirshberg then went on to say that such comments could not be delivered in any other media industry, like movies or television.
The executive says that all players in the video game industry should want to see as many titles as possible performing well in the market because that automatically means that more and more customers will be attracted to it.
The big commercial battle of the fall will be between Battlefield 3, the first person shooter from DICE and Electronic Arts, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, from Infinity Ward and Activision Blizzard.
The first gamer arrives on October 25 while the second one comes on November 8.
They both compete on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.