Bobby Kotick: Neue Verbalattacken gegen West, Zampella und EA

In einem Interview mit dem Edge-Magazin packte Bobby Kotick erneut die verbale Keule aus und schoss scharf gegen seine ehemaligen Star-Gamedesigner Jason West und Vince Zampella.

Zur Erinnerung: Jason West und Vince Zampella, die einstigen Gründer des Erfolgsstudios Infinity Ward, welches die Call-of-Duty-Reihe begründete, hatten sich Mitte des Jahres in einem öffentlich ausgetragenen Streit von Activision getrennt und im Rahmen des EA-Partnerprogramms das Studio Respawn Entertainment gegründet. Anschließend hatte ein Großteil des führenden Personals Infinity Ward verlassen und ist nahezu geschlossen zu Respawn Entertainment gewechselt.

Kotick dazu gegenüber Edge: "It shook my belief in two specific people, who were my friends. The frustrating thing about that is, the stuff that these guys did, I never would have expected them to do. We're a public company, we've got ethics obligations, and the things they did were... I would go to jail if I did them. You can't use the company and the company's assets for your own personal benefit, and you can't use the leverage that you might have for personal benefit – you're not allowed to do that! And so we didn't have any choice."

Und auch zu Electronic Arts ließ sich Kotick aus: "The core principle of how we run the company is the exact opposite of EA. EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida’, ‘EA Vancouver’, ‘EA New Jersey’, whatever. We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that’s what makes them so successful.' We don’t have an Activision anything - it’s Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer."