It's not fun for the people involved, I'm sure, but it sure is entertaining to watch... in the week since
Activision filed their counter-suit against the developers they fired for insubordination, at least ten more employees of that studio have left of their own accord, from reports I see on the 'net. The most notable bits I've gleaned on that:
- Mostly, it's "leads" that are leaving, it appears... but they're not all going straight into the welcoming arms of the new studio set up by the fired developers under EA's wing.
- "Anonymous source(s)" from inside Activision report exceptionally low morale, even calling the studio "dead".
- Activision and business analysts seem to be of the mind-set that they're likely to see more developers leave, but they'll just replace them, and will still be able to put out "competitive" products in the future.
How can I best put this... creative types aren't interchangeable parts. At some level, even
Activision must realize this, when they replace terms similar to "industry-leading" with "competitive" as the best they can look forward to on an ongoing basis. To use a car-dealing analogy, it's like Lexus losing significant portions of their engineering and design staff, then telling anybody that will listen "not to worry, we'll get more workers, and still be able to compete with Chevy." I'm not going to be sad to see most of
Activision wither away over time, but I do feel some sorrow for the coders that don't have the option to jump ship early, for whatever reason.
Of course, I did say "most of
Activision"... there is one piece that isn't going by the wayside anytime soon, and that's Blizzard. Best evidence of that: they started selling an in-game mount for their World of
Warcraft game yesterday, at $25 a pop... and sold enough to make over $2 million in a day (
link). It'll be... interesting... to see how the power struggle over that cash cow plays out.
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