Little history lesson on video games and their developers and publishers for you. I was going to type up a post on this after E3, but it can't wait any longer.

Developers are the people that make the games. Publishers generally shovel out the money, market, and package the video game. It's a good set up. Developers can focus on the creative prospect, and the publishers can worry about the money. Alas, since publishers have the money, and developers generally don't (exception is Blizzard Entertainment) publishers generally set hard release dates (unless the developer is well known for outstanding games, ie Blizzard). Hence why Hellgate London was full of bugs. It needed to be released. But enough about Hellgate. The developers.

I usually side with the developers on things. I don't think you realize what they go through. Sucker Punch, who made Sly Cooper and Infamous, spent very much of their time away from their families to create the outstanding game inFamous. That's just one studio, but several other studios do the same on various games. Tim Schafer and his team at Double Fine worked very late hours on the game Psychonauts right before it was set to be sent to the DVD factory.

So like I said, I have a lot of respect for the developers. Even the ones that produce Petz, Barbie games, and other games of the like. They work hard on those titles. Plus those developers step out of those license games and create new IPs, and look at that and go, "You made us money in the past. You know the systems. Yeah we'll give you time and money to create an outstanding game."

An example of this High Voltage Software who made Dora the Explorer games. They are breaking out of that shell, and are creating the highly anticipated game The Conduit for the Wii. The game is getting a lot of press, and it's shaping up to be a great game, so I have high hopes.

Some publishers have a history. Good or bad. Electronic Arts has had a bad history. EA was swalloing developers left and right. They were hated, and just kept puting out the same crap over and over again. A few years ago, new management stepped in. Last year they started taking risks, like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge. This year promises the same with more new IPs. IP stands for Intelectual Property which just means new original games by the way. They also have EA partners, which Valve is part of. Basically EA takes care of the disk games, the packaging and what not, even though Valve releases their games on Steam alongside the packaged games. Like I said, EA has a great lineup this year with Brutal Legend, Dante's Inferno, and Dragon Age Origins and many others.

Activision is making me mad now. After Activision and Vivendi merged, they dropped a few developers, such as the people behind Brutal Legend, Ghostbusters, WET, and a few others.

Why they dropped Ghostbusters, I don't know. It has the fanbase and hype. But they did.

Don't know why they dropped Brutal Legend. They have a legendary man in the industry, Time Schafer.

I could understand WET, but that game looks awesome.

As a result, EA scooped those developers up. They are still independent, but the publisher is now EA. And EA has been good to them. Brutal Legend has one of the biggest signs at E3 this year. A whole wall dedicated to it. EA has been good to double fine for sure. WET and Ghostbusters have also been very hyped.

As a result, the hype behind Brutal Legend has grown. As a result Activision is sueing Double Fine! They say that they own the rights to the game. I shake my head at Activision for wanting to punish the developer for making a great game. Activision abandoned their child, and EA adopted and took care of it. Now Activision comes back from being a drunken father and sues the mother, who for this metaphor is EA. Dick move. Activision shouldn't have the right. They must have violated a contract somewhere along the way. Shame on you Activision. You have lost respect of several gamers. 233 comments on Gamespot on the new article talking about it. All of the ones I read basially said they hate Activision now. I agree with the statement. I want to boycotte Activision but they are rich, and that just punishes developers. I can only think of two games that I want in the future by Activision though, so no loss.

I needed to vent. So respect developers; hate Activision.

Good day.