Toys for Bobby Kotick

Is Bobby Kotick Mr Smith?

Comparing where we were to where we're at, in terms of life and what we see around us, can yield some interesting results in the realm of judging what has progressed and regressed respectively. Are we still working towards the same goals, are the same things still important to us, or has our world view changed and grown somewhat slightly as we, or maybe just the world around us, has matured. Looking at Activision through this lens, it sure has seemed that they regressed these past few years, as just when it looked like this storied publisher was getting a hand on actually diversifying their audience, they've retreated back to the same old holding pattern of 'Call of Duty'. "Got to make more 'Call of Duty', else we may run out!" This reached a whole new scope just the otherday when a promising and well positioned studio was sucked into the Call of Duty machine, thus giving Activision studios the dubious honour of having every single one of them working on Call of Duty to some degree. (And to think we were measuring up the Call of Duty franchise for a coffin but four or five years ago)

So if you're currently an FPS fan looking at the game industry today, you're just about sitting pretty with the amount of options available to you! (Well, unless you're a tactical FPS fan, in which case all you really have is Rainbow Six Siege, but I digress) Apex Legends and Call of Duty provide all the competition and diversity you could ever really need in the somewhat narrow demographic of casual online shooter games with battle royale modes, and they've pretty definitively taken over the market. I mean, who'd have thought that all Call of Duty needed to do in order to soar to unexplored heights would be to just offer their game up for free and charge on the backend? (Everyone in China, I guess, given how that's what Call Duty had been in China for years beforehand) To call Call of Duty Warzone a goliath to rival COD in it's heyday seems apt, so I cannot feasibly throw up my hands and feign surprise when I see all the company slowly mould itself around supporting that game model in the years to come. But even acknowledging that, surely there has to be some limits!

Activison is a big company, afterall, with a storied history touching so many different properties and genres over the years. Do you remember when they used to be that studio for making Marvel games and we got such fantastic titles like Spiderman 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance? (Bet they're sad they lost that licence...) They even used to make Tony Hawks game and even a little Guitar Hero back when those sorts of titles were popular. What I'm trying to say is that Call of Duty isn't the only game these guys made and they used to get on great splitting themselves between COD and several other game franchises. In fact, even recently things had been working out just fine for them on that front on account of the revival of the old Spyro and Crash Bandicoot games. So what could have got in the way of this exciting revival for the action platforming genre now that they've got this promising studio 'Toys for Bob' working on them. Unless... on no, they didn't!

Actually, they didn't. 'Toys for Bob' hasn't be shut down or swallowed or forcibly downsized just yet, and with some luck maybe things will stay that way, but they doesn't mean they've been allowed to persist unmolested either. After sitting down and bringing the Crash Bandicoot series back to life through the N Sane trilogy, and then getting the chance to hone an honest-to-goodness sequel with 'Crash Bandicoot 4: it's about time', Toys for Bob have received the ultimate position in Sovngarde; relegation to a support studio. No, I'm not joking, you did read that right, they were rewarded for helming two successful titles by having their autonomy stripped; what the what? Now, one on hand you could look at this from the angle of these developers getting the opportunity to work on the hugely successful Call of Duty Warzone, and be able to stick that on their resume; whilst on the otherhand you could say that they could have requested a transfer to a COD studio if they wanted, and now none of them have that choice.

Now to be fair (pff, there's that expression again) Call of Duty is currently sitting at a very unique spot within it's own history. Not just because they've never done a battle royal before (again, they actually had; but in China) but because they're currently experimenting with having an on-going free-to-play game run alongside their biyearly premium paid for games. There's a sort of shared infrastructure going between each title that just makes absolutely no sense even in summary, so I can only imagine the nightmare that the staff needs to go through in order to keep it running. What I'm trying to say is that I actually understand why Activision feels the need to get more hands on deck in order to keep things running, they've currently given themselves a huge undertaking to handle. But does that really mean every single other property owned by Activison needs to get shafted in order for COD to shine? Because I feel like when you start weighing that up as the alternative to scaling back, maybe you've gone a bit too far and grand plans for COD need to be toned down a bit. (You know what they say about spreading eggs and baskets.)

Mostly, however, this is unfair to the folks over at Toys for Bob and the plans they had going forward. One such plan apparently being a multiplayer add-on coming to Crash 4 that would have shaken up the gameplay and extended that title's lifespan. On such plan who's future is now in question because Toys for Bob isn't necessarily the biggest developer in the world and who knows if they can even do two projects at once. (Even if their new COD duties are more in support) One contractor took to Twitter to mutely share his disappointment on the whole situation, hoping along with everyone that this move is just temporary whilst Activision management get off their behinds and do something proper in this situation; like hire more people to fill support spaces. (You know, be an asset to your market. Is that too much to ask?) So that just goes to show you that at least someone who's worked with Toys finds this all a little distasteful, so there might be more in the studio as well with similar sentiments. So way to demoralise your own staff, Activision, setting that example.

One rumour which spread out of this whole situation was the idea that layoffs had followed this decision, which would have been horrible if that were the case, although it apparently isn't. Some contractors didn't have their contracts renewed, which kind of makes sense considering the vast change in direction for the studio, but no one was whole sale let go just yet. Still, that makes for a small victory when those that remain aren't going to be making what they signed up to do, because artists in particular do have a tendency to underperform when mismatched. (I've met and worked alongside some to know that little tidbit well enough) Just look at other studios like Bioware when their projects started to move away from what they were good at towards what their producers thought would be more profitable. Layoffs weren't needed, key members just quit. What's the point in sticking around when you're not being utilised, right? So will a similar fate befall Toys for Bob? I honestly haven't the foggiest; but it's a possibility.

So all in all, like the Infinity Stones coming together for Thanos; every Activision Studio has come to fall under the COD umbrella. Is this the grand future that Bobby Kotick sees for his company? Mass homogenisation to the point where every studio becomes interchangeable and just eventually end up changing their names to 'Activation California' and the like? Is that just the dream for every mass publisher out there? (It might as well be, that seems to be becoming something of a trend) I want to believe that it's not, Activision still remembers the other properties under it's belt and, most importantly, that Crash Bandicoot doesn't get itself left unceremoniously to the wide side because, gosh darn it, we just got that furry fella back! Thank you for all your hard work, Toys for Bob, I hope that you'll have the chance to demonstrate that ingenuity, talent and resourcefulness once more. (though that's looking like a hope for the far future at this point)