News
Activision/Blizzard Preventing Brütal Legend from Getting Published
This is So NOT Rock & Roll
by Sarah

Harmonix and MTV Games may have been busy little bees this morning holding important conference calls and making announcements, but that doesn’t mean third-party publishing juggernaut Activision hasn’t been working just as hard. Oh, but they have! In fact, as we speak, they are quite busy building their reputation as “most evil corporation in video games” (also known as “the new EA”). No, don’t worry, they’re not announcing a slew of new Guitar Hero games (they already did that, remember?). Instead, they’re rubbing salt in the recently-opened wound caused by the dropping of Brütal Legend from their slate. Now, not only are they not publishing Tim Schafer’s next game, but they’re actually trying to stop it from getting published at all.
According to Kotaku, the reason that the rock and roll adventure that doesn’t use a Guitar Hero peripheral (no wonder Activision was so against it) hasn’t found a new home is because Activision/Blizzard has been an “impediment” to the process of getting a new publisher. No actual reason has been given, but apparently the game’s former publisher have been, as the site so succintly put it, cock-blocking Brütal Legend—and that is just not cool. This game has been called a “creative risk”, as most of Schafer’s games have been—but guess what? Schafer’s games are also AWESOME.
Maybe I’m jumping the gun here and should wait for some hard evidence that this is actually Activision’s fault, but you know that no one loves speculation more than I do. Rest assured that I will keep you updated on the fate of Brütal Legend, since I have been waiting for it a long time. And as for you, Activision: come on, don’t be a dick.
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Activision/Blizzard Merger Puts Some Games on the Chopping Block
Comments
i guess there always will be an evil company
The thing that I don't get is how Blizzard is one of those companies that I always looked at as the underdog independents, always loyal to their fan-base. Much like Bethesda Softworks. So when they announced the merger with Activision, which I have always considered a "meh" company that releases more crap filler titles (though they had some winners back in the day), I couldn't believe it.
Now I had become less interested in Blizzard before the merger because they really hit it off with WoW and then had been just banking off that. So this merger has really changed my respect of Blizzard.
To not publish this and also Ghostbusters is insane and with a company that is rolling in cash from the WoW market, I just don't understand the penny pinching.
Tim Schafer's resume:
1990 The Secret of Monkey Island, co-writer
1991 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, co-designer
1993 Day of the Tentacle, co-designer, co-producer, co-director, co-writer
1995 Full Throttle, writer, designer, project leader
1998 Grim Fandango, project leader
2005 Psychonauts, creative director, co-writer
Why, Activision, are you dragging your heels on this?
Ea so so evil