Screw you, Activision...No, even more

[SJP]

Hey, somebody thought Furry Vengeance was a good idea, and that's being sold.  And yes, that came out wrong and amusing...I meant to say it should be something that can be enjoyed for what it is and not just a bunch of boring crap slapped onto a disc.  I hate to keep here, but my experience with something like this has been highly, highly underwhelming, and if they really think this would be a big thing, I think they're going to be hard-pressed for this to reach outside a very niche audience unless it's really, really good.

[Crow T. Robot 666]

I've played game where I would have paid to have the cutscenes removed.

[Invader_quirk]

Activision isn't doing anybody harm by doing this, but that doesn't mean we can't hate them for being greedy money-milking bastards. Metroid Other M has a theater mode that weaves the cutscenes together into a movie. Activision COULD do that IF they weren't bastards as previously stated.

[TTYT]

Wow...Ok, the cutscenes DVD thing may not be as bastardly upon introspection, but wow - Activison/Blizzard's now banning Starcraft II single player cheaters:

http://www.cheathappens.com/article_blizzardbans.asp

[Chaos]

That's what piracy is for...

[Thrifty]

Uh... they put the cheat codes in the final release of the game.  And it's online and can be updated through patches like an MMORPG, so can't they still disable this?

[Thrifty]

Activision isn't doing anybody harm by doing this, but that doesn't mean we can't hate them for being greedy money-milking bastards. Metroid Other M has a theater mode that weaves the cutscenes together into a movie. Activision COULD do that IF they weren't bastards as previously stated.

I still haven't seen a shred of evidence that releasing a completely optional product that you don't have to buy but you can if you want to constitutes greed.  I think the cutscenes in the Chains of Promathia mission set for Final Fantasy 11 were beautiful, and I would pay a modest sum to see them all strung together.  If Square Enix were to oblige me and release this product, even though everyone else who wanted to play Final Fantasy 11 (or any other SE product) would have their gaming experience completely unaltered, would that be greed?

Or put it this way, if a movie studio releases a bare bones DVD and a deluxe edition DVD, is that greed?  Such as, oh, when the Lord of the Rings movies were released?  Purchasers of both enjoyed the same movie, neither obliged to buy both products.

All I see in this entire thread is a bunch of gamers with an axe to grind against Activision saying "OMG LOOK AT THE FOUL EVIL THING THEY HAVE DONE!!!", when Activision has just undertaken some mundane venture to expand to a new revenue stream.

[Compound]

Uh... they put the cheat codes in the final release of the game.  And it's online and can be updated through patches like an MMORPG, so can't they still disable this?

In this case, it was an outside program that allowed the cheating, not the ingame stuff. This outside program allowed you to get achievements with it, unlike blizz's cheats. Plus it could likely be used for multiplayer shenanigans as well. (And cheathappens charges for their trainers, which is likely another issue for blizz.)

(I'm not on the bash Activision side of this, just clarifying things.)