Kotick: Brutal Legend trouble nothing to do with me
CEO not the right man to make those decisions
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has divorced himself from the troubles that surrounded Brutal Legend after Activision and Vivendi merged.
For his part in the war of words with Double Fine boss Tim Schafer Kotick stated that he had no involvement with any of the decisions either to can the game or sue Double Fine and EA to recover the development costs that Vivendi had invested in the game.
Kotick began talking about Schafer saying: "I dont know him. I never met him. I had no involvement in Vivendi's decision to go into business with him. I had very limited knowledge of what we were even doing with him. The guy went off and signed a deal with Electronic Arts for millions of dollars and owed Vivendi money. Vivendi had advanced him like 15 or 20 million dollars. He missed all the milestones, missed all the deadlines, as Tim has a reputation of doing."
On the problems with Brutal Legend he added: "I don't know if it was a decision not to publish it. I dont even really know where we were in the negotiation and discussions about what was going to happen to the product. Unbeknownst to everybody, they didnt have the rights to sell. So all wed said is: 'Look, if you go and do a deal with somebody else, pay back the money that was advanced to you.' That was all we were looking for. We ultimately got a fraction of the money that had been advanced to him, and as far as I know, that was the end of it. But I don't even know if there was a lawsuit from my recollection. I was not the person that was making the assessments of this. I probably wouldnt have been most qualified to do so."
Thanks Joystiq.
