Welcome to the inaugural induction ceremony of the GamerPops Hall Of Lame. This institution is dedicated to honouring some of the gaming industry’s most infamous personalities. There are many types of lame that we plan to honour, from executives, to over-hyped developers, to fanbois, to journalists, and all points in between. This is a very selective club, and only the lamest of the lame can receive such an honour. If you have any nominations you’d like to make to the GamerPops Hall Of Lame, drop us a line with your nominee and why they should be enshrined.

So, without further adieu, let us begin the induction ceremony for our first enshrinee, Activision Blizzard CEO Robert “Bobby” Kotick.

Let us first begin by saying that Bobby Kotick is very successful. He oversees a large gaming publisher that makes a lot of money and has many successful games and franchises, such as World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero, under its umbrella. Whatever you think of him, there’s no denying what he has accomplished. The “how” he has accomplished this success is what caused us to examine his credentials for the Hall.

One of the reasons for Activision Blizzard’s success is a laser-like focus on profit maximization. If it can’t potentially spawn a sequel, preferably within a year, they’re not interested. After the Activision-Vivendi merger, a number of titles in development were dropped because they didn’t fit in with Kotick’s plans. While not specifically mentioning names, acquired games like Ghostbusters, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, (which ironically was a sequel) Riddick, and other titles were dropped because they “don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises.” Shareholders love this kind of stuff. Gamers like us, however, don’t. Again, you can’t argue with the reasoning or success, but this isn’t a website devoted to the business of gaming. Bobby Kotick never met a sequel he didn’t love and didn’t feel he could squeeze every last dollar out of. How many versions, ports, and spin-offs of Guitar Hero does the world really need?

And when a developer who was unceremoniously dropped had the NERVE to find another publisher so their game could actually see the light of day? Sue to block it. That’s what happened with Brutal Legend. When Double Fine worked out a deal with EA to publish Golden God of Gaming Tim Schafer’s latest creation, Activision Blizzard sued to block its release, claiming $15 million sunk into development. Double Fine countersued and the matter was settled out of court, and thankfully we get to be inundated with daily news updates about Brutal Legend and will get a chance to see if it will live up to the hype. Look, I’m as big a critic of the overhyping this game has received as anybody else, but I do feel that this game needs to be released to see if it can possibly live up to its billing. And like it or not, these folks have put a LOT of effort into getting this game to market. It’s not cool to try and block it just because you didn’t have any faith in it.

But this stuff alone wasn’t enough to land him in the Hall Of Lame. It’s only part of the body of work. As a CEO, it is certainly Bobby Kotick’s job to maximize profits and set the strategic direction of the company. The man has a plan, and has stuck to it, to great success. Activision Blizzard prints money like Nintendo. His business focus is admirable and commendable. As much as we don’t like it, this is a business, and he’s a businessman.

What puts Bobby Kotick over the top, and into our Hall Of Lame, is when he opens his mouth. He certainly is quotable, that’s for sure. And while his lack of tact at times can be refreshing, it is also infuriating to gamers, inflammatory to partners, and likely demotivating to employees. Bobby Kotick has taken on many challengers. When the Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman started complaining about not getting enough royalties from music games (a broken record from them, pun totally intended) and even threatening to stop licensing music in the future, Kotick said, “When you look at the impact [Guitar Hero] can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it’s really significant. So much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse.” [Wall Street Journal] Yes, he basically said maybe you should be paying us. Ok, point Kotick. I hate pretty much everything about the music industry, and I loved that he called Bronfman on this. Plus, he’s right. I’ve bought songs from iTunes that I’ve played in Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Though he might want to tread carefully as music industry executives tend to be out of touch and heavy-handed, and might decide to pull licensing out of spite anyways.

How about complaining about the PS3′s price all the time? Before the PS3 Slim and its $299 price tag arrived, Kotick was all over Sony about the price of their console. Even going so far as to threaten to pull support for the PS3 AND PSP at one point. This is where Kotick’s rhetoric starts to get out of hand. Yes, Sony’s install base is not the best, and the price point unfortunately did not appeal to the masses. But just as Sony needs good support from companies like Activision Blizzard, Activision Blizzard needs Sony, like the other console manufacturers, to give them the broad install base they need to sell millions of copies of their games. If you pull support for Sony, do you really think we’re all going to go out and by XBox 360s just to play your games? And now, Kotick has already begun talk of bypassing consoles altogether, and making some games (Guitar/Band/DJ/Pan Flute Hero being obvious choices) work directly with your TV. I’m not a high-paid genius CEO, but alienating your partners doesn’t scream “good business sense” to me. Of course, if you spend less (or nothing) on consoles, I guess that leaves more money in our pockets to buy your Special Elite Turbo Champion Game Of The Year Editions, Full Plastic Toy Instrument Sets, and Increased Price AAA Titles (like Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 in the UK), doesn’t it, Bobby? Which probably suits him just fine, because “…if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further.”

Fortunately, he doesn’t stop at just enraging partners and customers. On September 14th at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco, we got to see how he feels about Activision Blizzard employees during a speech he gave, thanks to Gamespot. He highlighted how their incentive program “really rewards profit and nothing else.” Ok, business decision. Doesn’t reward creativity, but that’s their prerogative. He went on to say, “We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.” Isn’t that one of the reasons why people got into the field though? So how do you take the fun out of making video games? I’m sure that instilling a culture of  “skepticism, pessimism, and fear” of the economy and being “…very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression” does a pretty good job I suppose. Unfortunately, this management style has proliferated lately, especially in a down economy. It’s classic Management by Fear, because you should just consider yourself lucky to have a job. This works for a while. But eventually, people get tired of that culture. Especially the kind of people who want to make video games for a living. So they either leave because they’ve had enough, burn out, or they wait it out until the economy improves and companies start hiring again. Now you’re losing talent. Again, I’m not the CEO of a major entertainment company, but there comes a point where you shouldn’t treat people like this, because in my experience, Management by Fear lasts only so long.

Bobby Kotick. Highly successful. Laser-like focus on the bottom line. A plan to maximize shareholder value. Friend to investors. Enemy to gamers. Eventually all great empires fall as history has shown us. I’m sure there will be many gaming fans who will celebrate Activision Blizzard’s demise. If they’re around that long. But for your unabashed love of milking franchises, inflammatory rhetoric, and ability to alienate pretty much any stakeholders save for Activision Blizzard investors, we at GamerPops induct you, Robert “Bobby” Kotick into the GamerPops Hall Of Lame. Congratulations on your latest great accomplishment.