Tim Schafer, in a recent interview with Eurogamer, has told the world that Kotick of Activision not only doesn't give a rat's ass about games but also sees it as "an industry of widgets", which can not be a good thing for Call of Duty fans (cue collective sigh of 12million plus gamers). His recent debacle with Activision over publishing Brutal Legend has clearly left a sour taste in the mouth of the man who brought you Psychonauts, and he is speaking up.
He goes in to depth and explains that Kotick could care less about games and his whole strategy with them is to be "just trying to make the cheapest [game]". He goes on to say that he does not think the man is good for the industry in the big picture and that "You can't just latch onto something when it's popular and then squeeze the life out of it and then move on to the next one. You have to at some point create something, build something."
As if we didn't already know this, the Call of Duty franchise, Guitar Hero franchise, and countless others have surely been effected by this type of thinking. You may have noticed that you are being fed virtually the same stuff every year (be it standardized, acceptable, popular stuff), or you may have not. In any event, games are largely identical coming out of the Activision house and it would seem Tim Schafer is pointing out the blame as to why. He finally states "Hopefully he'll go back to another industry..." and this gamer gives his prayer that whoever is behind the stalling of any game franchises' innovation moves on to other work.