World of Warcraft Game Director: Activision Gets an Unfair Reputation

Relatively recent additions to World of Warcraft, specifically those introduced in Cataclysm, were received with less than happy receptions from the game’s hardcore fanbase, leading many irate fans to speculate that Activision had a hand in “dumbing down” the game to make it more accessible to what they disparagingly refer to as “casual gamers”.

Fielding questions from Reddit’s community in an “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) session, World of Warcraft game director Tom Chilton rebutted suggestions that Blizzard was anything but independent to make decisions for its games. Chilton even went so far as to defend Activision CEO Bobby Kotick for his poor reputation among gamers.

“I’ll come out and say it,” Chilton began. “Activision gets an unfair reputation among our players for this, as does Bobby Kotick.”

“We do demos for the Activision executive team about twice per year (sometimes only once). They ask intelligent questions about why we’re doing what we’re doing, but at no point have any mandates (or even “suggestions”) about the game’s design been issued.”

Regardless of what Chilton said, it’s doubtful that the gaming community will let up on its beliefs about how the company is run, or how its games are developed.