Activate is Activision's annual product showcase and has become a staple of the games industry calendar. It's also a good excuse for assorted press and retailers to get out of the office for a couple of days. This year it was held in Barcelona although, as I said in my Tiscali report , it may as well have been Bridlington or Bognor as we barely set foot outside. Activision is now pretty much established as 2nd place publisher. And with EA streets ahead, this is certainly the best they could hope for in the foreseeable future.
Activate showed how EA's influence has permeated. The line-up of games was a mixture of sequels and film tie-ins, great for the accountants, maybe less so for the gamers. Having said that, the quality was surprisingly good, showing that a focus on fewer titles may have helped.
The expansion pack to Call of Duty - United Offensive – was a real highlight and looks set to continue the visceral onslaught of that series. In fact Call of Duty is almost educational in its rugged depiction of warfare.
Activision also publish the LucasArts games, so there was a big Star Wars push. Big hope, Star Wars Battlefront, is being released the same week as the DVD of the original trilogy. Now that's synergy.
Activate once again highlighted that the games business is becoming increasingly polarised between the big boys like EA and Activision themselves, and the rest. Smaller publishers are struggling for space, and with development and publishing costs set to rocket in the next generation then this situation will only increase.
Maybe the small, but growing, indie development scene on the PC will buck this trend?
