Activision gave us freedom, says NASCAR dev

Activision’s policy of giving development studios autonomy has again been praised by an indie developer.

Darren Jobling, COO of Newcastle-based Eutechnyx, told Develop that Activision handling of development teams was uncommonly liberal.

“We’ve worked closely with Activision before and we’ve only had good experiences,” he told Develop.

“On NASCAR, they basically said ‘you’re the racing game experts. We are here to help in any way we can, but we want you to run with your vision for the franchise’. Very refreshing actually.”

Former NASCAR publisher EA has in recent years repositioned its studio policy to give developers more autonomy – a moved believed will provide a healthier development culture.

But while Activision is famous for one of the biggest dev-pub fallouts in industry history, its boss Bobby Kotick was still willing to talk down EA’s plans.

“The thing is, it doesn’t work that way – EA can’t be a floor wax and then decide that it’s going to become a dessert topping," he said in recent interview with Edge.

“That doesn’t work, it’s your DNA. EA’s DNA isn’t oriented towards that model – it doesn’t know how to do it, as a culture or as a company, and it never has.“

Jobling suggested that Eutechnyx was looking around for possible publishing partners before signing with Activision.

“We’ve worked with Activision for over ten years but they were not the only show in town,” Jobling said.

“It was critical to the project to find a partner that understood the brand and what we were trying to do with it and I’m pleased that Activision totally nailed it.

Of course, they have the advantage of being the largest publisher in the world, so their distribution power certainly helped seal the deal.”