Kotick: Schafer project was poor, over budget

In what demonstrates Bobby Kotick’s willingness to keep his burning bridges aflame, the Activision CEO has retuned to his public feud with Double Fine founder Tim Schafer.

The outspoken publishing exec was branded “a prick” by Schafer – a comment no doubt fuelled by Activision’s decision to axe the Brutal Legend project without telling the studio, before trying to prevent another publisher to work with the game.

“The guy comes out and says I’m a prick,” Kotick said in a new interview in Edge magazine.

The divisive publishing boss went on to list reasons for axing Schafer’s Brütal Legend – in a move likely to reopen old wounds.

“I’ve never met him in my life – I’ve never had anything to do with him. I never had any involvement in the Vivendi project that they were doing, Brütal Legend, other than I was in one meeting where the guys looked at it and said, ‘He’s late, he’s missed every milestone, he’s overspent the budget and it doesn’t seem like a good game. We’re going to cancel it.’

“And do you know what? That seemed like a sensible thing to do. And it turns out, he was late, he missed every milestone, the game was not a particularly good game…”

In June 2009 Activision filed suit to prevent EA publishing the game.