Activision Blizzard, the world's largest video game publisher, has been raising the ire of many gamers of late. So much so, in fact, that there is at least preliminary talk of a boycott of Activision products.

So what has the publisher done to create so much ill will?

A few things, actually.

UK gamers are incensed over Activision's plan to price the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 at £54.99 (roughly US$90). Wedbush-Morgan analyst Michael Pachter ominously described the move as a trial run for Activision:

Activision knows it has a 'hot' game, knows that the market will pay an additional 10 per cent, and has decided to increase price accordingly.

Game consumers are also concerned about Activision's pricing plans for specialty controllers for the upcoming Tony Hawk: Ride and DJ Hero.

Adding gasoline to the fire was a recent comment by Activision Blizzard CEO. During an earnings call last week, Kotick said:

You know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further.

PS3 News reports that some gamers are planning a boycott and links to an online petition which has garnered nearly 5,000 signatures to date. From the petition:

You're increasingly making your fanbase more angry. Your recent moves on the business side are head scratching and completely apauling [sic]. Tony Hawk peripherals to start, PC and UK price hikes and ridiculously overpriced collectors editions for MW2... Than [sic] your CEO decided to further anger your customers... I believe we are in what we call a "recession." What the consumer needs is not more expensive items, but less expensive...

UPDATE: Activision boss Kotick made $15 million last year, reports gamesindustry.biz. You keep raising those prices, Bobby...

Don't invite Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica and Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick to the same party.

Yesterday, Kuchera penned a surprisingly personal criticism of the long-time CEO, including a photo of Kotick with devil's horns added (left). In the column, Kuchera refers to Kotick as "a carpetbagger," "the devil," "brazen," and possessed of a "cash lust."

At issue seems to be Kuchera's feeling that Kotick is all about the Benjamins, not the games:

That's why I find Bobby Kotick so distasteful—the man is a carpetbagger... usually, when you put the devil in charge, you have the good graces to at least keep a smooth-talking demon or two around to deal with the press. With Kotick, he's very brazen about his need to squeeze every last dollar he can out of every franchise under the Activision Blizzard label. He wants to exploit his games. He wants to make sure he has a sequel every year, and don't forget the Wii and DS ports. Why have one StarCraft game if you can have three?...

Kotick doesn't play his games, and it shows. He has a tin ear when it comes to speaking to investors or the press. This is a guy who looks at the balance sheets of World of Warcraft and wants more, more, more... and it's doubtful he even knows the name of Azeroth. Under his control, Activision Blizzard has started to look and feel like the Shire at the end of the Lord of the Rings (and by that, I mean the books' vision)...

World of Warcraft may look like it will go on forever, but the only thing greater than the loyalty of those players is Kotick's cash-lust. The only question is if the two will ever collide...

Whatever one might think of the man, Kotick clearly has business acumen. He was runner-up as Marketwatch's CEO of the Year for 2008 and is currently featured on the cover of Forbes. In fact, the business mag's profile of Kotick comes in for a mention by Kuchera. Some gamers are upset by a line penned by writer Peter Beller and not attributed to the Activision Blizzard CEO:

EA also teamed with MTV to sell Rock Band, a shameless knockoff of Guitar Hero that added drums, bass and a microphone to the world of make-believe rock stars.

Marketwatch has named Activision's Bobby Kotick as one of four runners-up for its 2008 CEO of the Year award.

The respected financial website offers effusive praise for Kotick, along with an amusing tale of how the Activision-Blizzard merger got done:

When [Blizzard CEO] Mike Morhaime first met Kotick, he was looking for a low-key setting to avoid sparking the sort of chatter that often emerges when high-profile business leaders meet in public. Morhaime... chose a steakhouse near his company's Irvine, Calif., headquarters. But he ended up booking a large banquet room by mistake, leaving the two alone and rather conspicuous for the nearly four hours during which they contemplated the potential of a merger creating a new leader in the video-game business...

 

"We wanted to keep it low-key, which was pretty hard to do in this huge room with just the two of us there," Morhaime recalled with a laugh.

Marketwatch notes that Kotick has gamer roots, spending his college days playing text adventure Mystery House as well as arcade classic Defender. Kotick told Marketwatch that he gave up gaming due to an "addictive personality."

The most interesting part of the story, however, is how Kotick came to acquire Activision - and how cheaply:

Kotick and partner Brian Kelly bought a small company that handled licensing for Nintendo's game characters... But Kotick had his eye on making games, so Nintendo  pointed him to Activision, which had made the popular game "Pitfall" for Atari but had since changed its name to Mediagenic in an effort to expand into other areas of software development.

 

Its move ultimately failed, landing Mediagenic in bankruptcy. Kotick and Kelly bought the company in 1990 for less than $500,000...