Before last year's release of Brutal Legend, there was a whole lot of drama surrounding the game. First, Activision dropped the game from its publishing plans after merging with Vivendi, Brutal Legend's original publisher. Then EA Partners picked it up. Then, in an unexpected move, Activision reportedly sued Double Fine. Many gamers latched onto this incident to further demonize Activision, but the massive publisher has not had a chance to tell its side of the story until now.

In the first part of an extended interview with Joystiq, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick took the opportunity to clarify some of the more confusing points about the drama surrounding Brutal Legend. First off, and most importantly, Kotick says the problems were based around Double Fine owing Vivendi money:

"Vivendi had advanced him like 15 or 20 million dollars. He missed all the milestones, missed all the deadlines, as Tim has a reputation of doing.... I don't know if it was a decision not to publish it. I don't even really know where we were in the negotiation and discussions about what was going to happen to the product. Unbeknownst to everybody, they didn't have the rights to sell. So all we'd said is, 'Look: If you go and do a deal with somebody else, pay back the money that was advanced to you.' That was all we were looking for. We ultimately got a fraction of the money that had been advanced to him, and as far as I know, that was the end of it. But I don't even know if there was a lawsuit from my recollection."

Kotick noted that he personally had nothing to do with the decision to not publish Brutal Legend, even admitting that he "probably wouldn't have been most qualified to do so." So why did the company decide to pass on the game?

"When you have projects that repeatedly miss their milestones, where they change direction multiple times, where lots and lots of the folks who are involved in the game leave, their resource changes, the likelihood that that project is going to be turned around and be successful is very low. So I think that maybe nobody was able to clearly articulate that this is not a judgment about Tim Schafer. There's no personal animosity between Bobby Kotick and ... I don't know the guy. Never met him. I could honestly tell you, sitting here, I never saw Brutal Legend and so the judgment of the people who I trust and respect about the quality of the game, and whether or not audiences would be excited and enthusiastic about this game, was 'No.' And that's why it was not a commercial success."

Whether or not you trust him or agree with his reasoning, it's at the very least refreshing to see Kotick speaking so openly about these touchy subjects.