Kotick not interested in social, mobile games
Activision boss sees little room for money making
Bobby Kotick has said that he doesn't see many opportunities for Activision in social and mobile gaming, instead believing that the way forward is to expand the company's existing franchises in traditional spaces.
Speaking to the Reuters Global Media Summit yesterday, the Activision CEO also took a swipe at Apple's App Store, by claiming that it presented little scope for "dedicated games," although he did indicate that the iPad might hold some interest in the future.
"The place where you have the opportunities for growth is within the communities of franchises we control," said Kotick. "We don't view the App Store as a really big opportunity for dedicated games."
While he acknowledged that social games were popular, Kotick made clear that Activision had no plans to try and expand its audience in that direction, telling the summit that: "Right now we don't see an opportunity for us to participate in that market."
During his speech, Kotick also expressed his feelings about the potential audience migration from Blizzard's World of Warcraft to forthcoming Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic.
"I can't say that we're hugely concerned about that... the audience for World of Warcraft is a pretty committed group of players."
Fixed it for you ;)
At some point people will get bored of the same IP's rejigged and it seems that diversification should be an important drive for any business....
I think for him to dismiss the Star wars MMO so readily is either a foolish remark or a cover for the reality that if it delivers a game like people hope and anything like KOTOR it could be a real game changer...
When you blindly buy cash cows, without understanding what lies beneath you are only ever going to make the short term gain. The big houses need to learn this...fast. Innovation requires two things: passion, and clever. These are two traits that are often beaten down in the ivory towers of corporate America. They are shoved aside in favor of focus groups and balance sheets, and marketing budgets.
Someone wake me up when Kotick says something actually interesting or relevant to game development or innovation. =)