Activision: Other Publishers Playing Catch-Up
Activision Blizzard is shooting to be the biggest entertainment company ever.
Just recently Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that Bungie was the only remaining AAA independent studio worth purchasing. Now he's suggesting that other publishers will struggle to keep up with Activision when it comes to online games. In fact, Activision Blizzard is apparently trying to become the biggest entertainment company ever.
The only real competitor, it seems, is social networking website Facebook.
"Our competitor online [is] Facebook in some respects," he admitted during his presentation at the America Merrill Lynch Media, Comms and Entertainment conference. "Even though they don't create content, they provide it. There are a lot of new social gaming companies that are emerging and take mindshare--not from our consumer, [because they're] a different demographic. But there's the potential that some of the social games will start appealing to our consumers so we're making a lot of investments in that area."
He added that the big publishers--namely Electronic Arts, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and numerous others--will struggle in terms of entering the same online businesses that Activision has already successfully tackled--in other words, they'll need to play catch-up rather quickly. This viewpoint is undoubtedly backed by Blizzard and its online MMORPG powerhouse, World of Warcraft, a rather huge cushion for the publisher.
"There [was] so much built-up expertise at Blizzard when we did this merger--that we're now applying to Call Of Duty, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero--that we otherwise wouldn't have had access to," he said. "That puts us in a much better position than many of the very console-dependent companies we used to compete against."
With that said, it seems that Kotick doesn't see other console-dependent companies as competition anymore thanks to Activision's merger with Blizzard. Now who said PC gaming was dead?
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It was Kudo Tsunoda but he must have been sniffing something.
If they think that Bungie is the only AAA title gaming company worth buying then they are dead wrong. Last time I checked, VALVe made some of the best PC FPS games out there.
Then again VALVe would never sell out.
But if Blizzard does try to and succeds in becoming the largest entertainment company ever, I can see the quality of their games falling very fast. I am also sure they will try to pull a EA and make a crappy version of Steam.
This guy even LOOKS like an arrogant asshole in that photo.
is this guy for real ? sure Activision are a big company and have a huge list of titles for most formats. BUT this is where it p****s me off... the same old products year after year with ever increasing costs for DLC (COD).. so no wonder he sees his company as the biggest.... greedy... Grrrr
Isn't world domination a monopoly? Should we call the FTC?
Or is he the third antichrist Nostradamus warned us about?
tony hawk and guitar hero are garbage and are stepped all over by the competitors
all activision has is call of duty, and soon enough, people will get tired of the yearly releases. nothing lasts forever kotick, not even ur arrogant attitude... ull be humbled in no time at all
blizzard is another story altogehter
Everyone else sure is going to be struggling to keep up with all the garbage Activision is going to be shoveling out.
Isn't world domination a monopoly? Should we call the FTC? Or is he the third antichrist Nostradamus warned us about?
He isn't wearing a turban(yet).
Remember the good old days when EA was the evil bogeyman of the gaming industry and Activision was the knight in shining armor? Boy, how much things have changed. And yet, they really haven't changed at all.
This guy should get a "greediest CEO of all time" award.
This guy has too much confidence in himself.
I predict some well-liked dev-companies getting the "IW" treatment in the future.
Remember when Microsoft bought out Rare Limited(developers of goldeneye on the N64). What happened to Rare now? They are now a shadow of their former selves. The main brain guys from Rare got up and left as soon as MS flashed them a ton of money pretty much.
I see bungie doing the same to activision; you know make a crap half-ass game then take off with the money LOL. Which they should because they'll probably be getting the "IW" treatment that befell the former Infinity Ward team.
"Activision: Other Publishers Playing Catch-Up"
maybe in the consumer unfriendly a***ole awards...
It hurts my heart to know that my beloved childhood friend Blizzard has merged with the evil of the gaming industry Activision. I hope Call of Duty dies when Respawn Entertainment kicks up because Infinity Ward is dead.
spam....spam
Good screen name!
Activision is racing to the bottom of the gaming community. Of course other publishers are catching up.
/sigh
I remember back when EA was the industry douchebag...
This guy even LOOKS like an arrogant asshole in that photo.
Yes, yes he does. The business suit and fake business grin cannot hide it.
This guy should get a "greediest CEO of all time" award.
I think that already went to Mark Hurd.
Or is he the third antichrist Nostradamus warned us about?
His picture does look like it was taken in hell...
Everyone who doubts how evil this company is should just read this now.
http://www.geeks.co.uk/7282-activi [...] -games-you
Cue another 5 extremely generic FPS sequels...
they have blizzard... and modern warfare. thier cash cow is WoW which will keep alot of loyal fans and subscribers for quite some time. then you have starcraft 2 which will have a huge following for years intenationally and th enext 2 instalment are guarunteed sellers...
then you have the activition ips ... tony hawk stopped being fun after the 3rd installment, guitar hero which no thanks i have a real guitar and most people own one or two installments but don't have them all cause its all about the same. then theres modern warfare 2 with it slack of dedicated servers and nonloyal fans, it pretty much stole alot of halo fans who will gladly leave to the next fps franchise.
its sad that blizzard is now attached to this leech of a company but it was thier move to make and as long as they keep making top quality games i'll buy them but anythign else from activition doesn't go on my hard drive
Oh look, Activision is blowing it's own trumpet again.
Every time there's a small break in news about one of their products, "HEY GUYS LOOK AT US, WE'RE THE BEST". Pathetic.
ea still has the best single player franchises, mass effect for a start
I think NCSoft, SOE, and BioWare are stiff competition just to name a few.
They have some serious contenders coming out next year that will cut Activision's profits.
I wonder how much of this was taken out of context. I mean his quote says that Facebook is a competitor in some respects; Tom's added the word "only" in the prior paragraph...and I can't see the linked-to full story...cause work has it blocked (wtf)...
I don't like Kotick, but I don't hate him either...I dislike Activision. Regardless, journalism is getting bad at making things sound worse for the sake of a column...
I stumbled across this link while googling this story:
http://oneofswords.com/2010/08/bob [...] -comments/
Just an interesting/different read on Kotick, and the difference in what he says and what we end up hearing.