Bobby Kotick is one of the most controversial figures in the video game business. The CEO of games giant Activision-Blizzard, responsible for franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Skylanders, Kotick has a knack for saying things that just rub gamers the wrong way, as he’s extremely vocal about putting profit first above all else, even at the expense of players. Here are ten of his most memorable quotes over the years.
1. “The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.”
Perhaps Kotick’s most famous quote, one that implies game-making shouldn’t be enjoyable for employees, who should concentrate on efficiency instead of innovation.
2. “I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression.”
Again, Kotick is talking about the culture at Activision where everyone there was constantly reminded how scary the depression was (back in 2008-2009), and how lucky they are to have jobs at all.
3. “With respect to the franchises that don’t have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming $100 million plus franchises, that’s a strategy that has worked very well for us.”
Kotick ruffled feathers by using the word “exploited” when it comes to his own franchises, implying that games with sequel and franchise potential are a much higher priority than original properties.
4. “And Tony, you know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further.”
Said in jest (maybe), in regard to how well Call of Duty is selling for Activision.
5. “There will continue to be opportunities for us to exploit the PC platform in ways that we haven’t yet.”
Kotick continues to use the word “exploit,” not understanding how PC gamers would take to what appears to be a rather aggressive sentiment toward their platform.
6. “It’s harder to attract development talent to projects that are more speculative in the long run, and so what we found is that if you have a [need] for innovation in existing franchises, that’s a recipe for margin expansion and you still need to have production of new original intellectual property, but you need to do it very, very selectively”
Once more, Kotick says that’s it’s hugely risky to focus on new IPs, and it’s much, much easier and more profitable to keep recycling the same successful franchises as much as possible.
7. “If you think about the success that we’ve had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise”
This was Kotick speaking about Call of Duty, and he upset fans who thought the game might move to a subscription based model. There was a subscription service instituted with the series eventually, but it was optional and so far hasn’t impacted the franchise negatively. Still, at the time, this was a harrowing thought.
8. “If you’re making a $500 million bet you can’t take that chance with someone else’s IP. The stakes for us are getting bigger.”
This was said just the other day when Kotick revealed the astonishing amount of money that Activision was pouring into Bungie’s upcoming Destiny franchise.
9. “We have no shortage of opportunity to recruit out of EA – that’s their biggest challenge: its stock options have no value. It’s lost its way. And until it has success, and hits, and gets that enthusiasm back for the company, it’s going to have a struggle getting really talented people, which is going to translate into less-than-great games.”
Kotick brazenly trash talks Activision’s main rival EA, saying that their competition is really no competition to them at all, and they have trouble holding onto talent which flees to Activision. It’s rare to see an executive speak so boldly about a rival.
10. “The best of all margins – the 25 per cent operating margin business – has the potential as we can see with World of Warcraft to be a 50 per cent operating margin business.”
Kotick reiterates the idea that he wants more games to operate the way World of Warcraft does, where monthly subscriptions make the game hugely profitable with relatively little effort. Unfortunately for him, the subscription model has been in decline for years now, with gamers rejecting in favor of free-to-play titles.
