Bobby Kotick: Savior of the Gaming Industry (by Carl B.)
September 21st, 2010, by Carl B. - Bobby Kotick: the man, the myth, the legend. Literally nothing is known about the early life of one of the greatest men of all time -- if not the greatest man of all time. Before becoming the CEO of Activision in 1991 and making his glorious mark on the gaming industry, Kotick was the CEO of Leisure Concepts, Inc -- later to become 4Kids Entertainment -- from June to December, 1990. Kotick was the founder and president of International Consumer Technologies from 1986 to 1995, and was also a Yahoo! board member from 2003 to 2008. Kotick has an incredible resume and experience in the business field. According to Forbes Magazine, his salary for 2009 was $953,654.00 with a total compensation number of $3,151,008.00. Kotick is a very wealthy man. He's also saving the gaming industry.
Economic recession or otherwise, game sales are taking a huge hit. According to the NPD Group, industry sales were down 10 percent in August 2010 compared to 2009. Why the drastic fall? In fact, sales numbers have been down in many months prior to August, including July, May, and January, 2010.
Gamers are afraid to purchase new IPs. The highly anticipated, highly scored Xbox 360 exclusive Alan Wake barely managed 88,177 units in its first week. Another notable game that received high scores and sold poorly is Little King's Story. While this isn't completely indicative of the fear of new intellectual property, it does show that gamers are less likely to take a chance on a no-name game in a less popular franchise.
Enter Bobby Kotick, the genius.
"I would have Call of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow," Kotick said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, when asked what the one change he would make in Activision is. "When you think about what the audience's interests are and how you could really satisfy bigger audiences with more inspired, creative opportunities, I would love to see us have an online Call of Duty world. I think our players would just have so much of a more compelling experience."
His brilliant idea is to take Call of Duty, a very well known franchise, and milk it for all its worth. Subscription based MMOs such as World of Warcracft are very popular despite monthly fees gamers are forced to pay in order to keep playing. It brings more money into the industry. Given Call of Duty's mass popularity, would a move like this work?
"Absolutely," co-founder and Tech Admin at iNintendo, Joey E., said. "The online is fun. It's expansive. In fact, I would pay a subscription fee for Team Fortress 2, too."
While the next Call of Duty game isn't going to feature a subscription fee for the online modes, Kotick is promising a technical marvel in Black Ops, and the best game Activision has ever made.
"The best video game that Activision has ever made will be out in November which is Call Of Duty: Black Ops... We've always had this expectation that eventually we'd get to a place where the audiences would be so broad, and the crossover between interactive and linear media would be so great, that you'd actually see famous actors delivering lines and dialogue in video gamers where it would actually make a different. We're at that place with Black Ops for the first time. The facial animation, the mouth movement, the eye contact is so real, it looks like you'd see in a pre-rendered film. The ability to tell stories and create characters is unlike anything you've ever had in video games. This has been the Holy Grail in a lot of respects for video games - the ability to have characters on the screen that you can have an emotional connection with. The medium for the last 25 years has been very visceral, interactive, immersive medium - but it was very hard to have characters to actually have empathy towards or an emotional connection with... or that might make you laugh or make you cry; be some catalyst for an emotional reaction. Call Of Duty: Black Ops is the first game where we've been able to perfect the facial animation, mouth movement technology so that the lines that re being delivered are believable. the facial animation looks like a real person."
CNET reported that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 broke launch day sales records, and Activision has said that the franchise itself has made over 3 billion dollars from sales. Thanks to Kotick's money making business model, Call of Duty games release each and every year across all major platforms.
It doesn't end there. The gaming industry is in a hole. Kotick is going to do everything in his power to revive it. He's already milking popular Activision franchises, but what about selling cut scenes that are already in games?
"If we were to go to our audience and say we have this great hour-and-a-half of linear video that we would like to make available to you at a $30 price point or $20 price point, you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever. Within the next five years, you are likely to see us do that. Now that may be in partnership with somebody; it may be alone. But there will be a time when we capitalize on the relationship that we have with our audience."
Nintendo did this to some extend with the theater mode in Metroid: Other M. Where the Big N failed with this feature is the fact that they did not charge users to watch the two hours worth of cut scenes from the game, while Activision will be capitalizing on the relationship that they have with you, the gamer.
"For sure," Joey said. "I think a spliced together DVD of all the cut scenes from Starcraft II, or any game really, would be worth $30. Why watch them on Youtube or in game when you can buy a DVD that has them all right there? I can't believe someone hasn't thought of this sooner."
