Activision Blizzard Interview

[GameBanshee News]

MVC sat down with Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl to talk about the future of the merged company. Unsurprisingly for a company coming out of a major merger, job cuts are part of the equation:

What are the key brands for Activision Blizzard going forward – and will you be concentrating more on picking up licences or launching your own new IP?

As a result of this combination we probably now have by far the strongest intellectual property portfolio in the entire industry. Look at games like Guitar Hero – which last year sold more than any video game in the history of the industry – or Call Of Duty, which last year was the number one game in units. World Of Warcraft has 11 million subscribers and is by far the market-leader in subscription-based online games.

We feel we clearly have a great portfolio, which we will be focused on growing every year. Our pipeline is equally strong. Blizzard had their own conference recently and showed off StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 – which in its previous iteration sold about 18 million units. We have our own very strong pipeline, with James Bond coming up, our entry into the racing genre scheduled for next year and franchises that include some great licences like the Dreamworks titles, Spiderman and X-Men.

Our focus will remain on growing the core franchises that we have, but at the same time, we’re always on the lookout to add new franchises to our portfolio. We have a couple of new intellectual properties in our own development pipeline, but we will certainly continue to compete for any triple-A licensed properties that are available.

Spotted on Blue's News.

[Tricky]

Fewer people making more money. Ain't that the truth of our world.