Activision's Kotick Stresses Importance Of Remaining Platform Agnostic

Author: by Kyle Orland, Frank Cifaldi

As many developers and publishers struggle to decide which platform is the most appropriate for their games, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick says he wants to see the publisher's franchises on as many platforms as possible. Speaking in a Gamasutra-attended conference call accompanying yesterday's earnings report, Kotick preached an expansive cross-platform strategy that doesn't leave any potential gamer in the cold. "We've always taken the approach of essentially platform agnosticism," Kotick said. "The important thing for us is if we can deliver an experience across a device that has a display and a microprocessor and it will satisfy our audiences, then we'll invest against that." While Kotick said prioritizing platforms and devoting appropriate resources to each is important, he sees Activision content having a potential home on every device that can possibly run a game. Responding to a question on the platform fees required to get on many of these platforms -- in contrast to cheaper direct distribution through Blizzard's Battle.net, for instance -- Kotick didn't seem too concerned. "Sometimes people forget that the Sonys and the Microsofts and the Nintendos and the Facebooks of the world invest billions and billions of dollars in these platforms," he said. "When you think about it over long periods of times, they continue to invest these billions of dollars to make the experiences really satisfying for our audiences. They deserve to get compensated for that." Also during the Q&A, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirschberg confirmed a fall launch for a planned online Call of Duty community and sales platform, details of which emeged back in February.