OXM

How's this for tough love? Activision CEO Bobby Kotick believes lagging game sales are partly the result of "a stream of products that are less than adequate from some of our competitors". Naming no names, obviously.

The comments came following Activision's earnings report for the quarter ending 30th June. Here are some takeaways, for context: World of Warcraft subscriptions are down by roughly one million to 9.1 million, but Call of Duty: Elite continues to pick up pace, passing 12 million (Premium and non-paying) users. Total revenue is $1.08 billion, exceeding expectations but a few thousand down on the $1.15 billion Activision hauled in the same period last year. Profits stand at $185 million, a 45 per cent drop-off. The company has raised its revenue forecast for 2012 from $4.2 to $4.3 billion.

It's a mixed but generally positive result, then. "You have a very difficult macroeconomic environment, when you look at the things that can generally have an impact on the consumption of entertainment," Kotick told an analyst (via GI) later. "Unemployment data is very concerning, and when you look at the challenges in Europe there are a lot of things that are going to affect the macroeconomic outlook. We are also at the late end of the cycle, and the late end of a console cycle is always going to have its share of difficulties."

However, the boxed videogame market's well-publicised slump isn't purely a cyclical thing. "I also think you've had, unfortunately, a stream of products that are less than adequate from some of our competitors," Kotick went on.

"The demand in the marketplace is for great quality products. If you look at the success we're having it validates that there is an opportunity for great quality products but I think at this stage in the cycle, it's challenging for anything other than great quality products."

"There's also a lot of competition for entertainment dollars - you look at mobile games and what's happening there and the pricing there that's having an impact," he continued.

"And I also think that a lot of the games we make, like Call of Duty, that are multiplayer games offer a lot of replayability, and when you have the opportunity for replayabiity in an economic environment like this, you're going to spend more time playing the games that you have.

"But I will say that if you look out at the next five years, there's a lot of reason to be hopeful and enthusiastic, but the next few years are going to be challenging."

http://www.oxm.co.uk/44421/activision-boss-our-rivals-are-hurting-the-market-with-less-than-adequate-games/

LMFAO!! yeah CoD is just pure high quality!!

The size of his eyes is directly inverse to the size of his boasts. Perhaps one day they will shrink into dots, then disappear.

It has nothing to do with the yearly release of COD does it? Because that's all the DudeBro gamers get and nothing else...

I happen to agree in this case

COD while released a bit too often for my taste maintains a high level of quality in multi player where it counts.

Competitors on the other hand are still trying to emulate the success of COD and while they succeed in making modest success its sad to not see them branching into other game genres or even offering a completely new take on the FPS like Borderlands was when it released.

Now more than ever with such a long console cycle people are no longer looking for people to push games on a technical level but offer something new and interesting.

He's right. Not everyone can put out quality stuff like the recent Tony Hawk games.

What else does Activision have besides CoD and the Blizzard games?

Tony Hawk, Seth.  Tony Freakin' Hawk.

Loved it when it first came out (played the first 3).  I thought the Tony Hawk series was going on diminishing sales.  Looking at the sales on VGC it does look like they are losing a half million or so every game they put out of it.  They haven't killed it off completely like GH.

I loved that series too.  The first three games were masterpieces in my book and they've gotten progressively worse.  It's at the point where Skate is the more popular franchise and that's sad.