Call of Duty: Elite - Activision's Answer to the Booming Social and Mobile Markets?Activision Blizzard remains a juggernaut in the traditional games space, but when it comes to the fast growing social and mobile sectors, the publisher's presence is almost nonexistent. This has been a deliberate strategy, as CEO Bobby Kotick said last December that he sees little opportunity there, but IndustryGamers is getting the sense that Activision is starting to change its tone, albeit gradually.
In our recent interview with Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg, we asked specifically about why the company has been so slow to embrace the social and mobile trends. Referring to Kotick's stance on the matter, Hirshberg clarified, "I think when Bobby said that he was speaking about that moment in time, which is a while ago now. And I think that we’ve seen some maturation in both of those areas of gaming and I would argue that a lot of the elements of Call of Duty: Elite are using a lot of the elements of both social and mobile. We’ve got dedicated iPod and iPad apps, Android, etc."
"People can criticize us as being slow, but I think it’s admirable because we’re not moving until we’ve got a way to do it with excellence."
Indeed, it would appear that Elite is Activision's own way of embracing the social trend. We're not so sure it'll lead to a full-on social games movement at the publisher, but it's a good first step to see how engaged they can be with their customer base. Hirshberg noted that Activision hasn't had the desire to rush into the social and mobile spaces just because they're there.
"I think what Activision has done, very smartly, is we don’t want to rush into anything until we figure out what our unique contribution and what our unique competitive advantage can be. What we’re choosing to do is use social and mobile and the fact that people are playing games in different parts of the day on different devices than they have before as a way to strengthen our core business. That’s what we’re doing with Call of Duty: Elite," he explained.
"Call of Duty: Elite is essentially a social network in and of itself, as well as having a lot of the properties of a social game. It takes place on mobile devices, tablets, and smartphones. So Call of Duty: Elite is using a lot of those new tools in a very creative way to strengthen a core franchise of ours which is still going to take place on a console. I think that’s a very sophisticated and measured response to new technologies and new gaming categories."
Hirshberg then proceeded to cite Skylanders, Activision's revival of Spyro, tied into the kids' toy market, as another unique example. "Skylanders is going to have a dedicated iPhone app. It’s going to have a web world. It’s going to have a lot of connectivity. So I think that we want to make the games that we think we can make better than anyone else. We want to make the games where we think that we have real innovation and a competitive advantage. What we don’t want to do is just rashly spread all our chips around every square on the table and just compete in a new category just because a new category exists," he stated.
"We want to find our unique contribution to it. And I think the things you say no to are as important as the things you say yes to in this business. I think that’s something Activision has done smartly. We want to enter the new genres and the new territories smartly and with real innovation and real competitive advantages, not just, “Hey! There’s an app store. Now let’s put all of our IP on the app store,' whether or not that’s a great experience, whether or not that’s detrimental to the brand and the core product. We haven’t done that. People can criticize us as being slow, but I think it’s admirable because we’re not moving until we’ve got a way to do it with excellence and a way that builds our business and makes the gaming experience better for our players."
