Activision Wants All of Its Big IPs to be Like Call of Duty
Activision's Bobby Kotick has stated that the publisher's big brands will be developed following the Call of Duty formula in the future.
Activision released its latest financial report. During its discussion CEO Bobby Kotick boasted about the sensational results of the Call of Duty series and informed that it is a model by which all other series of a large publisher will be developed, including new IPs. He did not reveal how exactly it is supposed to look like, but most likely he means the simultaneous release of multiple games from the series, on different platforms and with different business models.
This approach worked perfectly in the case of Call of Duty. Every year the premium (i.e. paid) installments hit the market, and the F2P Call of Duty: Warzone is being developed in parallel. On top of that, there's the excellent performance of Call of Duty: Mobile, which, thanks to its recent launch in China, has surpassed 500 million downloads and a billion in revenue (as of its 2019 release date).
It is worth recalling here that a few months ago Activision announced that several mobile games set in the Warcraft universe are in production, and the company will continue to invest in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone. This means Kotick's strategy is already being implemented.
The company's approach is not surprising given the rapid growth of Call of Duty. Activision's games, including the productions by King and Blizzard, are played by 435 million people every month, 150 million of which, or more than a third, play various incarnations of CoD.
Of course, the simultaneous development of so many IP branches requires a huge amount of work. The company intends to hire 2,000 more developers. Some teams will even triple in size. In addition, Activision is planning to set up new studios in countries such as Poland, China and Australia.
