Business | Technology
Activision plans growth to outpace industry
Activision Blizzard Inc plans to grow faster than the rest of the video-game industry over the next decade and may face its toughest competition from movie companies, Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick said.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 23:21 November 14, 2008
Los Angeles: Activision Blizzard Inc plans to grow faster than the rest of the video-game industry over the next decade and may face its toughest competition from movie companies, Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick said.
Large media companies including Walt Disney Co. and Viacom Inc are expanding into video games, an industry expected to increase by about 20 per cent this year, Kotick said in an interview Thursday. Competition will heat up as game makers improve graphics and storylines to make titles more like films, he said.
"They will prove probably to be our best competitors," Kotick said. "It's a much more competitive industry."
Within the next five years, video-game characters will be able to speak and exhibit emotion similar to those seen in computer-animated movies, Kotick said.
Those developments will help Activision take a slice of the $300 billion (Dh1,102.02 billion) in annual revenue generated by the movie and television industries, compared with the $30 billion video-game market, Kotick said.
Activision has grown about 35 per cent annually for the past 16 years, outperforming the 13 per cent historical rate for the video-game industry, Kotick said.
The company will continue to generate sales with titles including Guitar Hero, the rock 'n' roll play-along game, and Call of Duty, a combat game based on World War II, he said.
It's too soon to gauge the effects of the declining economy on the video-game business, Kotick said.
Activision last week reiterated its full-year forecast for a profit of $1.2 billion.
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