When Activision and Vivendi merged, several of Vivendi's upcoming titles were dropped. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick responded to an analyst asking why they did not keep all of Vivendi's games when they merged, saying that they ""don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now."" More inside.
No, we're not kidding. He actually said they could not exploit them every year on every platform. So... he kind of beat us to our joke. Of course, he did follow up by saying ""You still need to have production of new original property but you have to do it very selectively… the focus at retail and for the consumer is to continue to be o the big narrow and deep high profile release strategy… We’ve had enough experience that I think the strategy we employ is the most successful."" Activision plans to release '15 properties' next year across ""more than 70 SKUs [versions]."" Including three or four new intellectual properties. They've got that exploiting thing down to a fine art now. MTV