14 DAY TRIAL // News has broken that Thomas Tippl, who was holding the position of Chief Financial Officer at publisher Activision Blizzard, has also been appointed Chief Operations Officer. It now seems that the move is only a small part of a reorganization of the company, which is now split into four different divisions. The main rival, Electronic Arts, has a similar structure, with four labels that handle different projects.
The most important unit is the one built around the Call of Duty franchise, the first person shooter that has until now been delivering constant hits for the company, culminating with the best seller of 2009, Modern Warfare 2. The second division is built around other internally developed properties, like Guitar Hero, DJ Hero and Tony Hawk, while the third focuses on those videogames Activision publishes but are created by independent developers.
The fourth division is made up of Blizzard, the creator of franchises like StarCraft and Diablo, and the operator of the most successful subscription-based MMO, World of Warcraft. Blizzard has been operating pretty much independently ever since the Activision Vivendi deal brought it closer to the publisher.
The Los Angeles Times has obtained some internal e-mails that were circulated inside Activision Blizzard, with Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, telling his people that “This is an important change as it will allow me, with Thomas, to become more deeply involved in areas of the business where I believe we can capture great potential and opportunity.”
It's not clear how many of the changes were prompted by the very public spat involving Activision and developer Infinity Ward, which has seen two of the most important people at the company ousted and suing the publisher. Activision might be trying to put together a new structure that lessens the chance of something similar happening with some other important franchise.