New Franchises Need to Quickly Achieve Call of Duty Scale, Says Activision

Dennis Durkin, the chief financial officer at video game publisher Activision, says that his company has no plans to invest in new franchises on the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox 720 unless they can quickly reach the same size as Call of Duty or World of Warcraft.

During an investor call cited by Seeking Alpha the executive says, when we look at new investments, we aren't looking to do new investments unless they provide the kind of - same kind of scale and investment return that we have in our existing businesses”

For many publishers the launch of the next generation of home consoles from Sony and Microsoft is seen as a good moment to introduce new game universes that can grow alongside the new hardware.

Durkin adds that Activision will be focused when it comes to the use of its own resources and will focus on existing titles like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Skylanders.