14 DAY TRIAL // The gaming industry is huge, filled with big companies that are making impressive amounts of money even in this troubled economy. One of the largest is Activision, which owns big money-making franchises like Call of Duty or Guitar Hero, which appear every year in new installments, for better or for worse.
It is this strategy that has garnered the company and its CEO, Bobby Kotick, a not-so-nice reputation from many gamers around the world. But speaking with The Economist, the executive of the large corporation has revealed that, contrary to popular belief, many people really enjoy sequels and aren't that interested in new IPs.
“A small segment of very vocal gamers say everything has to be new and different every year,” Kotick says. “Actually, people are happy with existing franchises, provided you innovate within them.”
The executive does have a point though, fact highlighted by the huge anticipation regarding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which promises to be the best-selling title of the end of the year. The game is the sequel to the original Modern Warfare, which brought a lot of innovations to the Call of Duty franchise.
But while things are great for the shooter, other franchises, like Guitar Hero, don't really get a lot of innovation, as most of the times the new titles are just revamped editions of older versions or are branded with a famous band in order to manage to generate sales among the hardcore fans.
But with titles like Singularity or the likes coming in 2010, there's still a bit of hope for new IPs being developed by various studios under the large corporation. Let's just hope that Kotick will be more mindful with his statements in the future and won't make gamers angrier.