Activision CEO Bobby Kotick reflected on running a business with a strong commitment to community at the recent Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference. Kotick spoke on a panel of executives about how they think about community and shared some of his personal experiences as well as what he has learned from various companies he’s worked with.
Activision CEO said that while he’s been in the industry for 15 years, it was only recently that he began to pay attention to communities created around games. He said that before, it was just business and not much else. However, now he sees “a lot more human element” in the gaming industry than ever before with tools like social media and the sharing of experiences via YouTube and other platforms.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick also reflected on his time at Microsoft when it was first developing Xbox Live, but said that Microsoft didn’t have a good enough understanding of what gamers were looking for and how they would interact with their online community. Kotick said there are many lessons learned from this experience, including how important it is for companies to listen closely to their customers so they can build a product people will want to use.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick ended by saying that Activision is committed to building communities around its games and driving engagement between players and developers on all platforms, both online and in-game.
However, even though the company missed on both revenue and earnings, analysts still gave the company a “buy” rating. The reason? They said that Activision Blizzard’s gaming segment was still growing despite other companies in its industry reporting declining revenues or losses. The firm said that its third-quarter revenues from online games increased 15 percent from last year to $838 million, while its net income was $98 million, compared to $100 million in 2010.