Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, on how to retain valued employees:
The executive said that he has tried to instill into the company culture “skepticism, pessimism, and fear” of the global economic downturn, adding, “We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression.”
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, on how to create a healthy working environment:
“We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.”
Well, SIGN ME UP, partner!
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I love it when people take Bobby Kotick quotes and use them as proof that he’s going to run Activision into the ground, forgetting that these same management philosophies are what turned Activision from the near-bankrupt Mediagenic company in 1991 or so to the #1 publisher in the world.
The man is a businessman, pure and simple. Remember that in the 90s EA was buying up developers and then obliterating their souls — Westwood, Origin, etc. Activision’s philosophy on buying studios these is to let them keep their independence and corporate culture as much as possible. That’s why Blizzard is nearly totally autonomous and folks at Infinity Ward can publicly criticize Activision PR/marketing people.
Does he do this because he likes his employees? Does he do this because it’s good for people, because it’s cool? No. He does it because it’s profitable for successful studios that make successful games to keep making them. Replace “games” with “chicken soup” and the same philosophies apply. It’s about making money. Making good games is a good way to make money, but if you can also make money making mediocre games, well let’s do that too. Do you have any idea how profitable the Cabela hunting games are?
If making money and keeping folks focused on being profitable — for example by keeping them cognizant of the global financial situation — is bad, you may not be cut out for capitalism. A company that is fun and cool and makes cool games but isn’t profitable won’t be making cool games for very long.
Maybe Kotick’s attitude is the chief reason why Activision is not a creative house – why it focuses on sequels rather than original launches.
Time will tell whether this attitude poisons the magic that Blizzard possesses.
Xanthippe – with all due respect to Blizzard, “focuses on sequels rather than original launches” already sums them up. Or, to be kinder, they focus on making good use of the IP they have rather than taking a punt on creating new ones.
Blizzard’s strength has always been execution rather than creativity.
CEOs of successful businesses care more about the bottom line than about aesthetic ideals. More news at 11.
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