A couple of interviews with managers of our game publishing company, Activision Blizzard (ATVI), conducted earlier this month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA shed some light on where the company might be going over the next year and beyond.
The first interview, conducted by CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin, queried company CEO Bobby Kotick about the status of products for motion sensor game machines (Activision Blizzard is not announcing any at E3, but some are in the works), extending the “World of Warcraft” (WoW) subscription model to online play of other games such as “Call of Duty,” “Starcraft,” and “Diablo” (Kotick was noncommittal), and why ATVI continues to pour so much energy into the music game sector despite a drastic dropoff in sales (Kotick believes the addition of many more musicians to the mix of available content will reverse the downtrend).
The second interview, conducted by The Motley Fool analysts David Gardner and Matthew Argersinger, elicited answers from COO Thomas Tippl about some of those same topics, plus what it’s like to work for Bobby Kotick (fun), the future of WoW (it will still be a big thing in ten years so long as Blizzard keeps updating the content), gaming in the cloud (still not suitable for graphics-intense games such as “Call of Duty”), among others.
And speaking of TMF, on a semi-related note here is a risk analysis assessment of ATVI by Jim Mueller they published recently which we read with interest. We generally agree with the Mueller’s assessments, although we do think he is too optimistic to assert of the stock that “there really aren’t any binary outcomes, such as drug approval, that can affect it.” What about the Chinese authorities shutting down WoW for seven months so they could re-approve it? What about the potential for an unfavorable ruling in the “Call of Duty” suits potentially leading to heavy damages and/or loss of control of the franchise? What about the possibility of regulations limiting the sale or use of video games with a violent theme? Mueller’s conclusion—that ATVI has only low-to-moderate risk—is right on…or so we believe, at least.
Previous ATVI-related posts:
- BUY Activision Blizzard (ATVI)—Games People Play (2 Jan 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update—4Q08 results (11 Feb 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #2—“unleash your inner rock star” (31 Mar 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #3—Blizzard fires The9 in China (16 Apr 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #4—1Q09 results surprize to upside (7 May 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #5—strong lineup of future releases (27 May 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #6—2Q09 results again exceed expectations (5 Aug 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #7—3Q09 results provide surprize profit (5 Nov 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #8—Chinese bureaucrats in WoW fight (8 Nov 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #9—2009 bad sales year for gaming companies (15 Dec 09)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #10—4Q09 results beat old guidance; new guidance so-so (10 Feb 10)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #11—Starcraft II beta test begins (18 Feb 10)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #12—Call of Duty: legal warfare (4 Mar 10)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #13—1Q10 results beat guidance (16 Apr 10)
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) update #14—1Q10 results surge on early Call of Duty release (7 May 10)
