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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Does the Call of Duty maker hope to rock the world of social games?

by Joe Osborne


Activision Blizzard, the publisher of hit shooter series Call of Duty, appears to have a love-hate relationship with Facebook gaming. But that scale appears to slowly be tipping in the lovey-dovey direction. During a recent interview with Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick hinted that the company's next move could be a social one, and in a big, big way.

"The exciting thing about Zynga or Facebook as a platform, is they're bringing new audiences to gaming that have never been gamers before," Kotick told Bloomberg. "When you think about that target of a 50 or 55-year-old woman that has never really experienced a game, or someone who's coming in for the first time to play a game with their friends on Facebook, that is a fantastic new platform." 

These comments are far more enthusiastic about social gaming than Activision has ever been. While strides have been made to capitalize on the benefits of social gaming with the Call of Duty Elite service, other execs within the company appear even threatened by the prospects of Facebook games. But recently, CFO Thomas Tippl revealed that the shooter king is "methodically investing in mobile and social gaming projects."

"Now, we're never gonna be first guys into those markets, but we usually are the best," Kotick said, closing the interview with Bloomberg on a high note. We'll just have to see how Zynga and EA respond to that. In the video interview below, skip to about 4:30 to hear Kotick's thoughts on Facebook games.


Credit:
http://blog.games.com/2011/11/11/call-of-duty-activision-social-games/

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