Activision Doesn't Believe In Growth

Bobby Kotick of Activision has once again caused his PR staff to reach for the Tums bottle by opening his mouth to investors at the Reuters Global Media Summit . “The place where you have the opportunities for growth is within the communities of franchises we control,” said Kotick. “We don’t view the App Store as a really big opportunity for dedicated games. It’s a different question assessing [social games] as a business opportunity. Right now we don’t see an opportunity for us to participate in that market.”

In the meantime, EA is investing heavily in those areas.

If you find yourself puzzled by Kotick's remarks, I took the liberty of rephrasing them a bit in the time-honored fashion of PR professionals putting words in the mouths of CEOs. Try my version out below and see if it clarifies the picture for you:

"We don't believe in investing in the highest growth segments of the market," said Bobby Kotick. "We prefer to place our bets in the part of the industry that has shown negative sales growth for the past two years."

Usually you pay at least a little attention to the parts of the market that are growing the fastest. Even if you don't want to get your own dollars invested, at least license your properties to someone who's in those spaces... for brand marketing and some profit-heavy licensing revenue if nothing else. Does Bobby really think he can keep doing CoD sequels forever and sales will only grow? Shouldn't the collapse of music titles have shown him that growth is not forever?

"We're completely happy owning large dinosaurs and feel no need to invest in those pesky little mammals," said Kotick. "Oh, look at the pretty light in the sky... I wonder what that means?"