Did Activision Blizzard’s Mobile Game Success Spur Others To Take Action?

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has confirmed that mobile is currently the company’s leading platform. “Now, with the introduction of high-quality mobile devices, we’re looking at everybody being a consumer,” he said.” Having free games on phones is going to probably be a big way to grow the audience.” And other companies have taken notice.

Much like when Activision Blizzard purchased King Digital Media, the maker of Candy Crush Saga, in 2016, Sony recently confirmed that it’s acquiring Savage Game Studios and is expanding its newly established PlayStation Studios Mobile Division beyond consoles. Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, said that the company is acquiring Savage to “expand and diversify” its gaming offerings and deliver “incredible new games to more people than ever before.”

According to Hulst, “Our move into mobile, like our expansion into PC and live service games, strengthens our capabilities and our community, and complements PlayStation Studios’ purpose to make the best games that we can.” Kotick has said that Activision Blizzard is “hard at work on high-quality mobile games for all of our most important franchises.”

In recent years, Electronic Arts acquired Playdemic, the developer of Golf Clash, and publisher Glu Mobile, which is working on launching a mobile Battlefield game. And Take-Two Interactive bought FarmVille developer Zynga for $12.7 billion in January 2022 to expand its Grand Theft Auto franchise on mobile.

Robert Kotick stated, “As our industry continues to see numerous companies investing aggressively in gaming, including many of the world’s largest technology and media companies, government regulators are taking appropriate and deliberate steps to better understand our industry and the growing competition from around the world.”

How Activision Blizzard Evolved Its Mobile Gaming Empire

Activision Blizzard shared its second quarter 2022 results on Aug. 1, 2022. The Southern California-headquartered company made more than half of its revenue from its mobile games during the quarter ending June 30. The gaming business generated $831 million from the “mobile and ancillary” business and $332 million on PC. Additionally, it generated $376 million on consoles.

“If you look at the growth in operating profits and the return on invested capital that we’ve generated for our shareholders, we are really good at prioritizing opportunities. We have now gotten to a place where we’ve seen mobile as an opportunity. So we’ve prioritized it and evaluated various alternatives, both building and buying. We came to the conclusion that King does the best job of any team that we’ve come across in the creation of franchises, in sustaining those franchises, in commercializing those franchises, and thinking about new franchises,” Kotick told The Guardian. “Today, mobile is a $36 billion market. King supports audiences in 196 countries. So we felt very confident that they were the right partner for us.”

Kotick also said, “Our acquisitions this past quarter of [development studio] Proletariat and [artificial intelligence company] Peltarion further boost our development resources, including our artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.”

Kotick Promises Town Halls To Keep the Public Abreast of Company News

“Beginning in September, I am going to initiate town halls to keep everyone informed of our continuing progress toward our future as one of the world’s most admired companies,” stated the Activision Blizzard CEO. “We have a very exciting fall ahead of us with anticipation building for new games.”

Earlier this year, the company’s Call of Duty: Mobile made the list of Pocket Tactic’s best mobile games of 2022. Kotick has said that the Call of Duty: Mobile franchise “is the template we are applying to our proven franchises, as well as our new potential franchises as we attempt to grow our audiences to a billion players.

And Pocket Tactics gamers stated that it “is arguably the most comprehensive package of the lot. It bundles a slick, fast-paced multiplayer shooter with a more expansive Battle Royale mode. It looks and moves beautifully, too, with top-notch controller support and plenty of modes to try.”

It will be interesting to see what happens with mobile games from all of the giant video game companies in the very near future.

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