I think a lot of the time we end up taking people who - and this is sort of a big cultural advantage at Activision - we find people who are, have a graduate degree of some kind - mainly it's in the sciences - and they are in jobs that would never suggest that they were working for anything game related but that they're passionate gamers.
— Bobby Kotick
Our troops are home. It's time for American business to replace the yellow ribbons with help wanted signs.
It's private enterprise that can create jobs and fill them. It's business that can train people and make them productive tax-payers. And it's America Inc. that has the most to gain from tapping this extraordinary human resource.
Just reskinning games with our intellectual property is not an appealing prospect for opportunity. That isn't something that creates long-term value for shareholders.
'Guitar Hero' was much more about us not innovating in a way that was appealing to audiences. It's not about oversaturating the market.
Looking ahead, we see the popularity of eSports exploding as competitive gaming becomes more mainstream and eSports leagues like 'Call of Duty' World League and Overwatch League driving greater engagement and viewership.
The engineering, analytics, design, testing, and delivery behind our products offer some of the hardest engineering and business challenges in the world. As we've brought our franchises into eSports and moved to digital delivery, it's become even more complex and exciting - which, in turn, has allowed us attract even more top talent.
Successful business leaders who have helped build institutions of lasting value - all are committed to talent and a culture of excellence. This is usually accomplished by the identification, retention, and development of great people.
One thing that probably is unique at Activision is that we really spend a lot of time up front with our audiences, and in big quantities and with a very thoughtful process, to really try and draw out from them what it is that they would like to play. So we have a pretty good sense going in what the expectation of the audience is.
Veterans have the skills employers want - discipline, motivation, leadership, and the ability to work on a team. They have made the U.S. military the most effective and respected in the world.
When we created Overwatch at Blizzard, it was always with the expectation that we would be able to celebrate and recognize our players in a way that would be consistent with traditional sports.
If you look at the history of our company, we don't do a lot of acquisition. The reason is, we need to see that people are culturally and philosophically aligned with the way that we approach the business.
You find out two executives are planning to break their contracts, keep the money you gave them, and steal 40 employees. What do you do? You fire them.
People have been playing versions of 'World of Warcraft' since 1994, and it's still the world's leading subscription-based MMO.
Autonomy leads to empowerment. We work hard to maintain a balance between collaboration and cooperation and independence.
In our early days, being recognized on any list of great companies was hard to imagine. There were times when we sold the office furniture to make payroll.
The most important thing we do to encourage innovation is give people the freedom to fail. And I think you can articulate that and establish that as a value in a lot of different ways. I don't want to say celebrate the failures, but in a lot of respects, it's sort of that.
No matter where people stand on the policies that led to the conflicts, Americans recognize the depth of sacrifice and patriotism of our men and women in uniform. Everyone agrees these heroes deserve every advantage we can give them.
Whether they're paying for it or not is not really relevant. They're investing a significant amount of time in our content. At some point, commercial opportunities will materialise for greater percentages of that audience.
I like what I'm doing. If I didn't like what I was doing, I'd be doing something else.
When you dig down and look at the people who are vocal in their criticism of me, it's a small number.
Being able to evolve great franchises over time is the foundation of world-class entertainment companies.
We like people with the potential to be leaders of leaders, not managers of managers.
