Items tagged with Activision
Don't believe anyone who tells you the Revolution won't be televised, that's a bunch of hogwash. The Revolution is going to be on televisions all over the place, especially starting February 28, 2013, which is when Activision plans to release the Call of Duty: Black Ops II Revolution DLC map pack for PC and PlayStation 3 (PS3). Revolution is the first map pack for Black Ops II, and it holds little back featuring a bunch of new contents and four brand new multiplayer maps, including: Hydro: Located in Pakistan, this hydro-electric plant comes complete with a lethal spillway that floods with very little warning. Grind: Set in a skate park in Venice Beach (the birthplace of skateboarding!), quarter-pipes...
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In a conference call with investors, Activision discussed the success of its Skylanders series, which is a Spyro the Dragon spinoff that's played along with toy figures through a "Portal of Power." Young children between 6-11 years old represent the target demographic, and that's something that concerns Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick when it comes to the Wii U. "As you know, we were somewhat disappointed with the launch of the Wii U," Kotick said. "And I think it's a challenging environment this year, and one of the things we are concerned about is what the install base of hardware will be like for 6-11 year olds. But we have a lot of confidence in the franchise in the long term. I think...
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The Call of Duty series is immense. Each title manages to sell a record-breaking number of copies, and across all of the platforms they're available for, players tend to stick with them until the next one comes out. Despite all this, the game has very little presence in the pro-gaming landscape. Instead, it's titles like Battlefield 3, Counter-Strike, DotA and even Guitar Hero that manages to draw the crowds and keep people seriously competitive. Both Activision and Microsoft are finally tired of sitting by the wayside, and have joined forces to put on a very compelling competition... ... with a $1 million purse for the winner. Wow. The competition will be held in partnership with Major League...
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While it may have been easy to predict, we can now confirm that Activision's wildly popular Call of Duty series is still the one the beat. The latest title in the CoD franchise -- Black Ops II -- notched over $500 million in worldwide sales during the first 24 hours of its release, more than doubling that of Halo 4's launch, which raked in $220 million on its launch day. "With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row," said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. "Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for...
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On Sunday at midnight, Activision Blizzard will release “Skylanders: Giants”, the sequel to the successful “Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventures”, and the company is hoping to strike gold with the kid’s game this holiday season. It certainly needs to, as Activision Blizzard has reportedly sunk tens of millions of dollars into the whole package. The game is delightful to play with elementary school-age kids and features small plastic figurines that you place on a “portal” which “teleports” the characters into the game. If you put more than one character on the portal, you can play additional game modes, including head-to-head competition. The...
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Maybe you're addicted to World of Warcraft and spend every free moment immersed in the most popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) of all time, wandering through Azeroth doing whatever it is WoW players do. I wouldn't know, but I assume it's a lot of questing and raids. As popular as WoW has become, I've never set virtual foot in Azeroth. Not once. That's okay because WoW is doing just fine without my participationThere are WoW subscribers in all corners of the globe, and it takes a massive amount of gear to host all the different game worlds, or realms, as they're referred to. Each realm is hosted on its own server, and in late 2011, Activision Blizzard began auctioning...
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Maybe you're addicted to World of Warcraft and spend every free moment immersed in the most popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) of all time, wandering through Azeroth doing whatever it is WoW players do. I wouldn't know, but I assume it's a lot of questing and raids. As popular as WoW has become, I've never set virtual foot in Azeroth. Not once. That's okay because WoW is doing just fine without my participation. At last count, Activision Blizzard pegged the number of subscribers at 10.2 million, or about half a million more than the combined populations of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and...
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PopCap Games, creator of well-known and popular casual games such as Bejeweled, Peggle, and Plants vs. Zombies, is about to be acquired, according to a new report. The price is a cool $1 billion, according to multiple sources. That's right, $1 billion. With a $1 billion price, which could be as high as a 10x multiple (with PopCap's revenue estimated at about $100 - $150 million), the most obvious choice, Zynga, was out of the running. The price was simply too rich for its blood. So who was the big winner? Other names bandied around included Google, Disney, and Activision. Activision is the large gaming company without a stable of casual games, and with a market...
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Activision has added that Nov. 8 will include more than just the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It will also launch Call of Duty: Elite, a social-networking twist to a first-person player shooter's multiplayer component. There will be a free version of Call of Duty: Elite, and a premium (paid) version as well. It's unclear how much the paid version will cost. In addition, Activision will hold a public beta this summer for Elite using their last Call of Duty Release, Call of Duty: Black Ops. In a press release, Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing said, "The average Call of Duty player spends 58 minutes per day playing multiplayer. That is more than the average Facebook user...
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Covering the declarations of Bobby Kotick is a bit like monitoring the behavior of an active volcano. It's impossible to predict exact when he'll blow, but when he inevitably does, the event will blast molten stupid in every direction. The man's latest bright idea is to charge for cutscenes. This wouldn't affect in-game play, but would be an out-of-game option. Here's what Bobby envisions, in his own words. If we were to go to an audience and say ‘We have this great hour and a half of linear video that we'd like to make available to you at a $20 or $30 price point’ you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever,” he told an audience at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch...
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A report from videogame industry analyst Michael Pachter indicates that EA is investigating new revenue streams, particularly digital revenues that might entice players to buy into an extended game demo and follow up with a full game purchase once the title was available. That's the noninflammatory version of this story's lede; the inflammatory version is that EA wants to charge users $10-$15 for traditional downloadable game demos. EA has clarified that this is not in the cards; EA's Jeff Brown told Kotaku that "EA SPORTS, EA Games and EA Play are each experimenting with download strategies that deliver fresh game content in formats players want to experience...None of the proposals call for...
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Last weekend, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick gave details on what he believes represents the future of gaming—and managed to become the poster child for unhappy workplaces. We'll talk gaming first. Current-generation consoles like the PS3, XBox 360, and Wii have been very kind to Activision and its lucrative Guitar Hero franchise, but Kotick doesn't seem inclined to pay much attention to them over the next couple years. Rather than picking one console to support above the other two, Kotick plans to develop games that bypass consoles altogether and are playable on TV media hubs or equivalent technologies. This could broaden the spectrum of gamers, and bring others into the fold, but it's a rather...
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For the longest time, we've felt that Sony's baseline $399 price tag on its PlayStation 3 console was simply too high. Nintendo's Wii is just $299, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 can be had easily for $199. Aside from Blu-ray playback, what does the console really offer to persuade gamers to purchase it over the other, cheaper options?Obviously, we aren't the only ones wondering why a PS3 price drop wasn't announced recently at E3, with major game developer Activision even wondering if it will continue to support the console in the near future. Specifically, Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick stated that it may end up dropping support for Sony's console due to high development costs and...
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File this one under "news of the weird." In a completely strange and unexpected twist of events, Activision has filed a lawsuit that could prevent a Jack Black-based video game from becoming a reality. The aforementioned company sued game developer Double Fine Productions this past week in order to halt the impending release of "Brutal Legand" by Electronic Arts. The suit was filed in Santa Monica, California, and it alleges that Double Fine failed to deliver the game "on time." Furthermore, it claims that the outfit then offered the completed (albeit late) game to EA instead. Failing to meet a deadline is one thing, but offering up the work to a rival firm is just downright crazy. (If true,...
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The game industry often relies on sequels as opposed to new ideas to bring in big profits. With a game like Guitar Hero, however, there’s not a whole lot you can do except add new songs to the playlist or offer a band sequel such as the Van Halen edition. Even though these new additions are great because the game concept sells well in general and because people have a certain liking to specific bands, Guitar Hero hasn’t seen a lot of new innovations. At least it hasn’t until now. Activision has officially announced that Guitar Hero 5 will be coming to the Xbox, PS2 and PS3, and Wii this fall. This latest version of Guitar Hero will offer some thrilling new features that set it apart from the...
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Surprising to get news this huge on a Sunday, but here we are. Activision and Blizzard are very successful on their own, and today they announced they would merge to form a company with a rather long name -- Activision Blizzard -- as well as a firm with large aspirations.Activision and Blizzard have said they will form "the world's most profitable games business" in a deal worth $18.8bn (£9.15bn).US-based Activision also makes hit console games such as the Tony Hawk series and Guitar Hero.Nine million people pay a monthly subscription to play World of Warcraft.Vivendi will be the largest single shareholder in the merged company. With the new company's expanded resources, can...
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In many ways, the video game business is a zero-sum game. The amount of time that gamers can spend going virtual places and killing imaginary things is huge, but it is limited. So video game producers always keep one eye on the competition and one on the market. Electronic Arts is the largest independent video game maker in the world, but they forgot to look over their shoulder for Activision, which raced past them to become the largest game developer, at least in North America. BusinessWeek talked to CEO Robert Kotick about how Activision did it. It's been a remarkable ride for Activision, which was the first independent video game producer, making games for the Atari system back...
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