Speaking to GameInformer, Activision's CEO of publishing Eric Hirshberg has said the Call of Duty franchise remains strong "long after all the sceptics thought it would start to falter".
In relation to the original Skylanders he commented that the game "was a big risk, we focused on it, we brought all the resources we needed to it, we brought the right creative talent in to make it great and it's paying off."
Hirshberg adds that Activision has "done the same thing over the years with Call of Duty, I would argue better than anyone. We've kept that going long after all the skeptics thought it would start to falter and yet it still gains momentum, it still gains in size and engagement."
He says "a lot of… resources and time and capital" is contributed to the series' development and Call of Duty developers are encouraged to do "a few things exceptionally well."
Referring to Bungie's Destiny, which is being published by Activision, he said:
"We're a company that makes a few bets and when we go we go big, I think that that focused strategy is something that really pays off because it's really hard to make compelling content of this nature that's this deep and this vast, and I like that everybody's focused on doing a few things exceptionally well and getting them right.
"Obviously it starts with creative talent with our development studios, they know how to make great games, but it involves a lot of good work by a lot of different people from a lot of different disciplines to make these things catch fire. Did we sit down and know ahead of time how successful they would all be? No, of course, sometimes it even exceeds your own expectations, but we had confidence they were all winning ideas."
While each Call of Duty has been the biggest game of the year for the last several releases, 2013 will likely be different given the massive success of Grand Theft Auto 5 which generated $1 billion in revenue in three days. Call of Duty: Black Ops was the previous record holder hitting that figure in 15 days.
Activision warned in August that pre-orders for Call of Duty: Ghosts "are well below" those of Black Ops 2. However, GameStop recently announced that Ghosts is "on-track" to be the year's most pre-ordered title. This is likely because the game is being reserved regularly alongside a next-gen console.
