Riccitiello: Activision to Decline without Call of Duty and WoW

Activision is one of the biggest, most successful publishers on the market, but in such a young industry, success is never a guarantee. Franchises like Call of Duty and Skylanders are bathing in the financial sunlight right now, and World of Warcraft has been raking in the cash for years. However, former EA CEO John Riccitiello acknowledges that fact that the ship could sink at any moment for Activision if just a few franchises start to decline.

Speaking with Game Industry International in his first interview since stepping down from EA, Riccitiello showed a great deal of respect when discussing how Bobby Kotick has been handling his business. It’s difficult to argue with Activision’s results, but the former EA man sees this as the year that Battlefield will finally take the FPS throne. That power shift could lead down a dangerous road for the Call of Duty publisher.

"There's one scenario where they ship a new MMO, it replaces WoW, Call of Duty stays at the top of the charts, Skylanders goes from strength to strength. They do a couple of things with their licenses, everything goes fine. Then there's a scenario where WoW continues to decline, Battlefield takes the mantle from CoD, Skylanders proves to be a flash in the pan and Activision proves to be a shitty company at that point,” he said. “What's been fascinating watching Activision over the last few years is that I've heard that mentioned before, about them not being the company they could or should be. They've pulled off some notable successes.”

Even if EA has a better software lineup, Activision is proven. The biggest question will be if it can maintain its current role after Call of Duty gets usurped.

"The one thing I know most about now is Battlefield and CoD and I feel pretty confident that EA's got better cards. But the last billion dollar brand created from scratch in this industry was Skylanders,” Riccitiello continued.”Is the next billion dollar brand going to come from Activision? I don't know. But if it does then they can sustain the loss of leadership in the field of shooters."

Both Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts drop at the end of the year. We’ll just have to wait and see which game garners more attention this fall.