Bobby Kotick held a giant all-hands meeting as CEO of Activision Blizzard King, where he talked at length about his hopes and dreams for the company in the future.
We should note here that this may be happening at a point where Activision Blizzard King is slated to be acquired by Microsoft. However, Activision is also facing a lawsuit for harassment and discrimination, filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Kotick is directly implicated in the allegations surrounding the lawsuit.
While Kotick may eventually see his day in court, there were questions about his fitness to lead the company stemming from these controversies. Kotick claimed to stay on to help facilitate the Microsoft deal, and intends to leave after the deal is finalized and his assistance is no longer needed.
As reported by Windows Central, Activision hired no less than James Corden to facilitate the all-hands meeting. James asked Bobby about how the company would retain their culture after the deal was done. Bobby’s response was as follows:
“I think a lot [Activision’s] motivation is that we have these enormous communities of players of 400 million people in 190 countries around the world who are engaged every single day.
I think people [at Activision] feel this incredible sense of responsibility to deliver for their players. And so I think that’s that recognition, and that appreciation, that the focus will be rewarded in the joy of hundreds of millions of people.”
When James asked him about the future of gaming, Bobby namechecked several trends in the industry:
“If you look at the new technologies that are on the horizon, we’re going to be able to do things that we’ve never done before with AI and machine learning. The quality of graphics are now elevated to a place where we’re going to need more writing talent and more acting talent — because we won’t be able to actually fulfill the expectations of our players.
Games are always very different than film and television. In film and television, you are successful by creating a connection that’s emotional between you and the audience — our experiences are more visceral, but it’s changing.
We have characters on the screen and video games who with mouth movements and facial animation that is realistic — you’re going to have a new dimension of emotional connection that we’ve not yet mastered.”
Some of you may remember that it was Blizzard that first emerged to be interested to use AI tools to make artwork for their video games.
Kotick went on to talk about tech that isn’t even being used in games yet, but are being researched by Microsoft:
“I talked a little earlier about the physical experience of interacting with something on screen. I think you’ll see things like Neuralink — you’ll actually be able to interact with things on the screen, where there isn’t a controller.
A big part of what I’ve seen in Microsoft is research. And they do development in areas that are extraordinary. And so being able to tap into their AI and machine learning capability, the data analytics, new ways of thinking about graphics — I just see unlimited potential for what we do. We’re uniquely situated as a company because we have the very best franchises in all of video games.”
Many of the things Bobby is alluding to may not really lead to improvements or be adopted in the video game industry. But it is interesting that a gaming executive, even if said executive may be on the way out, is expressing an interest in these technologies.
