Activision (ATVI) CEO Bobby Kotick DICE Speech Notes
-1990: 26 years old, paid $440,000 (all his money) to buy 25% of Mediagenic (Activision) bankrupt company. The company had rights to Joe Montana football, Myst, Infocom text games, Pitfall, River Raid, Kaboom, Mechwarrior
-first 2600 game was Kaboom, Pitball, River Raid, Activision hockey, Zork, Hitchhiker Guide’s to the Galaxy
-Bobby started a company in 1983 making Apple II software (game, word processor)
-was an EA developer for 4-5 years
-Mediagenic was making a word processor to compete with Microsoft
-he tried to acquire Commodore because of the Amiga (Amiga with CD player would be a great dedicated videogame system) with his best friend who had a hedge-fund and other wealthy investors. Tried for one year. Commodore CEO decided to compete with Sun Microsystems/workstations
-single dad with 3 daughters. I like to eat (addiction). Callouses from Defender. Play from time to time. If I was regularly playing games, I would not be able to stop
-marry personal interests with business opportunity in something you’re passionate about, very rare
-empowering people to do a great job. Make the resources available
-missed Maxis. Spent 1 day looking at SimCity 2000. Will Wright working a game called “Jefferson” (Sims), never went to look at it
-When buying Red Octane (Guitar Hero IP owner) and knew about Harmonix. Didn’t even go to Boston, it would of been better if they bought Harmonix
-mid-1990s Blizzard bought for $7 million. Bobby thought it was mind-boggling. 8-10 years later, Blizzard $700 million price with World of Warcraft in development. Merged when they were worth $7 billion
-Thinks the merger wouldn’t have worked earlier. It took them a lot of time to develop a culture that was respectful of the independent companies they worked with. Culture of partnership. Give resources and know when to stand back
-Only company he has seen, that has done this well to this point was Nintendo
-After 15 acquisitions, got to the place where they knew how to protect their culture. Creative inspired companies need to control their destiny. Fosters independent operation
-Jamdat was founded by people at Activision, sold to EA
-Pandemic was founded by people at Activision, sold to EA
-the really great products come from a team
-virtually all their studios are run by the original founders. Collaborative, driven, capable, ability to identify/recruit/retain other talented people, translate passion into products, people committed to excellence
-1983 he was 19 years old in his dorm room
-Zynga, Facebook games, there are some distribution platforms that allow for 2 guys in a dorm room
-first independent videogame competition, offer up to $500,000