Kotick: Activision shareholder value has grown 30% per year

Activision has claimed its shareholder value has grown at a compounded annual rate of over 30 per cent over the last decade.

Asserting in a shareholder meeting that the publisher would continue to "focus on the largest and most profitable opportunity," CEO Bobby Kotick claimed that it was well ahead of the competition in terms of moving to the online space.

"There is an industry-wide urgency to invest in online games and game companies. We, fortunately, saw the changes taking place a number of years ago, and as a result, our competitive lead is significant."

The publisher predicted increased success in the months and years to come. "Online technologies like voice over IP and video over IP, as well as new motion-sensing technologies like Move and Kinect, are offering players exciting new ways to interact.

"These new experiences are more immersive than prior technologies, and games that capitalize on these innovations are optimally positioned to attract much, much larger audiences."

But CFO Thomas Tippl projected only minor gains from core games for the rest of the year. "With respect to software in the U.S. and Europe, we expected Nintendo and legacy platforms to decline this year.

"Importantly, we expect that the core gamer platforms, where we generate the majority of our revenues, including the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, collectively will be up high single digits this year and then online sales will be up double digit."

Online sales had grown 120 per cent year on year, "to reach an all-time high and for the first time, accounted for the majority of sales for the quarter."

The publisher was more understated in describing the health of Activision's new releases for 2010 to date. While Transformers: War For Cybertron and Shrek Forever After were hailed as successful, no numbers were given. The elephants in the room were Blur and Singularity, both of which have been perceived as struggling at retail.

Responded to questioning on whether Activision had not given these games its full backing, Tippl claimed that "Singularity fell short of meeting what is an exceptionally high bar within the shooter genre. I think we made the right size investment against this opportunity, and that's how we expect to continue to look at the amount of marketing support we put behind all of our launches.

"Fortunately, Call of Duty was the title that raised that bar and shortfall of Singularity was offset by Call of Duty's catalogue and DLC performance."

Blur's alleged poor sales were blamed on the racing genre being "not particularly responsive."

While the overall picture was of a publisher in rude health, it was absolutely clear that its fortunes depend almost entirely on Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, with very few high-profile titles outside of Black Ops and Cataclysm due before the year is out.