Activision Blizzard is the largest video game developer and publisher, known for franchises like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Currently, their strategy is continuing sequels of popular franchises and developing their Battle.net platform. However, games are becoming repetitive and costs are rising. Their future strategy includes developing new content through a Call of Duty platform that allows users to create and share content across devices through cloud gaming. This will help shorten development cycles and gain insight into what consumers want. The summary outlines Activision's capabilities, challenges, and plans for a cloud-based gaming platform to partner with Amazon for cloud infrastructure.

1. Activision Blizzard, Inc: Core Capabilities and
Focus Towards 2016
Paul Taylor
IS 714
Profs Henderson and Venkatraman
12/12/11

2. Overview
• Largest developer and publisher of video game
content with $4.4 billion of revenue in 2010
• Home of popular franchises such as Guitar Hero, Call
of Duty, World of WarCraft, Diablo, and StarCraft
• Recent release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on
November 18th shattered the greatest launch
release record set by it’s predecessor Call of Duty:
Black Ops last fall

3. Strategy and Core Capability
• Core capability: developing, publishing, and
distributing video game content across multiple
platforms and consoles
• Current strategy:
– Continue to release content (sequels) of their most
successful franchises
– Developing its Battle.net multiplayer platform for its
Blizzard games (World of WarCraft, Diablo, StarCraft)
– Small scale games for licensed based IP (movies, brands,
etc.)

4. Core Capability
• People: Game developers and designers that can translate
ideas into code compatible with all consoles. Publishing and
marketing teams distribute content through all sales channels
– Metric: Sales volume
• Technology: Software development kits (SDKs) and other
technology related to video game content
creation, testing, publishing, and distribution is essential
– Metric: Contribution margin
• Governance: Project managers oversee the development
cycle for games trying to meet the sales goals and release
date specifications set by the leadership team. Projects also
must meet the expectation levels of gamers.
– Metric: Development cycle time and cost
• Process: Development cycle of bringing video game content
from conception to market on various consoles and platforms
– Metric: Cycle time and sales volume

5. Future of Activision Blizzard
• Current Strategic Analysis
– Developing new content IP is harder now than ever before
– Costs have risen exponentially to develop games on current
generation console hardware
– Activision controls two of the most popular franchises in gaming, but
recently released content for these franchises is becoming repetitive
and stale
– Development cycle for a new game is between 1 and 2 years
• Gaming in 2016
– Activision must shift its strategy and focus on new trends in gaming
– Bundled services across platforms is an emerging trend as developers
are publishing content across a multitude of platforms
– Cloud gaming will allow players to play games “on-demand”
– Diminishing hardware layer as computation and processing power
shifts toward the cloud
– Moving away from brick and mortar distribution of gaming content

6. Call of Duty Platform
• Activision must continue to monetize their most successful
franchise in new and innovative ways or else it will be phased
out like their Guitar Hero franchise
• The new platform can be accessed from any device that can
connect to the platform through an application
• Brick and mortar content distribution will be phased out in
favor of a cloud based model
• Content and collaboration from Activision developers and
consumers will shorten development life-cycle with fresh
content
– Gamers will have tools and “content objects” at their disposal to
create multiplayer maps and “missions”
– Gamers can upload their content to the platform and receive feedback
from other gamers in the form of a “rating” algorithm system
• This will bring the content creation to the Edge and Activision
will gain a better understanding of what consumers want from
Call of Duty

7. Call of Duty Platform Capability
• People: Game developers and gamers will be able to collaborate
together to bring fresh Call of Duty content. Anyone that purchased
Call of Duty will have access to the platform
– Metric: Number of players actively joining the platform community
• Technology: Networking technology needs to be in place that can
support the infusion and integration of new content as well as
gamers accessing content instantly and continuous. This will shift to
the cloud when it is feasible to do so.
– Metric: Server downtime, users on platform at any given time
• Governance: Moderators and content developers will ensure that
content is appropriate and worthy to be accessed on the platform.
A ratings algorithm will surface the content that is highly regarded
among peers
– Metric: Number of rejections vs. successful submissions of content by
users
• Process: “Content objects” can be mixed and matched by users that
can create “content modules”. Once submitted, game developers
can refine the modules and integrate the new content directly into
the game. This supplements their current process capability
– Metric: Number of new content submissions from users

8. Future Partnership
Activision Blizzard, Inc.
• Need for cloud computing and processing power by 2016
• Call of Duty Platform will require continuous processing
power and increases storage capacity as it scales larger
Amazon, Inc.
• Amazon has little presence in the gaming sector and can
suit Activision’s needs for cloud processing and storage
• Amazon can serve as a key distributor for Call of Duty
content