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Bobby Kotick: Frustrated by Xbox Live Biz Model

By james_fudge

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says that he is frustrated with business models like Xbox Live that let Microsoft control DLC and multiplayer. Kotick has talked about a subscription-based online service of some sort for the popular Call of Duty franchise in the past, and maybe this kind of talk is his way of inching towards it - or at least a way of making it sound like a more attractive idea to investors.

"We've heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft's] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call Of Duty," Kotick told FT. "We don't really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it's not our network."

The income stream he speaks of is "online play," which he apparently wants to find a way to monetize. Given that gamers have logged 1.7 billon hours of Call Of Duty online play between November 2009 and April 2010, you can probably see why. Some would argue that Activision is looking at EA's Gun Club and Online Pass and thinking of how Call of Duty can be further milked. Read More

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on July 06, 2010 (boomark / email).