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Activision's Kotick Discounts Downloadable Games

kukyfrope writes "In a recent interview with the New York Times, Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick claims to be optimistic about the future of gaming and the potential revenue of new gamers as many traditional gamers hit their 30's and 40's and are introducing their kids to the world of gaming. While Kotick has a bright outlook, he sees 'full downloadable games' as being 'so far in the future that it's almost incomprehensible.' This would seem to be contradicted by the success of online avenues such as Valve's Steam system, Xbox Live and Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console."

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  1. Taken out of context by rabiddeity · · Score: 4, Informative

    The original NYT article has the following quote (emphasis mine):

    "The idea of full downloadable games is so far in the future that it's almost incomprehensible as an opportunity," Mr. Kotick said. But he added that there were more immediately plausible revenue opportunities from selling downloads of supplemental game levels or "characters, new weapons, new missions, or auctioning off places" in a virtual world.

    So, as you can see, his words were taken a bit out of context. His opinion is that small downloadable content like expansions will sell, but not an entire 5GB game. Still a bit misguided, considering the success of Steam, but not as bad as the article makes it out to be.