Dropped games not "exploitable" enough, says Activision Blizzard

Wants games that will be here in 10 years time

Blood on the Sand, one of the games to be cut

6 November 2008 14:22 GMT / By Verity Burns

Activision Blizzard has explained the reason it dropped a number of Sierra games when it merged with Vivendia.

Bobby Kotick, Acitivision Blizzard boss, said that the dropped games did not exhibit "potential to be exploited every year across every platform".

Such games included Ghostbusters and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

Luckily, these it seems games will still come to light after other publishers stepped in to pick them up. Atari is now handling Ghostbusters, while THQ is set to publish the new 50 Cent game.

"There were a lot of different projects and businesses [within Vivendi] that we identified as not likely to achieve the profit margin potential that we look for," Kotick explained.

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming USD 100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us."

Activision Blizzard's plan is to work on titles that have the capability to remain in the public's favour ten years from now. This means the company has 15 properties across 70 SKUs planned for 2009, which is a massive 40% more than this year.

These will include new titles in the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero series, as well as film tie-ins such as Transformers, Wolverine, Monsters Versus Aliens and Ice Age.

There's also a Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, more James Bond spin-offs and another Tony Hawks game planned as well.

Seems like it'll be a busy 2009 for Activision-Blizzard.