Activision-Blizzard's CEO Hints at More Franchises on Mobile - Kotaku UK

It’s looking like Activision-Blizzard is planning to bring many more of its franchises to mobile. Speaking at CNBC Evolve earlier this week (via Gamasutra), CEO Bobby Kotick said that the potential for growth on the platform could see many more games make the jump.

Kotick said that “we have these great franchises, that have evolved over long periods of time. Many of those franchises though are not on phones yet.” He went on to say that “you realise that as these franchises go from console and PCs to phones, the growth in the audience is gonna be staggering.”

That’s not exactly a concrete plan, but it certainly suggests that Activision has a plan to bring as many games as possible over to mobile. Exactly how that’s going to work, however, is a question worth exploring: Call of Duty Mobile has been incredibly successful but, outside of its world-conquering FPS series, there’s not loads on offer.

A Mario Kart Tour-like port of Crash Team Racing seems like a decent bet, and Spyro has a proud history on handheld devices that I’m sure could be remastered for phones. Then there’s the Tony Hawk license, and Skylanders, but at that point, Activision is mostly out of its own intellectual properties.

It can, of course, lean on Blizzard. Hearthstone already has a mobile community, and its new autobattler can probably be brought over to mobile too. If Call of Duty can work on mobile, I imagine there are already some suits agitating about Overwatch. But when it comes to the rest of Blizzard’s games, the backlash over Diablo: Immortal might suggest that the games’ PC communities aren’t thrilled by their mobile future, potentially putting the publisher in a tricky position.

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