Hirshberg: Fewer, bigger games is a "big opportunity"
Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg, the executive behind the highest-selling franchise in the industry, thinks an increasing emphasis on smaller numbers of bigger hits is a good thing.
Hirshberg described concern over the increasingly small number of successful games as "hand-wringing".
"I look at it through a different lens. Those fewer titles are generating more engagement and more willingness to buy additional content and more willingness to stick with a game than ever before," he told VentureBeat.
"Games have always been a less disposable medium than other forms of entertainment, and they’ve become exponentially less disposable, because people are showing this desire to go deeper and deeper into the worlds that they love. There’s no other medium that can deliver that hundreds and hundreds of hours of engagement. And so I think that’s a big opportunity."
The executive said the "shift in mindset" doesn't necessitate a decrease in innovation.
"It leads you to invest more and create more innovation within the pillars of the franchise, as opposed to creating more of a grazing experience for people, with lots of different titles. But I don’t think that means that there can’t be just as much, if not more innovation within particular games," he said.