The Austrian Games convention recently offered us the opportunity to get a little interview with Markus Neumann from Activision. Markus gave us his personal opinion on gaming for mobile devices, egoshooters and device sales – enjoy(picture courtesy of abc texte/Dr. Doris Maria Kohrs)!
Mr Neumann, please tell us a bit about what Activision does?
Activision is the world’s second biggest game publisher known for franchises like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero. We publish games for all major platforms like PC, XBox360, PS2, PS3, Nintendo DS, PSP & Wii.
The platforms listed above are impressive – they cover almost all gaming platforms. But how does it look when mobile devices are concerned?
For us, mobile device == Nintendo DS & PSP mainly at the moment, with NDS currently performing very well.…
Could you give us specific figures?
The past has shown that the Nintendo DS outsold the PSP by multiples, especially in the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) markets, so we’re looking at an 4 times higher installed base for NDS when we compare to PSP at this time. We do hope that the PSP slim gives the platform an uplift again.
And what about ‘real’ mobile devices like the PPC?
The PPC field is unexplored for us. We have not released any games for PPC, I personally think that this is due to lack of experience.
We leave this field to licensing partners mainly, who deliver the games for mobile devices based on our franchises and to the best capabilities of these mobile devices.
What about Java?
This is something we leave up to our partners. They get the franchise, and then choose the target platform on their own….this really isn’t my decision.
On to something else – Germany/the EU wants to ban egoshooters. Can this be done?
To be honest – I think that these cannot be forbidden. That would mean censorship of content which the state IMHO isn’t permitted to do in the radical fashion recommended by
the organs of state.
Would Activision fight a ban?
It’s not a question wheter Activision would stand up, I think the whole industry will need to stand up. The problem is that there are no decisions atm…all you have are discussions done in a very unprofessional way. My personal opinion is that we have popularization against a medium that the people discussing don’t understand themselves.
It is a matter of money-making for the state… games also pay a significant amount of VAT, the majority of the games fall
within the age ratings below 18 as well. It seems to be a system which is misjudged by politicians as of now.
This interview was edited by Mr Neumann after the initial transcription from the voice file, as some statements sounded too definite in the original form.
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