Activision: Bungie had no alternative

A unrivalled commitment to cutting costs was the key driver in Bungie’s decision to sign a ten-year deal with Activision, the publisher’s boos Bobby Kotick has claimed.

Speaking to investors, Kotick outlined a number of ways that his firm keeps a close check on its balance sheets including, bizarrely, the amount it spends on electricity.

We have people that are dedicated to finding the lowest per Kilowatt hour cost of power,” Kotick stated, according to CVG.

You know, Electronic Arts unlikely has somebody that really understands where you go [to get] from five-and-a-half-cents per kilowatt hour to three-and-a-half-cents per kilowatt hour. 


Or who’s doing the best in developing new technologies for backup generation, or cooling systems, or the things you would do to satisfy the needs of the 32 data centres we run around the world. Or Credit and Correction online. Or how you police a small country/big city – which is what the eleven-plus million consumers of World Of Warcraft have every day.

These are really complex things. Bungie didn’t really have any alternative. We bring so much value to the process.”

CVG goes on to suggest that it’s no coincidence that Kotick mentions online worlds and Bungie in the same sentence. Kotick has not been shy in expressing his love of the MMO model, and how much he’d love to bring MMO elements to brands like Call of Duty.