Riccitiello questions Activision’s long-term viability as he tips Battlefield to beat Call of Duty

Battlefield could be on the cusp of usurping Call of Duty from the FPS throne, according to former CEO John Riccitiello.

"The one thing I know most about now is Battlefield and CoD and I feel pretty confident that EA’s got better cards,” the putspoken exec told Games Industry.

But the last billion dollar brand created from scratch in this industry was Skylanders. Is the next billion-dollar brand going to come from Activision? I don’t know. But if it does then they can sustain the loss of leadership in the field of shooters."

He didn’t leave it there, though. Riccitiello also outlined a situation in which Activision could end up in big trouble.

"There’s one scenario where they ship a new MMO, it replaces WoW, Call of Duty stays at the top of the charts, Skylanders goes from strength to strength,” he added. They do a couple of things with their licenses, everything goes fine.

Then there’s a scenario where WoW continues to decline, Battlefield takes the mantle from CoD, Skylanders proves to be a flash in the pan and Activision proves to be a shitty company at that point. What’s been fascinating watching Activision over the last few years is that I’ve heard that mentioned before, about them not being the company they could or should be. They’ve pulled off some notable successes.”