Activision: games are relationships, "brands in people's lives"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 13 February, 2012

Have more in common with sport than film.

Games are relationships, Call of Duty publisher Activision has said.

The way we interact with video games has changed profoundly over recent years, Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg told VentureBeat.

"Games are different, because they're not disposable, they're not one-time," he said. "They really are relationships. The way you interact with a game has much more in common with the way you interact with a sport that you love, or a hobby that you love, that's on-going and long-lasting, than with how you watch a movie, which you do for two hours and then you move on.

"So I think all we're trying to do is look at that behaviour and change the way we talk to people about games."

Activision has tried to foster this relationship with its customers through Call of Duty Elite and Call of Duty XP - both extensions of the biggest brand in gaming: Call of Duty.

Elite, which launched alongside Modern Warfare 3 last year, is an online extension of the main Call of Duty experience, offering tutorial videos, stat tracking and, for those who pay a premium, early access to downloadable content at a reduced price.

XP is a gargantuan Call of Duty convention that attracts thousands of gamers and high-profile celebrities. It's home to tournaments, announcements and all sorts of shenanigans.

"Both Call of Duty Elite and Call of Duty XP, if looked at through a certain lens, are sort of experiments with how willing people are to enter into a real relationship with a game that they like," Hirshberg continued.

"To think of it differently than something you buy once a year, to think of it more as something you do all year round. Or do, in the case of XP, as a sort of lifestyle piece of entertainment.

"So I think that both of them show a greater potential than people might assume that games have, to become those kinds of brands in people's lives."

Hirshberg described this move to games as brands as a "shift in mindset".

"People don't have any problem thinking about products in other sectors this way," he said. "I don't think anyone would say that when you buy an Apple product, you're just buying a piece of consumer electronics. You're also buying a little bit of the Apple belief system, an emblem of your creativity, your design aesthetic. Same with Nike shoes or different soft drinks or beers.

"There are all kinds of brands that have meaning beyond the product in other categories. That hasn't been historically true of games, but I think it can be, and some of the work we've done on Call of Duty and some of the approaches we took on Skylanders show that."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 3 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Zozzilla #1 3 months ago

    If games are relationships, it's a pretty crap relationship - Kingdoms of Amalur isn't exactly gonna buy me roses and take me out for a meal, is it?

  • Darksouls13 #2 3 months ago

    Utter nonsense. What a load of crap they spew.

  • Srift #3 3 months ago

    Hacktivision

  • Ares42 #4 3 months ago

    Welcome to 15 years ago when LAN gaming became popular on PC. Too bad it only took over a decade before consoles caught on to the fact that multiplayer and singleplayer focused games are two completely different things.

  • arcam #5 3 months ago

    It's not utter nonsense, it's very true. What's utter nonsense is that this is something new. The best developers and publishers (and lots of mediocre ones too) have known this and used this for a long time.

  • billy-beauts #6 3 months ago

    @Ares42 This is very true.

  • chaywa #7 3 months ago

    If games are more like sports then why hasn't Activision brought out any sports games?

  • Kanjin #8 3 months ago

    True enough, but Activision's side of it seems to be milk, milk, milk.

  • Tyronne #9 3 months ago

    Bloody hell, I have read some crap in my time but this takes the biscuit.

  • bad09 #10 3 months ago

    Of course they would say that they want people spending every year on yearly updates and stat porn subs :)

    Personally I think the majority of games today are actually really badly disposable (as the the new 2nd hand "problem" displays quite well) and it's actually the old games where I have a "relationship".

    To be fair I get what they are saying though, for a while I did only spend time with COD for my online but when you get as many relationships as you do with yearly COD updates that don't really update anything the relationship goes stale and that new elite dress COD puts on makes her look ugly and old then that fresh bit of totty over there looks more appealing. :)
    Edited by bad09 at 13/02/12 @ 13:13

  • anthonypappa #11 3 months ago

    is this an excuse for shoving as much COD down peoples' throats as possible?!

  • Kill_Crazy #12 3 months ago

    Basically: if you're going to invest as much of your time in this as you are in sport, say football, then we're going to try and get more money more often.

  • Cjail #13 3 months ago

    @Zozzilla
    My PS3 bought me roses because She only dos everything!
    Edited by Cjail at 13/02/12 @ 13:19

  • SolidSCB #14 3 months ago

    Another thinly veiled Call of Duty advertisement from EG. They are blatantly taking a backhander from Activision for all of these 'Headlines'.

  • jetsetwillie #15 3 months ago

    i post on gaming forums so i know more than anyone.

  • suzakuseven #16 3 months ago

    The way you interact with a game has much more in common with the way you interact with a sport that you love, or a hobby that you love, that's on-going and long-lasting, than with how you watch a movie, which you do for two hours and then you move on.
    Surely, surely this is common sense, no?

  • Transmission89 #17 3 months ago

    The kind of rhetoric they use really makes me want to puke a fat one, can someone post a link of Bill Hick's rant on people who work in marketing (I would but am at work :( ) it about somes it up

  • spekkeh #18 3 months ago

    I think part of the problem here is that there are basically two paradigms on games that are equally valid, because they both have games that cater to them (sometimes within the same game). You have games that are very much seen as products, that you use and then dispose and move on the next one, the same as you would a movie. These are singleplayer games you buy e.g. to experience a novel story. Sure there's interactivity and thereby an emergent characteristic where you create your own story, but ultimately it's a finite, predesigned experience.

    Conversely you also have the viewpoint of games as tools for social interaction. Multiplayer games, (casual) games with a supporting peripheral or infrastructure, where the game is mostly just a context for experiences to occur in. The player here is the one that makes the experience and so is invested in it like they would in sports.

  • rogermellie #19 3 months ago

    @Transmission89

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

  • fongy #20 3 months ago

    What they say is simply not true...

    Games aren't brands - the moment they become a brand they lost all originality and usually the spark the brilliance that made people think "let's release this annually with only minor updates"...

  • dirtysteve #21 3 months ago

    This is mawkish marketing shite. 'Relationships' bollocks, the talking up uf brands is pure Acti though.

  • Skyclad #22 3 months ago

    "Games are different, because they're not disposable, they're not one-time," he said. "They really are relationships. The way you interact with a game has much more in common with the way you interact with a sport that you love, or a hobby that you love, that's on-going and long-lasting, than with how you watch a movie, which you do for two hours and then you move on."

    Erm, ever heard of TV shows?
    And if games aren't disposable, how comes I just sold Fifa 12?

    Above all, why is this site getting spammed with COD all over recently?

  • darc #23 3 months ago

    Video games are like sports that make you fat and relationships that turn you into a loner.

    Love 'em anyway. :)

  • stryker1121 #24 3 months ago

    Mmm sexy marketing-speak. Give me more, baby.

  • Toothball #25 3 months ago

    This does all seem like it applies to many people, but when Activision say this with reference to brands and annual releases it just feels like we're being reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. Which we no doubt are, but they might have made it sound a little less cut and dry.

  • Letsalljusthavefun #26 3 months ago

    That word... Brand.

    I don't like it.

  • TheMohican #27 3 months ago

    @Skyclad It's called marketing.

  • FogHeart #28 3 months ago

    Hah! I can see lots of parallels. Such as, the relationship is over when everything that can happen has already taken place, but some persist with it simply because they feel they might recapture some of the glory of times gone by...

  • v.profane #29 3 months ago

    I wonder what the 'brand values' of CoD are then? Funny to see even Activision don't agree with the "Why Devs Owe You Nothing" article.

  • ExcellentBenji #30 3 months ago

    Hang on, I thought devs didn't owe consumers anything? Oh wait, wrong article. Sorry.

  • Nova1977 #31 3 months ago

    Activision, please go back to making games and stop with this financial bs at least just for one year, just release a buttload of games.

  • freethinker101 #32 3 months ago

    Well at least they are not really bleating on about the 2nd hand market any more, and putting a positive spin on things. While this is hardly news, it does at least recognise that we the consumer are an important part of the relationship and maybe by building some sort of loyalty will increase the longevity of their brand. Still it wouldn't interest me as I am very much a single player game type, and my loyalty is to the developers who make games I like and want to play.

  • lã¡szlã³gyula #33 3 months ago

    Is this aimed at the unsatisfied BF3 crowd? :)

  • DanC89 #34 3 months ago

    I am practically married to Skyrim.

  • Donaldthescotishtwin #35 3 months ago

    Well, my penis is too big for them.