Why Activision Stopped Making Games

4. Decline In New Franchises And IP

While the decline in the amount of games Activision has released year on year is pretty shocking, things look even more bleak when you realise how few new franchises they've introduced over the past decade. Throughout the entirety of the 2000s, the publisher launched 19 new franchises, including Call of Duty, its Marvel games (Spider-Man and X-Men in particular), Guitar Hero and the rejuvenated Crash Bandicoot. In comparison, the 2010s have seen only four attempts at creating new IP so far: Destiny, Skylanders, Singularity and Blur.

Obviously, while the former two have become huge money makers for Activision, the latter didn't even make it past a single game. For the past eight years the company have been coasting on IP they've owned for decades, introducing a paltry two new, original franchises to replace the ones they've lost.

While the gaming world is shifting all the time and some of these properties could be revived under better circumstances, the publisher is seemingly fine with letting the licences to some of their most popular historical franchises lapse. They've already relinquished control of the superhero properties they owned, allowing Marvel themselves to give their characters to studios who, you know, actually care about them.

Activision are betting big on the few franchises that are working right now, and while that's paying off at the moment, it points to a far less creative - and a far more limited - future for the publisher.