Q&A: Activision pres Kathy Vrabeck

After paying her dues in the marketing and sales trenches of Blue Chip corps including ConAgra, the Pillsbury Company, Quaker Oats, and Eli Lilly, Kathy Vrabeck landed a choice assignment at Activision, joining the game publisher in 1999 as its head of marketing and vice president of global brand management. After a year, she took over the responsibilities of managing the company's worldwide publishing operations. And last year, she was promoted to president of the Doom, Shrek, and Call of Duty publishing giant. What did it take to make the climb to the near-top slot on the company's masthead? "About 80 hours a week," Vrabeck told us with the enthusiasm of a well-trained marathon runner.

We caught up with Vrabeck in the warren of offices and suites in the back reaches of the Activision booth. Like most publishers, measuring the cost-to-benefit ratio of one's E3 spend was high on the list of topics addressed. But unlike some publishers,\ GameSpot spoke with this week, there seemed to be little debate about the value of the show to Vrabeck. We kicked off our conversation by asking how she measured the value of participating in E3.

Kathy Vrabeck: There are three things that matter. Do the retailers walk away with the feeling that we’ve got the top games for 2004? Does the media walk away writing great things about the games, and the slate that we have? And do the investors walk away feeling confident in our ability to execute this year?

GameSpot: How do you know if you succeeded or failed?

KV: Well, we get immediate feedback. People tell us. Certainly with the media, we’ll see it in print. And with the retailers, they tell us right then and there if [the game] is something they are going to go big on and if they feel it's going to be a big hit for them this summer or this holiday. And with investors, you see it right away too. They all publish E3 roundups, and we can see when they write about us if they are confident that we are going to have a successful year.

GS: Do you tailor the message to those three groups or is it a unified push?

KV: It’s a single message that does have a little bit of tailoring around each [category]. The retailers want to know that it’s big sales and that the game is going to be something that we’re spending a lot of money behind, that it’s a great quality game, and that it’s going to move off their shelves. For the media, we tailor the message a little bit to things that we know are interesting about the specific game. For investors, while you talk about the games, you also have to talk about the financial management of the company.

GS: When you walk the show floor, what are you looking for and what are you sensitive to?

KV: I’m sensitive to people standing around games. I’m sensitive to people lining up to see games.

GS: And the value that E3 has to the company--is it constant or are some years bigger than others?

KV: Honestly, E3 keeps getting more important. It seems like there are more press covering the event. There are more analysts covering our industry space, so it seems like it’s a bigger event for us.

GS: Regarding that partnership with Nielsen, can you comment on how the technology works and what part of that solution Activision is introducing?

KV: It’s very much in its infancy and exploration phase. Nielsen is working on a piece of technology that will measure when someone runs across an ad in-game. They’re working on the technology piece, and what we’ve been able to do is facilitate that by giving them games--working with them on what you would have to do inside the structure of the game to allow that to happen.

GS: Are you going to license it to other publishers or will it be an Activision-only tool?

KV: Nielsen would have to put this system in people’s houses, but then any game publisher would be able to use it.

GS: On the company Web site, you’ve got a job listing for a senior programmer, NextGen consoles. Which next-generation consoles are you developing for?

KV: Well, we have [games] in development for the next-generation handhelds right now.

GS: PSP and DS…

KV: Yes. We haven't announced anything yet, but we do have projects under way and supporting both those platforms. And at this point, we are doing exploratory work on where we think the next-generation consoles will go.

GS: Activision doesn't do any MMORPGs. That's unusual today, since so many companies are trumpeting online game development. Why not Activision?

KV: It is a strategic decision. That is a business model that we don’t think is very profitable when you look at what you have to do to keep up the servers. It's a numbers game, so it requires that there are enough users to make it profitable. From what we can tell there’s only ever been one [company] who has done that...the rest have not been that successful.

GS: Do you keep your eyes on the sector?

KV: Always. We have a group who watches all emerging areas, including emerging platforms, and we look at all that on a quarterly basis.

GS: What’s next for the Doom series?

KV: We are so excited about Doom 3 on both the PC and the Xbox that we’re not thinking beyond that on Doom right now.

GS: What are the plans to support the back catalog? Are you ever going to exploit that library of games?

KV: The back catalogue of Activision, the sort of the really old stuff, does live on some other devices. And we sometimes license it out, but at this point there is not a lot of it that we think is relevant to the great games that we see out today.

GS: What’s the status of Activision’s commitment to mobile?

KV: Well, we are in the mobile gaming space. We’re getting ready to publish our first game in that, but we’ve been successfully working with people like Jamdat Mobile for a long time in the space--and had very successful games.

GS: But you have your first self-published mobile game in the works?

KV: We’re self-publishing Shrek 2 on mobile. Our strategy on all emerging platforms is to watch them and figure out at what point you get in [by working with] partners, and when you might want to get in on your own. We think we’ve hit that level on wireless where we will continue to work closely with outside partners, but understanding the self-publishing model is something that we’ve decided to explore.

GS: Are you making any moves to enter the Asia market?

KV: Asia is not a big priority for us. We’ve been focusing mostly in North America, with a little bit in Europe, where we’ve done handhelds, but not so much in Asia.

GS: Where do you see the collaboration between Hollywood and the game industry going?

KV: I think that collaboration will continue. The movie studios understand that interactive games are a great way to keep their brand alive after the movie leaves the theaters. [Games are] so immersive that people actually get more involved with the characters and more involved in the story. So if the movie studio has a sequels strategy, this is a great way to keep the brand fresh.

GS: What booths do you visit first?

KV: I always like to go to the first parties, because they have a nice mix of what everybody is doing. Then I can’t help but go to EA and see what they’re doing.

GS: Activision is 25 years old this year. What significance does that have to the current executive team?

KV: We kick off our 25th anniversary celebration today. We are doing things between now and the end of the calendar year that reach out to the employees, and also to some of the press. We think it has an interesting ring. Celebrating the 25th makes you feel like the company is on solid ground, and we think it does have significance being one of the oldest publishing companies around. So many companies have gone out of business; so many have come and gone. Activision is one that has stuck with it and has been very successful.

GS: What’s the personal investment and the personal challenge behind your commitment to building the Activision brand?

KV: I think if you’re going to work, then you have to work at something you love, and so coming into the office every day is never about “Oh, I’ve got to go into the office.” It’s always about coming in, building something that you can stand away and look back at and say, “Wow, you know I was part of that.” The company has doubled in size in the last five years. We have so many employees, and watching them grow and develop and be successful in their own careers is something that’s really good to watch as well.

GS: The company was founded in 1979, correct?

KV: That’s right.

GS: Can I ask what you were doing in 1979?

KV: I got my driver's license in 1979.

GS: Hmm... I'll do the math, Kathy.