Blizzard CEO: The most unlikely person to succeed in the game industry

Who is Robert Cotic Tan Yu Robert Cotic, a blizzard CEO? He is now the CEO of Blizzard, the world's biggest publisher of games.　　Unlike other gaming company managers, however, Robert Cotic never plays video games-he only plays capital games. People are very interested in how such a handsome businessman who never plays games is the first place in the field of game distribution.　　What is his business path?　　A born businessman "is arguably the most unlikely to be successful in the game industry," Cotic, a rich friend who has judged him, even though the friend has a strong eye for Cotic market potential.　　Many entrepreneurs show great interest in business or technology when they are young, which is often the biggest goal in life, and Cotic in infancy seems to show the potential to do business, and he sometimes secretly sells gadgets from home to others and benefits them. Cotic that his path to success was in Manhattan, the business he earned most in his middle school investment career. At the time, he had a nightclub in Manhattan that offered party places for underage teenage boys and girls.　　But Cotic has never been in a nightclub, but is figuring out how to sell more goods like ice cream to customers. He remembers the investment: "I never understand why they spend hundreds of of dollars on cocaine or alcohol, and all my money is earned by myself, and I will save it and now I have it." "Actually, how to make money becomes the favorite thing when Cotic young." Cotic doesn't like socializing, according to his university roommate Max, who Cotic even avoid his birthday party. But when it comes to business, Cotic will turn into a veritable social whiz, and in fact, Cotic's career starts with a social cocktail party.　　In Cotic sophomore year, he went to Dallas to attend a cocktail party, at this reception, Cotic met Steve Wehn, no one know what the social Cotic said something, only know the next day, he sits in Wayne's private jet home, and carries the Steve Wehn offered 300,000 dollar venture capital.　　In the years that followed, Cotic set up a number of companies and made some money, but he was also constantly looking for opportunities for investment, because the previous ones did not give Cotic a real sense of satisfaction.　　In the 1983, the first Third-party game issuer to be listed, the founder of the company from Atari, Apple founder Steve Jobs in Atari as an engineer. However, the vision seems to be untimely, in 1983 the company encountered an unprecedented crisis in the United States gaming industry, Atari Impact (ATARI SHOCK), which was written in a number of economic textbooks in the case, stems from the gaming industry's high speculative mentality, not only Atari to create the largest in the history of Silicon Valley layoffs,　　Dynamic vision has also been greatly impacted. Loss surges, huge debts, dynamic viewPrecarious, and in the eyes of Cotic, this is a real gold mine. How to let the dynamic view of the dead? This is a difficult problem before him.　　The first is bankruptcy liquidation, which converts the debts of other creditors into shares, so that the dynamic view can live on the day of birth. However, Philips, the biggest shareholder at the time, thinks the stakes are completely worthless, Cotic staged a film-like negotiations, Cotic with a partner with more than 70 Philips management, accounting, lawyers had a fierce war, the final result is that Cotic and Max,　　Wayne Partners injected 440,000 of dollars into a one-third stake in the move, Cotic officially become the CEO of the vision.　　Let the artist learn the market thinking has never contacted the game industry, also do not like to play games, even the game players are not Cotic take over the company is not a smooth thing. "Good artists know how to copy, and great artists steal."　　"Apple's Steve likes to quote Picasso because he never thinks it's shameful to borrow someone's ideas." Cotic as well, he studied EA, but in the 1991 when Cotic was at the helm, the EA had begun to change.　　The previous EA used the game designer as an artist, but then the EA business became more and more concentrated, and even the studios were all over the place, and the game designer was like a screw on the machine.　　Creative and ideas of the game designer not only to consider the product design, but also with a bunch of only understand the financial statements of management, EA gradually become short-sighted "canning plant."　　After examining EA, Cotic set up his own system, and from 1997 to 2003, he acquired 9 studios to provide seed funds, and the studios could retain their names. It is worth mentioning that, while commercialization is unavoidable, Cotic is like an art master in creating a working environment.　　He will recruit people for market research, and then provide market data for each studio, but not mandatory, but let each studio decide whether to modify the product. Because several of the studio's executives were able to deduct from the product's revenue, losses also bore some losses, leaving executives to consider the market.　　Cotic let the game producer understand the business gradually, thus introduced the commercial design in the early stage of the product development. At the beginning of his takeover, Cotic still faced a debt problem, but the move was gradually restored, with a two-year view of the share price moving from $1 to $11.25.　　By 2000, the dynamic view has become the United States the second largest Third-party game distributors, to 2006 years, dynamic Vision has been invincible in the single game market, when the Cotic began to consider a new problem: EA like a mountain, stand-alone game profit is too low online game profit. November 2006, Prestige di Group's new president a phone call to let Cotic spirit, Prestige di President Bernard Livi hope to hire Cotic, because the dynamic view and Blizzard merged, Prestige di will pass 52%stake in the direct control of the blizzard.　　This seems to be a difficult choice, because Cotic has been ploughing for more than 10 years, dynamic vision is Cotic's painstaking efforts, however, the merger after the company has had the strength to shake off EA, and to the Internet game a step closer, and Blizzard also has "World of Warcraft"-annual income of 1.1 billion U.S. dollars.　　In fact, since entering the gaming industry, Cotic the title of the boss of the game industry as his goal, and Cotic is very clear about the benefits of the merger, but is equally concerned that he has too many concessions to sleep at night. Cotic was retained as CEO of the new company in 2007, when it was formally merged with Blizzard. After the gaming century merged, Cotic still had a pity-he had a chance to buy blizzard in 1995, and he told Blizzard's Mark Mohan: "You know, I could have bought your company for 7 million instead of 7 billion dollars." "Do not play games, only play with the capital dynamic as Blizzard was founded, Cotic's assets have been greatly enhanced, the global gaming industry under the financial turmoil has been greatly impacted, Japanese manufacturers have been losing, EA into a loss quagmire, but the performance of the dynamic view of the blizzard is still solid, the subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment" World of Warcraft "is still a gold-sucking weapon.　　In 2008, Cotic's annual salary exceeded 15 million dollars. And Cotic has shot, the "Guitar Hero" into a music casual game wave, swept the world, another game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" from the sale to now in recent months, has reached 17 million sets of sales, revenue more than 1 billion U.S. dollars,　　The game relies on the network to extend its shelf-time. In February 2010, Blizzard reported its fourth-quarter results in 2009, though it lost 286 million of dollars despite Better-than-expected earnings, stemming from a weakness in music and casual gaming.　　U.S. sales of video games declined by 9.8% in total in 2009, according to U.S. market research agencies. "The market was really tough last year.　　In this economic situation, the average consumer will certainly be careful, which also affects the game industry, Cotic said, but at the same time he is ready to let dynamic see blizzard in the product to make a certain adjustment. Although as a game software publisher, surrounded by passionate players, but Cotic the same way, always away from the game.　　He thinks playing games is a waste of time, which he already showed when he opened a nightclub. He likes all kinds of new electronic products, blackberry and Nokia phones, laptops, but not because he likes products, but because it can bring convenience to his life.　　Similarly, Cotic's greatest interest is not in video games, but in the capital appreciation behind video games. After the merger of Blizzard, Cotic's goal is no longer the boss of the game publisher, because he is already sitting in that position, his ambition is "linear media", he hopes to move the blizzard to the higher direction, he will continue his capital game playerCareer。