Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick says the future of gaming is mobile, and that will lead to a lot of growth.
"We have 350 million users in 190 countries," Kotick said. "I see no reason that number shouldn't be 1 billion in five years.
Kotick said the ability to play games on your phone, instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a gaming console or PC, has changed the whole gaming industry. The company's goal is to evolve its franchises to get onto mobile.
One of the companies most popular franchises "Call of Duty" made the jump to mobile in 2019. Kotick said that the franchises new handheld edition Call of Duty: Mobile reached 100 million users in just one month.
"And so you realize that as these franchises go from consoles and PCs to phones, the growth in the audience is going to be staggering," Kotick said.
The game gained critical acclaim as well, and was nominated for "Best Mobile Game" at the 2019 game awards.
Kotick sees the potential for more consumers in every geography and region by putting its games on mobile.
"When games became available on phones, the market exploded," the CEO said. "The audience size went from a few hundred million to billions of potential consumers."
Alphabet's Google Stadia, which launched on Tuesday, allows Google Pixel 3 owners to stream triple-A games such as Assassins Creed: Odyssey and Borderlands 3 on their phones.
The Activision Blizzard CEO also cited the social aspect of gaming as a means for growth, and that the evolution of gaming will be games you can play together with people around the world.
"The social experience is really getting much more significant. There's much more of engagement," the Activision Blizzard CEO said. "You can have Voice over IP video over IP today so you can see and talk to the people you're playing. And I think you'll see one of the evolutions of gaming will be more games that can be played together."
According to the NPD group, the newest non-mobile installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, a game known for it's multiplayer mode, is the highest selling video game of 2019.
The CNBC Evolve Summit returns to LA on June 9, 2020. Registration for this event is now open.
