The Business: Executive Suite — Bobby Kotick

10:59 PM PST 11/30/2010 by Paul Bond

Activision Blizzard’s CEO — the man behind ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ $650 million sales record — talks strategy.

Two of the hottest franchises in video games — Guitar Hero and Call of Duty — come from Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard. The latest version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, set a worldwide record for the biggest entertainment launch in history the week of Nov. 9. (By comparison, Avatar made $137 million during its first week in theaters.) Kotick, 47 — the longtime CEO of Activision who took the same title when, after a 2008 merger, the company became Activision Blizzard — weighs in on whether Black Ops is too violent and who might be his next Guitar heroes.