Activision chief executive Bobby Kotick says that the company"s policies on acquisitions have been central in turning it from "Lackovision" into the biggest third-party publisher.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Kotick, the longest-serving chief executive among the big five US publishers, said that acquiring creatives has been a key component of the publisher"s success.

"You want profitability, some proprietary development capability that is proven and successful, you want them to have a history of multi-million unit sellers, you want good management and you want it to be non-dilutive financially," said Kotick, outlining the desired requirements in an Activision target. "The few times that we haven"t stuck to that criteria, we"ve made mistakes."