It’s official: Bobby Kotick has left Activision Blizzard. After 32 years of leading the company, originally just Activision before the Blizzard merger, the controversial CEO is gone, having seen the Microsoft acquisition through to the end.
Now, current and former Activision Blizzard workers are sharing their accounts of working with Kotick, and none of them are favourable. Adding onto previous claims of Kotick being a poor leader, these workers share alleged instances of the CEO not listening to their concerns, and in some cases, being outright abusive himself.
“I worked on [Call of Duty] for two years as a programmer at Demonware. Bobby’s decisions made our games worse,” says former Call of Duty developer, Christina Pollock. “In my first month it came out he threatened to have an employee killed. In the all-hands that followed, no-one wanted to speak first. So I demanded his firing in front of everyone.”
This refers to an incident in 2006, in which Kotick threatened to have his assistant killed in a voicemail. This came to light in late 2021 thanks to the Wall Street Journal, and Activision admitted that the incident took place. A spokesperson said: “Mr Kotick quickly apologized 16 years ago. […] he deeply regrets the exaggeration and tone.”
Another anecdote comes from Andy Belford, a former community development manager for Overwatch.
“When we planned OW2’s Steam launch, my team warned (months in advance) that we’re going to be review bombed”, says Belford. “We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, all flatly denied.
“Moderation of Steam was put on the community team […] despite my refusal to want to expose members of my team to that level of toxic content/posts. When asked whose decision it was to launch on Steam with no additional help: Bobby.”
Workers aren’t the only ones glad to see the back of Kotick. Many fans of Activision Blizzard’s games are celebrating too, as many believe that he cares more about money than the quality of the projects he oversaw.
Indeed, Belford was right to worry for his team, as Overwatch 2 quickly became the worst-reviewed game on Steam. This was due to many factors, but one driving force behind the review bombing was the removal of Activision Blizzard games in China. Incidentally, this is another controversy that’s said to be Kotick’s fault, as he was reportedly part of the meeting in which relations between Activision Blizzard and its Chinese partner, NetEase, broke down, according to the New York Times.
All in all, the mood seems best summarised by a short tweet from senior Warcraft designer, Patrick Scarborough: “Eat sh*t Bobby Kotick you pathetic ghoul. Waste the millions you didn’t earn from people whose talent and light you will never understand.”
It remains to be seen what Bobby Kotick gets up to next. He’s worked with other, non-gaming companies in the past, so we won’t necessarily see him pop up somewhere else in the industry. Of course, he’d need to find an employer that doesn’t mind the PR baggage he comes with. Today’s farewell messages are hardly a ringing endorsement, after all.
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