this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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CEO Bobby Kotick will leave Activision Blizzard on January 1, 2024 | Schreier: Kotick will depart after 33 years, employees are "very excited."::Schreier: Kotick will depart after 33 years, employees are "very excited."

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[–] Yewb@lemmy.world 111 points 1 year ago (13 children)

This 1 fucking guy ruined a whole generation of gaming with his greedy dumb fuck business ideas.

[–] Bobert@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 year ago

This 1 fucking guy ruined ~~a whole~~ future generations of gaming with his greedy dumb fuck business ideas.

Ftfy

[–] MagicPterodactyl@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be fair he probably didn't come up with any ideas. Just approved the worst ones that were presented to him.

[–] shasta@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

That's not the problem. The problem is him not doing anything about all the toxic culture and sexual assault in his company, causing the best employees to leave.

Dude has ruined multiple generations

[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 year ago

Who would win?

  • A massive entertainment industry filled to the brim with passionate creatives
  • One greedy boy
[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

It would be ruined if people didn't buy the stuff, but they do, so it's a success.

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[–] Ab_intra@lemmy.world 96 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hope he burn in hell. He's the best example of how not to run a company. It's insane that he's not been let go for years now.

[–] Mudface@lemmy.world 78 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

That entirely depends on your expectations of a company CEO

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ATVI/activision-blizzard/stock-price-history

I can’t think of a company that wouldn’t hire someone with this kind of stock performance over 30 years.

The issue is really that consumers just keep spending money on things that they hate.

If they didnt do that, Bobby would have been gone a long long time ago

[–] Ab_intra@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you're right. I'm pointing moee to his leadership and how he has allowed sexism and other bad behavior to go on without any consequences. He even told an assistant that he would have her killed.. https://www.pcgamer.com/more-shocking-activision-blizzard-revelations-bobby-kotick-once-told-an-assistant-he-was-going-to-have-her-killed/

He might earn himself and the stockholders a lot of money.. But in my eyes he's a great example of why I don't like capitalism, but that is another discussion tho!

[–] Mudface@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He’s obviously a terrible human being, I think you have to be to be a wildly successful CEO.

But those are the people who are best at running companies. I wouldn’t be good at it, because I’m not a piece of shit

[–] Ab_intra@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

That's what sucks about capitalism. We're allowing thhattype of trash to run it.

Wow I'm very anti capitalist today!

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The thing that sucks even more about it is no one even has to 'allow' that type of trash to run it, it's just what tends to happen if the profit motive is the main driver of people's behavior.

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[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

ATVI's stock performance only looks impressive if you don't compare it to anything. Here's a graph comparing ATVI to ONEQ, which is an ETF that tracks the NASDAQ composite index. If anything, ATVI has been slightly underperforming the market average for most of Kotick's tenure as CEO.

To see what "outperforming the market" looks like, compare ATVI to NVDA. NVDA's stock has increased 16,000% in the 15 years that Kotick has been CEO of ATVI.

Or to see some video game company stocks that have outperformed the market, compare ATVI to TTWO (Take Two) or CCOEY (Capcom).

From a purely financial perspective, Kotick was middling at best. He deserves no plaudits. There were plenty of other NASDAQ companies that outperformed the market during the time he was CEO of ActiBlizz, including other video game companies.

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[–] iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world 58 points 1 year ago

This fucking goblin enabled systemic rape in his organization. He deserves prison.

[–] alienanimals@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Limp dick Kotick should have been fired long ago.

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[–] Elivey@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

He looks like Bilbo Baggins in the scene where he's overcome with desire for the ring and tries to take it from Frodo.

[–] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 year ago
[–] Heratiki@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He looks like the the love child of Bilbo Baggins and Elon Musk.

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[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And yet I would still rather hang out with fiend bilbo

[–] Domille@sh.itjust.works 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am so glad he is gone. I stopped playing any blizzaed games partially because of this shmuck... and partially because the games became trash. Here's hoping things will turn around now that he is gone.

[–] just_change_it@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Yeah, i'm sure microsoft won't do anything to increase monetization on their 69 billion dollar purchase. The objective is to make blizzard's games better by minimizing highly profitable systems like microtransactions, battle passes, DLC season passes, xp boosters, in game real money stores.

They wouldn't be buying these properties to try and milk as much profit as possible at all. No sir.

[–] Domille@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

Hey, this is the last hope I have. There's not a lot of it, but there is a tiny chance that maybe maybe maybe things will get better. Very likely not, but, you know, one could hope.

[–] DauntingFlamingo@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I paid full price for both Factorio and Skyrim because they are full games that I get to own. No micro transactions, and modding is almost encouraged through Steam. I will never buy another microtransaction game. I will never buy another "subscription based" platform like Xbox. I'm so fucking over not owning the thing I bought

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What the big developers see when they read this is that you're a low-value customer and marketing to you will be less profitable than milking 14yo kids who use their birthday money to buy fortune gift cards.

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Most underaged individuals are being taken advantage of and the government does jack shit. Gambling is banned but this you never gain money at least in gambling you have a chance to gain which makes all of this so much worse.

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[–] Tum@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I hate to break it to you but you don't really "own" the games on steam either. You have a license agreement with valve which they can revoke at any time, and you lose access to the games you paid for.

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[–] lorty@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I expect some changes to integrate better with gamepass, but overall if monetisation is the problem, MS won't fix anything.

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[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Which ring of hell is he planning on spending his retirement within?

Edit: Also, give me an example of another human being that looks more like a testicle with eyeballs.

[–] nxdefiant@startrek.website 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Harvey Weinstein, but using him is practically cheating.

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[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 year ago

John Riccitiello , former EA CEO, and now former unity CEO

[–] SitD@feddit.de 36 points 1 year ago

the shareholders will identify a suitable replacement my dudes, no need to cheer up over this

[–] Boggy@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

Such a punchable face. Damn

[–] Zugyuk@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Remember when kotick threatened to kill an assistant, and then they were fired and paid to not talk about it?

[–] jwagner7813@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We've replaced Kotick with Microsoft lol

[–] stillwater@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] shasta@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

And there was much rejoicing

[–] Fades@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

What a piece of shit

[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Microsoft must have a policy of no stealing breast milk, poor guy lost his job to that (fr tho, he will get a really nice bonus and will never 'pay' for the terrible work environment he created)

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Time to polish up my resume.

[–] cantrips@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Add some kielbasa

[–] Jumi@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Blizzard will stay the rotten corpse of something great it is right now

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 7 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


It's "a massive change for the video game industry," Schreier writes, which seems almost restrained, given Kotick's longevity and recent history.

Kotick, who has led Activision for more than 30 years and orchestrated its merger with Blizzard, had considered stepping down in late 2021.

Activision was also sued by its shareholders and pressured by state treasurers over its secrecy and responses regarding the California lawsuit.

In early 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to buy Activision, and the timing, according to reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, was not a coincidence.

Kotick told VentureBeat after the Microsoft announcement that he didn't believe the harassment and mismanagement accusations hurt the company's stock.

He cited delays in shipping Overwatch and Diablo titles, along with Call of Duty's sales performance.


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