EDIT: "Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. [...] he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture."
Shame on you, Microsoft.
For a moment, I was truly hopeful that we might see some reinvigoration for blundered projects like the Warcraft III reforged.
Perhaps even some hope that Microsoft might breathe new life into Starcraft II, which still stands as an incredible game.
/sigh
Unfortunately even under new management I don't see Starcraft getting much love, the focus is now on cross-platform games and RTS games are PC only (which is a small niche compared to the overall market).
I mean now that MS owns them maybe they can pull a Win11 :p
The game never really felt that great after Ben Brode left. Battlegrounds was pretty OK though.
Smaller M&A where it's easier to swap the leader (like a startup - which most of us are used to) is MUCH easier/cheaper/faster than swapping out an established CEO of a public company.
They'll do it because he's a liability and they want to make a statement to the new company - but it'll be slow.
To be honest, I think Microsoft and Activision deserve each other.
Realistically, there's a high chance that within a few months of the acquisition being completed he'll be expected to leave quietly.
Anyway, I think this acquisition will actually stop the bleeding snd create some stability
So that might be part of it.
https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1407658278893592579
> Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming.
So no, they aren't keeping him around. Good call.
They wouldn't muddy their happy upbeat acquisition announcement by mentioning they're pushing him out, though.
So it's wrong to draw any conclusions yet.
For example, Activision had a successful franchise Call of Duty that did releases every 2 years or so. Kotick’s insight was that they could release one every year and basically print money. He was right. He then used that money to acquire Blizzard, a company that had many beloved franchises. He then applied those same principles to the running of Blizzard, to the point where the company releases half baked, buggy, awful excuses for games. An example of this is Warcraft III Reforged. They did it because re-releases of old games are a reliable way to monetise nostalgia.
And that’s just the somewhat justifiable part. Because making money is good, right? Shareholders love that shit.
What’s less defensible is the toxic work culture that was fostered under him, where sexual harassment was endemic. Of course he never saw the fallout of that. They fired some patsies and called it a day.
To be fair though, they put two studios on it, which is very unlike other annual games, and a much better approach for WLB and avoiding (some) crunch.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kot... — mirror at https://archive.fo/fzdAv
And if you're completely out of the loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Department_of_Fair_...
> The goal that I had (...) was to take all the fun out of making video games.
> The executive said that he has tried to instill into the company culture "skepticism, pessimism, and fear" of the global economic downturn
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/activision-games-to-bypass...
Hopefully woke culture will take more of a toll on US tech and we will see more US companies opening up in Europe. The US tech centralization is bad for the world (and US consumers).
For games to be successful today, they need popularity. Twitch streamers need to play it. Youtubers need to make "how-tos", and word of mouth is king. Activision drove the final nail in their coffin with the PR nightmare this year. No amount of necromancy (Warcraft Reforged, Classic WoW, Diablo 2) can save the company long term.
One could argue that Microsoft would have paid more, and I’m sure some enterprising lawyers will get paid by tricking some shareholders into suing over that, but that’s like arguing with the waves about when high tide is.
