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.”

  • Yewb@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

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

    • Bobert@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

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

      Ftfy

    • MagicPterodactyl@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      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
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        9 months 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.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      Who would win?

      • A massive entertainment industry filled to the brim with passionate creatives
      • One greedy boy
    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      How? Did he force people to buy and subscribe and endorse something?

      No. Idiots bought in, sucking balls purchase after purchase.

      Edit: gamers who spent tendie money are mad

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Agree. Like, it’s not water or transport. Just don’t engage.

          I don’t like some movie franchises, and that’s fine, I just don’t consume them

      • yeather@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Agreed, don’t buy the battle pass, or better yet, don’t buy the game if all you’re going to do is complain.

  • Ab_intra@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    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.

      • Ab_intra@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        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
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          9 months ago

          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
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            9 months ago

            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
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              9 months 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.

      • CountVon@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        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.

        • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Take two is three times smaller via market cap and Capcom is 8 times smaller, just saying looking at stock price alone doesn’t tell the full picture.

          Activision has also done multiple stock splits over the last 30 years.

          • ManOMorphos@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Stock price charts account for all splits/reverse splits, so it wouldn’t be a factor when comparing price over time.

            I agree with the first point though. Even just performing slightly below the market with such a massive company would make Kotick very desireable as a new CEO, unfortunately. Maybe some corps would not be fine with his reputation, but I doubt he will struggle to find a position in a new board room.

            • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              The stock price itself does account for it in the charts, but it doesn’t speak to the market cap aspect.

              • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                The charts are in percent, not dollars. It doesn’t matter that Capcom is 8 times smaller if investing $1 in it still yields a higher return on investment.

                Also, Take Two may be smaller, but… Grand Theft Auto.

                • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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                  9 months ago

                  Not true, because of stock splits

                  Also all I’m looking at is market cap, it doesn’t matter what games you like from them lol

      • Erian@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Most consumers just don’t care or don’t know at all who Bobby Kotick is. Call of Duty is so popular, but the people that follow the market or the game industry well enough to know the people behind games aren’t that many.

  • Domille@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    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
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      9 months ago

      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
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        9 months 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
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        9 months ago

        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

        • Thomrade@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          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.

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I mean, if it’s playable offline there isn’t much they can do about it, right?

          • DauntingFlamingo@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            I have them all downloaded. 25 years of old hard drives and nerdy piracy have me well stocked for the apocalypse

      • lorty@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

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

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard to design pachinko machines and mobile games, exclusively.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      Now when I think about it, the chronologically last Blizzard games I’ve enjoyed were WarCraft III TFT and old WoW on pirate servers. (My favorite is Tides of Darkness, obviously)

      So - I don’t know in which direction would things be turning around, what is there left even since those times?

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    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.

  • Elivey@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

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

  • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    While CEO of Activision, Kotick’s termination without cause, or “Termination by employee for good reason following a change of control,” guaranteed him nearly $300 million. Bloomberg reports that Kotick’s windfall will likely be $375 million now that Microsoft’s acquisition has gone through.

  • Jumi@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

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

    • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They drag the corpses of their games along for money real good. Sometimes I think about the amount of people still paying a wow subscription and just sigh.

  • SitD@feddit.de
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    9 months ago

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

  • spiderkle@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Nice to see Microsoft is cleaning house one day after the aquisition went through, starting with the root of the problem. This is very likely part of the deal and is gonna bring about some long needed changes.

    • Chunk@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      This is standard. You always get rid of the upper management. You give them a lot of money and a round of applause and then you put your own people in. Everyone at the top will be Microsoft.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      9 months ago

      This was likely the plan before the acquisition. I doubt this came as a surprise to Kotick.

  • Zugyuk@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

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