Activision Blizzard becomes Activision > Blizzard

Seeing this in the newspaper sucks.  I don’t know how they were structured prior to this, but I had always assumed that it wasn’t Activision calling all the shots.  My original understanding (albeit simply assumed) was that Activision and Vivendi had some sort of merger that brought Blizzard along with it.  Now it seems like Blizzard execs report to some guy who then reports to Bobby Kotick (destroyer of worlds).

“This is an important change as it will allow me, with Thomas, to become more deeply involved in areas of the business where I believe we can capture great potential and opportunity,” Kotick said in the memo to employees.

Translation: “Bwahahhahaa!”


Personally, I hate Activision and I hate Bobby Kotick.  They have very little talent aside from the tiny niches they keep locked up under threats.  Infinity Ward pointed the finger at them for dictating the price of the new map pack, Bobby Kotick himself has stated his goal is to remove the fun from games and threaten his employees that they’ll lose their job, and now this are more than enough to justify the nerd rage.

I don’t even want to start hypothesizing.  I simply want to try and pretend this crap doesn’t happen.


  • The look on the Emperor’s face is priceless. Reminds me of the Robot Chicken Deathstar episode. ahhahah.

  • Diablo 3, 15 dollars a class, 10 dollars a chapter, 1.50 every level..ITS THE FUTURE.

  • Bobby Kotick is sitting in his office right now thinking: “You know what would make WoW great? $50/m subs and skateboards.”.

  • I agree, this sucks. Bobby Kotick is the spokesperson for official act of sticking your foot in your mouth. His involvement in Blizzard only means bad things.

  • I wouldn’t jump the gun, Blizzard would never let them drastically make changes. I guarantee if anything changes with Blizzard’s games, it by their own hands, not Activisions.

  • I wonder if it’s his reward for solving the ‘Infinity Crisis’. Yeah, geek pun intended 🙂

  • Blizzard is still managing it’s own titles. It’s not an entity under control of the main company. It’s still a seperate section of what makes up Activision-Blizzard. I highly doubt that they’ll be letting Kotick stick his insolent, money-grubbing hands into their titles anytime soon. At least, no more than to profit from their success. I’m sure.. after the recent Kotick fiascos.. the heads of Blizzard are wondering just what they’ve gotten themselves into. If anything, the only way that Kotick will kill Blizzard is reputation-death-by-association.

    With Blizzard still being a seperate entity within the larger company, that means that all developmental decisions will still ultimately fall to the Blizzard team. I think if Kotick had half a brain to know what will make him money.. which seems to be the only thing he has a brain about.. he won’t try and restructure or even refocus Blizzard in any way. The only reason Activision isn’t writhing in flames right now is because Blizzard is, I’m sure, painstakingly attached to them.

  • While I think that Bobby Kotick is a curmudgeonly asshat as much as the next guy, the article clearly states:

    “Blizzard Entertainment, maker of the successful online game World of Warcraft, remains an independent unit.”

    I am willing to bet that Blizzard went to great lengths to protect their IPs and products. Blizzard does not fit the Activision mold. Their games are not rushed out at all and none of them are made to be sequel factories churning out crap on an annual basis.

  • What is this ‘blizzard won’t let them crap’?
    They specifically stated that activision is putting an exec in charge of
    Blizzard and that Exec directly reports to Kotick.
    And the quote from Kotick states that he intends
    to fiddle with the toys in Blizzard. So it’s time to bring some Allod style Fear Of Kotick to world of Warcraft

  • I’m pretty sure that Michael Morhaime (Blizzard CEO) has always reported up to Bobby Kotick. That’s pretty much what was meant back during the merger when it was decided that Kotick would be CEO of Activision Blizzard.

    It’s possible Kotick will screw with Blizzard, but that has always been a possibility since the merger.

    In reading the article, it doesn’t appear anything has changed from a Blizzard perspective. They are still an autonomous business group run by Morhaime. If, at some point, they oust Morhamie or shift him to some other role — then I would start being very concerned that Kotick was preparing to meddle with Blizzard operations.

    Until then.. nothing new.

  • can someone provide some links for the source of all this Kotick hate? I’m not all in on all this namedropping business.

  • ^This

    Kotick is the CEO of the newly formed company. Of course they report to him. Why would anyone think otherwise? However, that’s not how mergers work. There’s not one all powerful man who looms over everything after the merger is complete. There is one all powerful figurehead. However, within that company is a board. That board consists of the parts that make the whole. Blizzard is still one of those parts. Blizzard management still decides what happens with their IPs. Kotick is mostly there to collect a check. If he’s foolish enough to mess with the only part of the organization that is about to be making money then the entire company deserves to crash and burn for letting it happen.

  • At least Blizzard seem to have been left alone. Either they sorted out a good contract when they sold out to Activision or Activision are too scared to mess with their golden formula.

  • @Mcface That’s not official. When the official pricing does come out, and it is indeed $60 for it’s beginning price, I wouldn’t be surprised. There are many new games nowadays that price themselves at $60 for the first couple months.

  • MW2 and most console games go for 59.99. We’ve been spoiled with the 49.99 price since PS1 came out. If you remember old NES games went for as much as $80 at Toys R Us back in the day.

  • I would rather pay 60$ for a Blizzard game than 50$ for any other game tho, cause with the Blizzard game I know that it comes with updates/balancing and quality.

  • @Sentry
    “Kotick is the worst thing to happen to video games ever.”

    Can you back that up? I’m curious.

  • During a speech at the 2009 Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference, Kotick received significant criticism from enthusiasts and the media for stating, “We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.” Kotick later stated he tries to promote an atmosphere of “skepticism, pessimism, and fear” in his company and, “We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression.”

    People like this have no soul, I guarantee he knows no real joy in life, theres even an article about him where he states how he used to rent out places to host parties for college kids to make money, and how just couldnt understand why anyone would spend money to party, he did not attend his own parties either.

    To recap, he is a souless, heartless greedy person who has no passion for the industry in which he is a huge part of, and id the video game ever went south for some reason, he would be the first one packing his bags and would never look back.

  • Backpedaling. He said it himself that he runs his mouth and costs the shareholders money. He’s a douche.

  • @Tdawgs – Well, you have to wonder, was he lying to the investors or was he lying to gaming press? We’ve already determined what he is at this point (hint: not Luke), now we’re just haggling over details.

    I’d also be a lot happier if he could come up with a “favorite game” that was less than 25 years old.

  • I’m not saying he isn’t an ass, I’m not saying I’m defending him. I am saying however that he is only human and most likely didn’t mean anything he said about “instilling fear into the employees” or “taking the fun out of video games”.

    Christ, it worries me any of you would think ANY gaming company would do that. (Excuse my ignorance if there is, but I’ll need hard evidence and not just media slander to prove it.

  • It was a direct quote from his own mouth. How much harder does evidence get? Just look at the what he did to the guys at infinity ward if you need to see his philosophy in action.

  • @Sentry

    Look at his direct quote that Tdawg posted. Pissing and moaning about what you think he is going to do is pointless. The economy took a tank and alot of companies fired people.

    You keep ranting and raving that he is the worst thing to happen to games but honestly Activision is one of the only companies releasing quality games.

    I’m with Tdawgs here, I’m not for this guy or against him. If I look at the games being produced, then you can’t complain.

    @No one particular
    I think far to many people are turning the video game industry into a large Black Suited gobernment agency out to cover up the truth. They aren’t plotting the desturction of man kind through video games, stop acting like Console makers and these major CEOs are secretly plotting our destruction. You look ****ing Moronic.

  • @Epiny

    A direct quote is a direct quote. It’s kind of hard to take it out of context. What other context could those quotes possibly mean? The mans is a suit. He’s not a game developer. He’s just the head of a company that he hopes to exploit for money. He’s said it himself.

    No one here is trying to make the gaming industry as a whole into some shady figure sitting behind a desk trying to dominate the world. We are, however, seeing one man, behind one company.. for what he really is. If that’s so hard to accept, then I’m sorry. I’m not going to run around and say that Bioware is the devil just because Kotick is a bastard.

  • Look at what he *does*, not what he *says*. The Infinity Ward kerfluffle is one good example. Perhaps Morhaime isn’t as “insubordinate”, but we’ll see.

  • I have no opinion on the guy as I guess i’ve never really cared to learn up on him (I just play the games). Didn’t like that press conference at all, from a neutral position.