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This Week in Games - So Long, Kotick! Thanks for Nothing

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Kotick. Or do, because you suck.

Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person?

Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person?

Custom Apex wrote:

Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person?

Read any of the links in the section about him, and you'll see the answer is unequivocally yes.

Custom Apex wrote:

Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person?

Read any of the links in the section about him, and you'll see the answer is unequivocally yes.

ANN_Lynzee wrote:

Custom Apex wrote: Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person? Read any of the links in the section about him, and you'll see the answer is unequivocally yes.

And, of course, he will get to walk away from it with a bunch of money that he doesn't need. Kotick's big ticket out was the Microsoft sale, but the thing I wonder is whether this will be the last we see of him. Plenty of overly wealthy executives keep going well beyond when they could have retired and wanted for nothing, but they keep going for some reason.

Custom Apex wrote:

Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person?

It's pretty extensively documented that he's one of the more effed up/underhanded CEOs where it comes to treating his employees like they're human or just generally making good (modern) choices regarding IPs.

Kyle Bosman (of Easy Allies fame) kind of touched on 2023 being a bit of a downer for games news over on his Delayed Input YT channel. It really does a great job of pointing at/making a spectacle of that "it always more on the bad and negative than the good" thing that you're talking about.

It kind of cant be helped since all of the global political turmoil happening right now is rubbing-friction with some economic stuff, and as unregulated as the gaming industry is right now, it's really feeling the turbulence of late-stage capitalism when you've got stuff like Microsoft sucking up Blizzard and Activision, but then that means Microsoft sometimes screws up teams and IPs it nabs. Sony is still walling off its multiplayer garden from Xbox and Switch in a lot of scenarios and I cant imagine that's gonna play too well with the merger either.

Bobby Kotick is the quintessential example of "You Either Die A Hero, or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain". Quite simply, Kotick was the savior of Activision when he took control back in late 1990 (at only around 27 years old!), rescuing it from near-bankruptcy as Mediagenic, renaming it back to Activision (which had only been a label by that point), & reviving old IPs like Pitfall into brand new games. For all intents & purposes, Bobby Kotick was a hero (or at least something close to it) during the 90s... and then he ruined every bit of good will he ever mustered until getting to where he is now, a widely hated, reviled, & all around terrible person.

Honestly, had Activision not gotten hold of the Call of Duty franchise, I bet Bobby Kotick would have left Activision long ago & moved on to another company to do what he's since done. Good riddance.

And, of course, he will get to walk away from it with a bunch of money that he doesn't need. Kotick's big ticket out was the Microsoft sale, but the thing I wonder is whether this will be the last we see of him. Plenty of overly wealthy executives keep going well beyond when they could have retired and wanted for nothing, but they keep going for some reason.

ANN_Lynzee wrote:

Custom Apex wrote: Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person? Read any of the links in the section about him, and you'll see the answer is unequivocally yes.

So there's nothing good about him?

So there's nothing good about him?

Who else is equally awful as him when it comes to video games?

Is Kotick an really bad, terrible person?

Custom Apex wrote:

So there's nothing good about him?

Anything good he may have done as CEO of Activision would automatically be mitigated by all the bad stuff he did or allowed to happen under his watch.

I mean before joining in Activision.

It was my understanding that journalists can freely post and talk about leaks even if they illegally obtained so long as they themselves obtained them legally (i.e. the leaks were posted to a public forum or document initially rather than they themselves doing the hacking to get the info)

In this case it just seems like a double standard. As in, some people who have friends at Insomniac not wanting to do so VS not caring about Capcom or Microsoft leaks and freely talking about them since it doesn't affect them or their working relationship. Especially if a site was already blacklisted by a company like Microsoft so they have no reason to do them any favors and hold anything back.

Kotick was NEVER a hero; he "saved" a company by buying it (which means he already had substantial wealth) and firing a bunch of employees to start with, and from the outset he always had the sweatshop philosophy of putting out games despite oversaturation. He never cared about anything other than attaining and hoarding wealth and thought of games as disposable (hence why so many series and even genres died due to his strategies). He was always a selfish, egotistical prick who only cared about himself. Hell, half the reason he's gone is because he was clearly mad at being mocked in public and wasn't having fun anymore.