I share your dismay. Even if you're someone who doesn't care about the issues that have come to light over the past year, the blatant mismanagement (dare I say running into the ground) of the once golden Blizzard portfolio has been painful as a long-time Starcraft 2 fan.

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

Everything under Blizzard's portfolio feels like it has been left to rot. The only thing they seem to put effort into is their Pay-To-Win card game, Hearthstone.

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).

Given how ActiBlizz doesn't even want to acknowledge Starcrafts existence anymore, excluding it from Blizzcon e-sport highlights and leaving the broken ranked system unfixed for I don't even know long it's been, I believe change in company culture there would need to be pretty substantial to bring some love back to Starcraft.

Moreover I recall them saying SC2 was the final chapter on the IP.

I mean now that MS owns them maybe they can pull a Win11 :p

They catapulted over the shark with the conclusion of SC2's campaign, so it wouldn't surprise me, buuut if I've learned anything in this era of reboots, it's that no IP is really dead, some of them just hibernate for a while, and promises a popular franchise is done aren't worth the electrons inconvenienced to convey it.

I'm not so sure. Microsoft recently revived their Age of Empires franchise, and has has been pretty good about supporting it as an e-sport (sponsoring tournaments & streamers, reliably re-balancing, releasing updated versions, etc.). I wouldn't be surprised if they took a long term view for the much-larger-RTS Starcraft, especially given its size relative to AoE.

Wait, did they start putting effort into Hearthstone? I stopped playing a couple of years ago. To me, the bellwether is whether the game still locks up for a second right before a match starts as it synchronously produces a megabyte of logs or something.

The game never really felt that great after Ben Brode left. Battlegrounds was pretty OK though.

They put a lot of effort into their new game mode (which might as well be an entirely separate game from Hearthstone), but by all indications it flopped pretty hard.

There has been more activity than normal on the core game mode and Battlegrounds, although mostly focused on content (whether actual cards or cosmetics) than actual technology changes or new features.

Yep. Overwatch is an empty husk of a game and community it once was.

I would _guess_ that ousting a CEO AND acquiring the core company at the same time are expensive propositions - I'd also guess that MSFT fully plans to address the leadership issue there (Kotick) but going to give him a year to age out of the newly acquired company and take his golden parachute elsewhere.

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.

yeah, it's going to take a little time for Microsoft to worm its fingers in there and get a feel for a massive org like that. I've got a feeling Kotick is going to be out of there within a few years.

I remember a Starcraft II fan map named Bobby Kotick TD. If he hits you, you loose money. If you hit him, you loose money too. It was banned after a short time.

To be honest, I think Microsoft and Activision deserve each other.

At least you don't lose money though.

>I remember a Starcraft II fan map named Bobby Kotick TD. If he hits you, you loose money. If you hit him, you loose money too.

I love it! Political Opinions as a Game!

Maybe you'll be happy to hear that Polandball have a game on Steam..

The reason he's still there is because this deal has probably been in the works for a while, and they weren't going to cut him loose until it settled. I'm sure that as soon as it's possible after the acquisition that he'll suddenly decide to spend more time with his family, pursue other interests, or get sent to the farm to play with the other dogs, whatever euphemism you like.

Honestly, this is the sort of thing they have to say right now - the deal isn't closed yet, and saying they're going to dump him might lead to shareholder lawsuits, especially if the acquisition is blocked.

Realistically, there's a high chance that within a few months of the acquisition being completed he'll be expected to leave quietly.

Businesses learned long ago there are plenty of very easy legal ways of making people leave of "their own accord" by adjusting work environment factors to a point no sane person would stay in the position.

If you take over a company, you don't necessarily want to plunge it into even more chaos than the acquisition will create already by immediately getting rid of the CEO. It's entirely possible that they will get rid of him after a transition phase.

I'm hiring now, and I had the pleasure of interviewing someone who was leaving Blizzard. He was pretty sharp and I was bummed that I had to pass on him.

Anyway, I think this acquisition will actually stop the bleeding snd create some stability

Stephen Totilo shared this back in June of last year. Apparently Bobby's got an agreement signed that if he gets terminated he makes $292 million off of it, double what he made last year.

So that might be part of it.

https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1407658278893592579

Microsoft is spending $70 billion all-cash on this, an extra quarter billion isn't much. I don't expect they'll cut him loose until after all the ink is dry.

How long is that valid for? Also does buyout by Microsoft count as a “change of control” … I’d bet Microsoft would wait out whatever time span that’s valid for and then immediately refuse to give him another one and can him…

Agreements like that are evidence that boards don't always take into account the health of the company as a whole when making decisions.

Looks like he'd be terminating "with good reason" himself after a change of control and getting $292m?

Aren’t those types of severance packages typically invalid if you’re fired for good cause (like sexual harassment)?

This can't be permanent. I bet this is to keep the markets happy in the short term while this gets absorbed, and then Kotick will "retire" at some point in the next year.

I'd buy shares right now if they had gotten rid of Kotick.

Even though it would cost an additional $275 ish million?

Literally the next sentence:

> 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.

That doesn't say that Kotick will be gone, it says that he'll be reporting up to Microsoft.

Golden parachute incoming... Probably hanging around for a few months until the buyout completes, then off he goes.

Apparently his shares are worth about 385 million and his golden parachute is like a maximum of 293 million.

So if Microsoft buys out and fires Kotick, he'd walk away with like 678 million dollars. It's pretty weird that there are people who are happy about this proposition and are not named "Robert Kotick".

Corporate speak sometimes requires you to read between the lines.

Thats what I thought. A CEO reporting to a CEO isnt going to end well.

Who exactly do you think the CEO of Microsoft Gaming reports to? This is a pretty common corporate structure. I've worked under a total of 4 CEOs in a hierarchy before (CEO of an investment firm reports to CEO of the owning bank's European investment division reports to CEO of Europe reports to actual CEO).

CEO within CEO is for separate Business Units or divisions, which is clearly not the case here.

How is Activision Blizzard not a business unit?

It probably isnt and it should become an integral part of Microsoft Gaming within 3-6 months. There is nothing dramatically different between it and other gaming projects/units in MS Gaming. This is not a large enterprise acquiring a startup and letting them run independently.

Go ahead, name a country that doesn't have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains.

There's nothing to read into. He is categorically going to being staying on.

There's still a CEO of Mojang. So maybe they keep him, maybe they won't.

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.

No, he's just going to report to Phil Spencer it looks like. He will still lead Activision Blizzard. Might be different once we know more details.

I do not see that saying that at all.

No way Microsoft lets this guy stick around. This is the best soft landing the board could possibly provide for the ceo.

Probably keep him until they restructure the Activision Blizzard somewhat. Like Separating Blizzard and studios under Activision if needed.

Maybe they can't get rid of Mr. Kotick yet..

Does anyone has any doubts it's anything but a transitional position ?

Is this a reference to something specific?

Bill Gates.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/microsoft-bi...

Yep, Gates.

Bobby "Culture" Kotick

Read the whole paragraph. Once the deal closes Activision will report to Phil.

Can you supply some context to this denounciation?

There’s probably an essay that could be written to answer your question, but the short version is that Kotick is not a gamer, but an executive. He specialises in extracting maximum value from an existing property, everything else be damned.

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.

> 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.

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.

"Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant"

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_...

As a developer I have a strong dislike against CEOs that say things like...

> 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...

Or May be the whole woke uprising thing was to drive the market cap down so Microsoft could get a better deal. As usual the media doing the bidding for the big tech.

Dismay over Kotick actively hiding sexual abuse and protecting the abusers is a "woke uprising"? That's a shitty take.

Yeah and surely the timing of this whole campaign has nothing to do with it. That’s exactly what a “woke uprisings” is. Conveniently exploiting victims to fit your own benefits be it political or economic. Last 2yrs have seen plenty of that.

So far, only allegations. Outside the US, in the civilized world, we expect people to be found guilty in a court of law under the due criminal process.

I'm not American but on this side of the pond we expect more proof than twitter allegations before firing people.

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).

There's more to it than twitter allegations, you know. Real people have been hurt.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kot...

I am not saying real people weren’t hurt. But some of these allegations are years old. You don’t think those same insiders who were pushing those stories in news media could buy the lows and now riding the spike in the stock price?

So you don't think your original comment was (or at least seemed) dismissive of the allegations and was instead purely a note on the timing of them coming to the public?

Are CEOs who make 100+ million USD per year responsible for the behavior of those under them? What about when they are informed of such behavior and do nothing?

Sometimes it seems we hold those working the drive-thru window at a fast food place to a higher standard than major CEOs.

I don't like sanctimonious woke policies like we get from Microsoft, but these allegation seemed to be corroborated by multiple people.

Don't think Microsoft is any better than Activision, although most software developers aren't really famous for being outgoing womanizers.

Activision's value skyrocketed under Kotick, not sure why they would want to replace him.

Value skyrocketed, but IP was demolished. Warcraft and Starcraft are two of the most popular game franchises ever. Today, nobody cares about the story of these games anymore. Popular characters have been written into a wall or killed off in an unsatisfying way. The overall story is a tangled mess of retcons, 1000 IQ BBEG, and directionless plot lines. While Activision made record profits, they did it at the cost of player numbers. Every new character is shallow, uninspired, quickly killed off, or never used again after their initial use(Bwonsamdi, Rexar, many more). By failing to appease players with the story, and putting systems designers in charge of gameplay, they have been draining the value of their IP for the last 10 years.

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.

Totally Agree. Inspiring games like Horizon Zero Dawn just don't come out of Blizzard anymore.

On the other hand, since the news that he knew about years of sexual harassment at the company the stock has dropped 33%. If "maximising shareholder value" is the only metric for success it seems that making one of your employees kill themselves for failing to tackle a culture of abuse seems like a poor way to do that.

And 100% of that drop (and more?) has been recovered for shareholders by this acquisition.

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.

Corporations should be about maximizing value for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. Historically the creation of a corporation had to be justified to be in the interest of public good. Anyway I agree.

Kotick got a good run for the shareholders - he's now a liability having had all the sexual harassment under his watch. The sexual harassment/lack of leadership discipline has discounted the sale price of ATVI (microsoft swoops in) - he sticks with firm for a bit during transition to ensure smooth transfer and steps away afterwards. I don't see any other way - he's become a liability especially for a company like Microsoft.

I don’t think this acquisition is about stock value as much as it is about acquiring IP and games for MS game pass offering.

Short term it was increased but how much long term damage was done? Warcraft III Reforged has yet to receive most of the promised features or even a single patch.