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...