Now that Bobby Kotick has officially left Activision Blizzard, those in the industry – specifically former or current Activision employees – have taken to social media to reveal their accounts of dealing with or being impacted by the former CEO. In a series of damning tales, the internet is learning (or rediscovering) about death threats, the collapse of games, and alleged connections with Jeffrey Epstein.
Bye Bye Bobby
Bobby Kotick has stepped down from his position as CEO of Activision Blizzard, ending a 32-year career at the firm. It was recently revealed that he’d be scooping up as much as $400 million as he left the company – but some in the industry are seeing that as a necessary sacrifice to see the back of Kotick.
In one post, a former Call of Duty developer wrote:
In my first month it came out he threatened to have an employee killed. In the all-hands that followed, no-one wanted to speak first, so I demanded his firing in front of everyone.
It snowballed from there as insiders revealed that Kotick reportedly cost Activision Blizzard’s teams ‘months of Overwatch 2 development time and once blamed a decline in stock price on the game.’ It was said that the developers working on Overwatch 2 warned the leadership team that launching Overwatch 2 on Steam would lead to rampant review-bombing, but they were stonewalled at every turn.
In another post, one user talked about how jubilant Chinese gamers were following Kotick’s departure:
Bobby Kotick is … widely considered as ‘the guy to blame’ for Blizzard games to end its service in China. There are even groups of people lighting fireworks to celebrate his departure. That’s how much he is hated in China.
Many users also took to social media to discuss Bobby Kotick’s alleged connections with Jeffrey Epstein, sharing an image that shows a reference to a ‘Boby Kotic’ on Epstein’s ‘list’, complete with an Activision email address. This image originally surfaced way back in 2019, but it’s bubbling back up on social media as Kotick becomes the subject of many troubling discussions.
From stories about bizarre interactions to Kotick speaking dismissively of the struggles of developers, there are plenty of tales swirling around on social media platforms as we speak. It seems that many people are happy that Kotick has departed Activision Blizzard.
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