They have $70,000,000,000 to throw around on acquisitions while they have employees making minimum wage. Kotick isn't even CLOSE to the most morally questionable decision that company's shareholders/CEO have made.
I'm sure Microsoft has a cleaning crew ready to hose Activision/Blizzard down if needed. And while some big AAA IPs, most of them are in a rut right now to even matter in the near future. I think it gives a company like Sony a real opportunity to reevaluate their strategy.
Bobby Kotick made $375M on this acquisition. That is not his severance package, that is money he made in addition to the severance he will also receive that will probably be in the ballpark of hundreds of millions. I'm sure he fully understands the situation and is already counting the days to getting his money. But maybe that doesn't matter to him, he has long since gone past the point where the balance on his bank account has any meaning to him other than being a high score counter that he can compare with his golf buddies.
What he probably was afraid of was a public humiliation that he rightfully would have deserved and what would potentially have prevented him from ruining other companies in the future. And this acquisition saved him from that, and not only that he was publicly praised by MS CEO Satya Nadella. I'm sure Phil Spencer will soon join him and we can all enjoy watching these three insanely wealthy people pat each other on the back, telling what an amazing job they're all doing.
When Kotick eventually goes, not by being outright fired but by amicably being let go on some "we're re-evaluating our strategy" excuse with everybody saying how much they're going to miss him, Microsoft can then say that the company has been fixed as if the dozens if not hundreds of individuals who supported and defended Kotick aren't staying with the company for their invaluable experience of making money. Meanwhile the people who are getting fired are the now-redundant administration staff who haven't done anything wrong and who probably hoped that they would get to have better careers at Activision-Blizzard after Kotick was gone.
I realize that this is all just capitalism and nothing new under the sun. Microsoft has so far done a pretty good job of distancing the Xbox brand from its mother company and letting it run free. But if there was ever any doubt, Xbox is still a Microsoft company in every way.
I just bought a Series S when this news came down.
While I am glad to See Activision in "better hands" (Koticks are the slimiest and nastiest hands I could think of currently), seeing a bad actor walking away with possibly hundreds of millions of dollars and watching even more consolidation of large monied companies really doesn't fill me with much confidence.
Before making a decision to cancel your Game Pass subscription, it might be worth considering reaching out to Microsoft's customer support. They might be able to address any specific concerns or issues you're facing. It's possible that they can provide assistance or insights that could change your perspective.
@mach_go_go_go: Right? They just joined today to make this one post that absolutely sounds like an automated template response to a year-old post. Not suspicious at all.
@yiffmaster69: I know! This version of the post-apocalypse sucks. I think I would rather have AI that was waging war on humanity than bumping year-old threads to convince us not to cancel our monthly subscriptions.
Log in to comment