The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick was considering the purchase of gaming sites Kotaku and PC Gamer in order to "change the public narrative" around his company.
Activision has been at the centre of allegations regarding workplace culture and harassment for some time now, which both the company and Bobby Kotick strongly deny. This has forced the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to re-evaluate their relationship with the troubled publisher.
However, Microsoft took perhaps the most extreme option to change the way things work at Activision by acquiring the company for almost $70 billion yesterday, in a deal which gives the Xbox owner control of franchises like Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, World of Warcraft and Overwatch.
The report itself hints that Kotick's aim was create a 'new story' to shift media attention away from Activision's problems, rather than to actively suppress outlets that had previously posted negative coverage.
Activision has denied the WSJ's report, while Kotaku owner G/O Media has declined to comment. According to our friends over at Eurogamer, PC Gamer - which is owned by Future Publishing – has chosen not to respond to questions about the report.
The Wall Street Journal also reports that Kotick will exit the company once the deal is completed, which is expected to be some time in 2023. Prior to the Microsoft deal happening, it was reported that Kotick was open to leaving the company if ongoing issues could not be solved "with speed".
[source wsj.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 111
Of course he did 🙄
It's akin to those Amazon owned news media outlets that say stuff like "Billionaires are the new oppressed!"
I’m surprised IGN isn’t involved in some way in this ***** storm
[Insert just about each and every ToS breaking slur you can think of here]
I really really hope that after the merger has been unraveled properly, Spencer gives this..."human" the boot.
The naive part of me still believes he got to keep his position so the merger isn't under even more stress.
Here's hoping he gets what he deserves...which would probably also be against the ToS here...
As I said initially, Activision is a really corrupt looking company. I don’t really care for Microsoft trying to monopolize the gaming industry. Then merging means I can ignore both Microsoft and this censuring douchebag who would appreciate it if everybody would stay silent about his horrible company that disrespects both his employees and the gaming community as a whole with the terrible things they’ve done. I hate that I still have to buy Crash and Spyro off of him.
When you look at the videogame industry as a whole, Microsoft buying Activision is a terrible thing, I don't want the videogame industry to be so concentrated on big companies, I don't want it to become just like Hollywood, where 5 companies control everything.
But when you look at just Activision Blizzard, Microsoft buying them will be a good thing, they will likely clean much of the company, and they don't need to make every single Activision Blizzard game a billion-dollar franchise.
Disgusting... I hope this guy gets what he deserves.
@JakedaArbok You don't "have" to buy Crash or Spyro at all, you know.
News involving a certain company can never stop shocking us, can it?
Dude your whole ass company got acquired, and people are still calling for your removal, what makes you think buying CoolMathGames would've saved you?
No disrespect to CoolMathGames btw
No, kotick. That's not how it works.
This is why billionaires are cool and normal. It's great having people so rich they can buy up reporting to editorialise it in their favour.
Dang it, Bobby.
It's disgusting, but that's how the world works. Bezos also own the Washington Post.
It's almost comical how much worse Kotick looks every time he comes up in the news. Like this is all the sort of thing you'd expect from an over-the-top movie villain or something... except it's all real and actually happening. How much deeper can he dig his own grave? I really hope Microsoft kicks him out once the acquisition's complete, it's absolutely insane that someone as horrible as him has any semblance of power.
Rich people always think they can buy their way out of problems.
@Grandiajet Which often works.
That's why free internet is mostly a good thing, you can buy big tech companies, but not their users, first they censor fake news that are false, then they censor fake news that are true, first they censor hate speech, then they censor speech they hate.
Disgusting if true, things like this further drive public mistrust of gaming journalism and what caused the likes of Gamergate.
All gaming news and reviews sites have their biases that you need to be conscious of though, but actually buying a site to try and make your company not look so bad? That's disgusting and a conflict of interests that would never fly.
Kind of like how Bing's search results are so biased towards Microsoft's own products and services, or Google's search results being, well, Google biased.
Get that ugly face away from my favorite website, please!
I love how almost every single "Bobby Kotick pulled a Bobby Kotick" article has that creepy picture of his.🤣
@RupeeClock Gamergate had nothing to do with games journalism, that was just what they pretended it was about. It was entirely about bullying women who dared try to have a voice in the games industry.
@CharlieGirl
Yeah, you’re right. I probably won’t next time around unless it’s in the hands of a smaller company, like Toys For Bob with 4.
If Bobby would sell this photo as an NFT. How much will it sell for, you reckon?
He should pay off Facebook and Twitter too, so they'll take down any information about bad things at Activision as "desinformation" and "Harmful information".
Sounds like fake news to me, just the press making up stories because it's a subject people are interested in.
Is there anyone on the planet that likes Bobby Kotick at all? What about his family, friends, and I presume wife and children. Do they hate him, do they want him gone, never to be heard or seen again? Do they think he is evil? Like all gamers apparently. Xx just for the sake of variety is there anything nice to say about this man xx
@Bret At first it was about videogame journalism, then it was taken over by actual sexist people.
I don't support GamerGate, but it didn't happen because people don't want women and minorities working in games and as characters in games, it happened because feminists and progressives who say "You can't do that, that's sexist", "You can't do that, that's racist", became just like those people who said "Violent videogames will turn children into murderers" and "Pokémon is the devil", although later it was taken over by people who really hate women and minorities.
@dew12333 No, "fake news" is published by billionaires (i.e., Bobby Kotick) buy up news outlets, and have them publish advertorials.
If they buy Nintendolife and take down everything they said about the Activision lawsuit, I'll just delete my account.
@Bret @RupeeClock "Gamergate" was initially a scapegoat used by Eron Gjoni to get revenge on an ex-lover who didn't tolerate his abuse. People latched onto it because Gjoni's attack was initially promoted under the (false) guise of "ethics in game journalism."
But those same fans of "ethics" generally targeted women and minorities (typically people of color and the LGBT community) who were in any way critical of the games industry and/or video games as a whole.
@Bret
As with e ery movement of the last two decades, it was co-opted by terrible/unfocused people.
That's... That's really scummy. Suppression was absolutely the goal. I wish the worst for this guy
Well it works for Hollywood and plenty of other sectors did for years. Even the gaming industry has done this before in some way or for. So it not like it has not bin done before
@Procurator @CharlieGirl @victordamazio @Bret
GamerGate is a very muddy subject matter, but it remains that it was rooted in a distrust of gaming journalism at the time, and people becoming critical of how some sites conducted themselves or gave coverage of controversial individuals.
My takeaway from the whole fiasco is that you should consume media critically, and whenever a site omits or avoids covering something in recent events, consider why they didn't cover it, or if they were trying to change the story.
For example, I'm suspicious of how many articles Nintendo Life publish on Kemco games, despite repeat expression in the comments section of disinterest in their games.
But I don't think badly of Nintendo Life for what might be sponsored content as it's still relevant, and doesn't seem all that sinister.
Now there's a face you can trust.
@RupeeClock This subject is way more grey than people imagine.
This whole Activision Blizzard fiasco showed how the issues of sexism go way beyond the gamer, it's so easy to blame the gamer that distrusts videogame journalism and rejects progressive politics and feminism, and wants those modern politics out of their games, it's so easy to claim that this archetype is just a sexist jerk that hates women and minorities, but when you look close, not only you realize that modern politics are directly influencing our media and for the worse, because these people only care about putting their politics on their products instead of making it good, it's the same reason why christian movies are almost never good, and these people became puritans, again, just like those christians that want to censor everything, and then, the real sources of sexism were the people who claimed to be fighting against it.
Activision Blizzard was so proud of defending women and minorities, putting pride flags of every color on everything, but we already realized how the only colors they care is green and pink from dollars and yuans when they sided with China in the Hong Kong controversy, and then we found out how Blizzard was rotten inside, it's so easy to blame the small guy for problems caused by the big guy, for the most part, the gamers that were accused of sexism, stayed fully against Activision Blizzard.
@victordamazio
Yes, and it's circumstances like these why you need to be conscious of what company is owned by which company.
Mind you, I'm not aware of any gaming news sites that are outright owned by big companies and fail to disclose that, which would be a conflict of interests.
People seem shocked and yeah it is despicable but this is exactly what big companies, billionaires and governments do all the time. If not buying control then under the table deals.
To be clear I don't condone it, I think it's absolutely corrupt and morally bankrupt. But I'm not shocked it happened. Not in the slightest.
@RupeeClock "but it remains that it was rooted in a distrust of gaming journalism at the time"
Not even remotely. It remains rooted in people wanting opportunity to silence women and minorities from being critical of video games. Anything else about the gamergate "movement" is window dressing.
@icomma At first I supported this, then I realized it's an endless purity spiral.
Female characters in games don't even need to be hot, have big boobs and wear little clothing, just having a pretty face is enough to offend these people.
@mr_somewhere cough ... Sky News Australia from 2016 onwards ... cough
Anyway, remember when Activision was founded by Atari employees who resigned en masse due to things like only getting a base wage for their work, regardless of things like number of units of their work sold?
Years later, there was the West & Zampella saga, where they sued for unpaid bonuses. That case ended with a confidential out of court settlement, which I couldn't help notice occurred shortly after the Project Icebreaker fiasco (Activision staged false fire alarms for the express purpose of getting West and Zampella out of the offices, so that Activision could get some dirt on them) became public knowledge.
Totally unrelated question: How much did Activision pay for the All expenses paid, three days COD Black Ops review event at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa years ago?
Fortunately for him, he won't have to bother anymore. Once the deal closes, he'll walk away with a nice $375m paycheck.
Lucky boy.
Not only Blizzard spoke against GamerGate, but I heard they were the first company to do that.
That shows how the GamerGate aftermath went, no matter in which side you are, the people against it, were exposed again and again as the same sexual predators they were supposed to oppose.
Removed - unconstructive
@CharlieGirl Well you are happy to believe the story in the news article but you don't believe what I say.
Sorry but it just looks like hack journalism to me, front page headline for the Daily Sport this one.
@CharlieGirl
I'm not trying to defend GamerGate as a movement here, but explaining the circumstances of how it came about.
And those circumstances include a distrust of gaming journalism, but also problems like some people just being misogynists like you say.
This is perhaps the stupidest thing ive ever seen
Its not like only these two sites talked about ***** show at actiblizz. Literally everyone did. I mean we're literally reading this story in Nintendo life citing a Washington Post report
This would accomplish nothing. Heck less than nothing as such a move would immediately result in more public scrutiny
This man is evil, but also hilariously incompetent, which offends me more than the former
@CharlieGirl Nah, just because some peoplr misused the movement does not mean others did not belive it. Its a fact that people did and do have problem with corruption in gaming journalism. The only window dressing is from the SJWs who are hellbent on tainting the whole thing just because gamers did not sit down and listen and belive them.
This is the reason I stopped reading extremely biased sites like Kotaku, The Verge, Polygon, etc. From imposing their political narratives, to protecting studios that are doing bad; it's like they have no shame. These games urinalists think that their readers are not seeing through their BS, and that's why they keep losing money, and resort to get help from troublesome companies and merging to survive.
I generally get better gaming news and information from youtubers and fan sites rather than these "big name" sites.
Sucks to say it definitely would because people believe anything the news puts out. I want to say buying the news would change the articles but not peoples opinion but that is just horrendously untrue.
Removed - inappropriate
@victordamazio mate gamer gate was about misogyny from day one
And blaming ppl pointing out very base level sexism and racism in games, which is rife now, and was way way worse a decade ago, is straight up victim blaming
Well it's good that most people here realize how scummy this is. Most people. @dew12333 Bobby Kotick will never love you and your corporate defending will never amount to any positive change in your life.
@RupeeClock "those circumstances include a distrust of gaming journalism"
They literally do not. "Distrust of games journalism" was just a smokescreen.
@Dimitris670
Okay, but consider all of the people who the movement reached.
Surely not all of them are going to have been misogynists? Many would have been people who were frustrated with emergence of articles like "Gamers are dead" that broadly attack a whole audience.
My point is that separate of the movement, organized or not, you have independent people who were critical of the state of gaming journalism at the time, and those were just misogynists who didn't like diversity entering the gaming industry.
@Savage_Joe Is Nintendolife imposing a political narrative with the occasional LGBT article then? It's always interesting how blurry the line is with you types. Studies have shown time and time again just how much misinformation gets thrown around on Youtube compared to other platforms, it's really only topped by Facebook when it comes to the quantity of duplicitous content. Sounds like you're more interested in confirmation bias rather than anything that might challenge your views.
@RupeeClock The movement was started by a guy to get back at his ex, and likeminded sexists picked up on it from there. It literally does not matter if there's good people in any given movement if the leaders and originators are vile, just means they got caught up in it.
@CharlieGirl @icomma It absolutely was atleast partly about games journalism. This would be easily proven before Billy sold OAG as that site had lots of proof that the new owners seems to have deleted, but it absolutely was about defending games journalism after people discovered that gamesjournopro list.
@Zebetite
Sadly the case yeah.
I used to monitor GamerGate events closely at the time, but can't remember it too well, and that there was misconduct on both sides that drowned out real concerns about ethics in games journalism.
Which sadly, might've been a tactic, to discredit anyone who voiced disapproval of the real substance of the journalism matter by deflecting.
This is all relevant because this sort of thing would happen all over again if people controlling media have their way, had Bobby Kotick bought gaming news sites to control the narrative around Activision Blizzard.
he would purchase Kotaku just like Polymega did purchased Nintendo Life?
@RupeeClock Fair enough. Not sure about the "both sides" bit considering how nasty people got on the subject (and still are), but yeah. Corporations control the narrative enough as it is, with many "game journalists" acting as extensions of a corporation's PR department, terrified to naysay anything for fear of losing access to "exclusives" and other schlock. People accuse sites like this of pushing an agenda when there's plenty of video game companies that will blacklist you and keep you out of the loop if you don't deliver fawning praise 24/7, blagh.
"No news is good news?"
There, they finally said it. Now can you guys stop complaining about slow news days and accept that this sort of thing will keep happening? Article writers need something to do, you know.
But on the actual topic of this article, I most definitely have seen firsthand what kind of chaos goes down between acquiring websites. There are some very scummy, capitalistic approaches towards it, and some people get very picky about ownership.
Just give him his half a billion dollars and be done with it.
@icomma
Those people sending death threats are awful and the people critical of gaming journalism didn't want to be associated with those bad actors, but yeah they couldn't disassociate whilst still championing the GamerGate cause.
Activity like that poisoned the movement, that's the trouble with any activist movement is that they can all be derailed in such ways which gives the opponent the opportunity to discredit and deflect it.
@Zebetite
I'm not sure either, like I've said it's been too long.
My frustration remains though is that when you ask someone to be open-minded about something, and they instantly shut it down by complaining about something different, something that may've been set up as a distraction.
@icomma Death treats are not a good thing, but no one cared when Jack Thompson was getting death threats.
Jack Thompson managed to be better than these people.
@Zebetite NLife is a fan site. Most of the authors are normal gamers like you and I with maybe Damo and Thomas having experience on bigger sites. And yes, even sites like this one throw the occasional political news that spurs flame wars between both extremes, whether it was intentional or not. But thanks for letting me know which side are you on 🤷🏻♂️
I was referring to gaming sites that boast themselves as "real journalists" when in reality, they are equal or worse than what they criticize. Remember the gawker scandal with hulk hogan? Or when The Verge went on a censoring spree because of their infamous pc building video? Yeah, things like that...
Literal evil politician behavior
Reminds me of when GameSpot fired a reviewer because the publisher was a sponsor. The new review after somehow raised the score.
@AstraeaV yeah, the Kane & Lynch situation. That was the day I stopped trusting Gamespot 😂
I’m sure that’s how Nintendolife give some of these 8/10 10/10s when the game is far from perfect. Backhanders maybe?
Sorry Bobby my boy, but claiming fake news about a WSJ report, one of the big three papers of record, ain't a good look. Though to be fair, your reputation can't be tarnished much further.
@Zebetite What because I don't believe that Kottick was going to be buying websites so he could change the news, and that this was made up by journalists.
Seriously what a pathetic comment you made to me, grow up!
@victordamazio "Female characters in games don't even need to be hot, have big boobs and wear little clothing, just having a pretty face is enough to offend these people."
lmao no. as one of "these people", you're way off base here. not even close.
@dew12333 I don't know what you think is so ridiculous about the idea. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and now suddenly there's a ton of articles on there about how billionaires aren't a problem and are actually victims of abuse by poor people. Why are you so convinced that Kotick wouldn't want to buy out news sources that were commonly pointing at his company's scandals?
Now that I think about it: Its a wonder Microsoft buys a company this rotten! The money they hope to gain from those games must be very tempting indeed!
Wow. Truly the actions of a complete scumbag
@Bret
Among much much more made up garbage that the Washington Post lies about.
@Lord example please
@RupeeClock
Journalistic ethics is still rather muddy, especially since we live in ad-based economy when I comes to news in general. A sponsorship can be similar to owning news. If someone sponsors you, you're less likely to say things that may portray them in a negative light. It becomes especially dubious when most of the ads on a lot of gaming news websites are from they companies they're reporting on.
This was one of the issues with the initial GG stuff. A lot of journalists were deeply involved with developers on a level that makes it impossible to be objective, and itthat connection was not known by the reader.
Some of the developers were even caught making fake accounts on various platforms to hurl abuse at themselves. There were also plenty of bad actors involved on GG, which is why it went under, (it was also a springboard for Sargon, who destroys everything he touches).
This is unsurprising, but even if Kotick leaves, the culture at Activision still needs to change drastically. Hopefully Microsoft will address that bit-
I think this site is pretty objective. Most games that get 10/10 deserve it.
Bobby Kotick seems to be one of the leading experts when it comes to "making everything worse than it already is".
Just imagine what would have happened if people found out he bought a gaming website and then the website defends him.
Damn, that is an ugly man.
Yep. It’s official. I now hate this guy.
@Captain_Toad I mean it was how it’s worked for centuries now.
Both AT&T and News Corp. are literally all about it. News Corp. uses their tabloid outlets to “Catch and Kill” stories all the time. (Buy rights to story. Bury story.)
@Bret
I wouldn't suggest that this things don't happen, but is it just coincidence that this story comes so quickly after the big news yesterday. Maybe I am more skeptical and on this occasion I might be wrong, but I bet you can't give me proof anymore than I can give you any back.
When I look into that man’s eyes, I feel something off about him. His eyes lack color, or light, or that bit of reflection you’d normally see in any sane human’s eyes. His are like charcoals, completely soulless and disgusting in comparison to that of another actual human being. He looks like a psychopath, which oddly fits his actions.
That sounds on brand. Considering Kotaku’s rather scathing headlines about Activision and demanding Kotick step down I am unsurprised by the attempt. I would have been very surprised had it been successful.
@VoidofLight many ceos exhibit the psychopathic behavior.
Why does the picture scream 80’s villain? It must be the photoshop tooth job.
@CharlieGirl Not just Amazon like with the WSJ, but fake fox news runs that "OMG protect the poor billionaire victims! They're endangered!!" ridiculous narrative constantly. But the working class man or woman making 40K a year is a lazy, self-centred, all-powerful titan who lives like a king.
Truly Kotick is a giant, massive piece of s***. This news just furthers that evidence by trying to buy positive media spin. Disgusting.
And he's allowed to stay for another year? What a joke of an industry
Ot worked for the pharmaceutical companies. Buy up all the media, and make it so they only report what you want them to say. You can go from evil to hero over night. And make billions of dollars. Although they also purchased an authoritarian presidential administration. He might have trouble doing that.
@dew12333 Eh, fair enough.
Thats thinking like the democrat party
@EVIL-C that pesky Fox News. They need to be more like CNN. Well, minus the child molestors, sexual assaulters, and family members covering up crimes. They would never cater to the rich elites. Unless they run a pharmaceutical company, or work for the current presidential administration, or tech companies, or….wait a minute….
@Friendly
$2. That's it.
@dew12333 If you care to actually read the article, you'll find that the report came from the Wall Street Journal, who aren't perfect but tend to have a history of doing their homework. You could find your "proof" if you cared to look into it at all. But then, the history of the internet has shown that anyone who feels the need to say "grow up" is projecting and needs to do so themselves.
@Trickbaby14
I love how you assume an attack on one, is an automatic love of the other. Lol. That's called being a partisan, tribalist hack. Both are piles of vomit.
I will say that Fox and their hosts don't fight for you. You should compare the leaked collusion texts from their hosts, colluding with the previous administration on the day of Jan 6th, yet have been re-writing history for the past year, lying on-air when they knew it was supporters of the previous admin commiting the crimes. Gotta keep that propaganda up because apparently few bother to compare data and seperate the facts from the opinion-based garbage. Opinion =/= news.
@Z-Core Sold!
@RupeeClock People also forget it was also on the heels of years of Game's Journalism gaslighting gamers. The Mass Effect 3 ending controversy comes to mind. How BIG HUGE ME3 ads were all over game sites that gave the game glowing reviews (while most of them glossing over how much RPG was gutted out of this RPG over the years. Or how choices had been streamlined and simplified in a lot of ways) and called everyone who disliked the ending entitled. Or how DA2 was AWFUl and got huge ad space and positive reviews from sites like IGN and GameTrailers. So GamerGate was going to happen at some point. It was just taken over by actual sexists and people's annoyance with how chummy journalists and big companies had gotten brushed aside because those people were easier to associate with the movement and report on.
@Zebetite I actually told you that because you insulted me based on an assumption from comment which was wrong. Telling me I am corporate whore and making presumptions on my personality. Get a grip it’s just a difference of opinion with no need for your totally assumption based analogy of me.
And maybe I tell you to grow up cause I feel I might be older than you and actually met people like kottick in real life, maybe without so much money, but the same bully horrible people, and yes there was people like that 20 yrs ago. Maybe things are better now than before but as I think we both think they are no where near there yet. But you giving grief to any random person online for a little difference of opinion is not going to make it happen any quicker either. So maybe next time think that everyone is not an idiot with a dumb opinion that needs to be told off by you. .
Ill miss him much
@dew12333 well said, dude. those who think are holier than thou are the first to complain, call names and report your comments when their own arguments are given back to them.
Buying gaming websites? That is probably a desperate way of trying to hide his sins from the public.
buying a gaming website to have a good narrative on Activision Blizzard, this sound like a typical vilain, quicky Microsoft fire this monster.
@vincentgoodwin Best comment yet!
@ReaperMelia The only thing missing is that he would have a conspiracy involving the mass genocide of all humanity and committing mass murder using his godlike magic everywhere he goes.
The sh*t storm were over anyway as soon Microsoft stepped in.
Phil Spencer will be the new boss later.
That is all kinds of messed up. Why not…fix the problems? That seems right, cheaper and easier.
Bobby Kotick = Human garbage
That is a reptilian shape shifting nephilim hybrid in human form look at the pupils and ears.
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