Bobby Kotick Has Been Re-Elected To Activision Blizzard's Board Of Directors

Well diablo immoral made 24 mio usd so far. Shareholders don't give a funk if kotick spends his free time murdering puppies.

He will reap what he sowed.
We will see...

Activision continuing to cover themselves with glory, is it? Bunch of (insert your favourite cuss here: it still won't be vile enough for Kotick).

So he is one of the Board of Directors who found himself not guilty?
Nothing dodgy about that what so ever.....
That's like Charlie Manson being in his own jury during his case

Consequences don't exist for the wealthy.

I mean to be fair he won't be calling any shots once Microsoft takes over. In fact they can get rid of him if they want to even though he was re-elected.

@Lizuka they clearly live by the golden rule: whoever has the gold, makes the rules

I would imagine if they sacked him they'd have to pay him off, so they'll let MS pay instead.

Utterly vile. Just goes to show that the rich can get away with anything.

I belive in innocence until proven guilty.

Hopefully once MS buys them he's out.

A complete and total barf-o-rama!

@TheCrabMan Imagine defending a creature like Kotick. When there's been too many to count reports on how vile he and Activision is we can safely say he's guilty.

Money makes the world go round!

"In November, over 1300 Activision Blizzard signed a petition demanding Kotick's resignation". Activision Blizzard ... employees? Fans? There seems to be a word missing in this sentence.

@MajinSoul employees, some of whom I know personally.

This is like using a petrol pump to put out a fire.

Kotaku is going to have a absolute cow.

Not surprising, the Microsoft buyout was a complete victory for Activision's board exonerating them from their guilt and making them money at the same time. Plus, the media/public has forgotten about the situation and people are buying Activision games again raising their profits.

He ruined Blizzard and continues to ruin it. Great news!

I have absolutely no insight into operations at Activision, but the internet is telling me to boo and hiss so here I go:

The phrase innocent until proven guilty comes to mind with this guy

Don't worry, Microsoft will clean ship once the deal is finished.

Blizzard, ho ho ho, your something alright, your something, your a real piece of work to put it lightly.

Pretty wild that he’s still in that position despite the petition and infinite bad press that Activision Blizzard have received.
I mean, I lost a job a few years ago for A LOT less than what this guy has been accused of, so I feel for the rest of the employees under him.

Never buying anything from that company again. It really saddens me to see a guy like him still managing to stay in position after all the allegations and practices at the company. Shame how justice has failed us all here.

Never buying an Activision Blizzard game again. Simple as that for me.

Nice! We all should clearly be more like Bobby Kotick!

@Coalescence did you somehow miss the part where Kotick left a voice message to his assistant, threatening to have her killed?

Why is this in any way a shock?

WORST case keeping him CEO is that he runes the lives of 1000s of people, makes working at Activion a living nightmare, causes 100s of woman to leave the industry and he rapes a few people.

Worst case of getting rid of him is that the stock will drop a bit and the people voting will lose a bit of money for like a month or so.

How is that even a decision? Obviously the second case would be far, far worse.

@Coalescence There’s literally an entire investigation into exactly what he knew by the Wall Street Journal. Emails were leaked showing that he was made aware of employees being raped and did nothing about it. It was proven he knew about Dan Bunting at Treyarch, he was CC’d in an email from 30 women in the eSports division about them being groped, he threatened to have his assistant killed back in ‘06 for God’s sake. It’s hard to tell whether you honestly haven’t been bothered to do a 5 minute search for this information or you’re presenting a bad faith argument because you disagree with women speaking out about harassment on political grounds.

Goddammit, Kotick. You'll be fine, unfortunately.

Big ole L in the chat please

“ Most recently, the company's board of directors came to the conclusion that there was "no evidence” lmao of course they did, when’s the last time a company invested itself and found wrongdoing?

Kotick isn't a cool dude.
BUT.
He's a terrific business man.

If I was about to buy a company at the sort of price Microsoft is willing to pay, I'd probably not want the man who built it to just grab his coat and leave. That'd be rather unorthodox, no matter what he is accused of.

Hands up who's surprised? In this corporate world we live in, money is far more important than anybodys lives or well being

Remember, you have the right not to buy someone's products. You have the right to organize boycotts of someone's products. You don't have the right to remove someone from their job. So, don't buy Activision/Blizzard stuff if his employment bothers you. But don't gripe about his employment alone.

fantastic news, now i never have to be tempted to buy an Activision blizzard product ever again👍

@Degenerate_Mii Huh... so then all of the allegations about Bobby Kotick over the years were just so Microsoft could buy the company 15 years down the road? That's one helluva long play eh? Go Bobby Go!!

I’m not buying any activision blizzard games anymore anyways, but this is sad. They’re trying to return to normal and pretend nothing ever happened and probably is still happening

Sad but not shocking. And when Microsoft takes hold of the company, IF they let him go, he'll get a huge monetary compensation, and ride millionaire into the sunset.

Meanwhile Diablo Immortal makes back its development cost in a single day, while also garnering a staggering 0.3 on Metacritic.

“Innocent until proven guilty”

The evidence is in the public domain. He calls the shots - investigated himself and found himself innocent.

So in your eyes he is innocent?

Ridiculous

The system and companies protect horrible entitled little grubs like this man.

Educate yourself and not just spout soundbites because you don’t believe abuse happens and only a criminal case can prove guilt of any wrongdoing… unfortunately abuse cases are far more complex than that. Try reading up on it.

@TheCrabMan You haven’t done even the lightest google search, have you?

Yea I’m in the boat of people who say innocent until proven guilty. A lot of reports but nothing has been proven yet so until then I’ll put down the pitch fork. However I still hate what Blizzard has been doing with their games, especially with Diablo Immortal so I’m not going to support them until they do something about their greedy little hands

I know this type of article can be incredibly disheartening, considering the circumstances. Sometimes, the winds of change brew a little slowly. Even the wealthy eventually see consequences for their ill deeds; there’s only so far a person can run, because there is no escaping oneself.

@TheCrabMan I agree completely with innocent until proven guilty. However, I’m just a man, and not a judge, so my opinion on that matter has no bearing on his innocence or guilt. That idea only has a merit in a court of law.

So he’s making the company money, at the expense of thousands of employees. That alone means I have no business speaking with you. “Who you hang around, you become.” I hope to never think in such a way, so no thank you.

"Don't worry guys, Microsoft bought them so they're going to turn the company around!"

Or they just wanted a piece of the rotten pie.

If you guys really believe innocent until proven guilty with this guy, then you need your head checked. For how much has come out about blizzard, and how much he's hid for years, there's no way he's innocent, karma better get this guy sooner or later.

Of course the "board of directors at Activision Blizzard is satisfied with Kotick's performance and handling of the recent scandals." They were more than likely participating themselves and should be held just as accountable as Kotick! Between this and the "Activision declares Activision innocent" announcement a couple of days ago, no, "innocent until proven guilty" is not applicable here. What is applicable? "Where there's smoke, there's fire." There needs to be a federal investigation to the fullest extent of the law. Turn the entire company inside out if you have to. Drag Kotick and the entire board before a grand jury at this rate.

ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK ACTIVISION

Wait. Why are comments allowed on this type of article but the Russian fashion retailer one the other day is a no go?

Well this comment section turned into a dumpster fire very quick. pretty sure Nintendo Life knew what they were doing with this one, just think of the clicks.

Just off to get some popcorn.

@TechaNinja I’m assuming they didn’t expect people to actually defend Blizzard. Whereas the Russia situation would be a nightmare to moderate.

Of course they did; Activision and its shareholders care about money first, and absolutely nothing second.

@TheCrabMan if that many people scream there's a fire.. I tend to believe the people who have the hardest time speaking out. Not the poor millionaire with absolute power!

I would say "things just got real", but that implies they weren't already

@johnvboy I'm just here for the [Removed] comments...maybe a ban or two, I've cracked a beer.

This was predicted by some pundits.
I will re-elect not to support Blizzard or even play the games I already paid for.

Innocent until proven guilty is a court of law principle. It’s a pretty gross equivocation in my opinion to compare incarceration to not getting elected to a board of directors.

@Anti-Matter he won't , he'll get a huge payout courtesy of Microsoft & not suffer any actual consequences

@TheCrabMan yep he won't be proven guilty but he'll write a totally 'fictionial' book titled 'if I did it'

@TheCrabMan okay, so if I look into it from their point of view. I can see it's more of an: "I knew people were being groped, tapped and raped but it wasn't in our best financial interest to do something about it", kind of thing. What a leader!

Lynch mob, the guy just didn't do his job! He brought in the money, but work environment is part of that too!

He's like a teacher with a class that is getting good grades while kids get bullied, beaten, bitten and spat at. And you'd say he does a great job, and he didn't bite anyone himself...!

Again, you're "boycotting" them but can't keep their name out of your mouths for a few clicks

@TheCrabMan
It's interesting to me how you seem to mix the pure shareholder perspective with the moral argument of him not being proven guilty by court.

These are two completely different perspectives to me.
If I were a shareholder of this company (note: I am shareholder of several companies. Just not this one),
I would be against him, regardless of whether he is actually guilty or not. In any case, him being reelected is massively bad publicity regardless of whether you think that is fair.

You can see everywhere, even including just here in the comments, that people plan on boycotting their games because of him.
Sure, the company will still be successful over all, because games like CoD always sell, no matter who is CEO,
but because of said reasons, sales would likely be higher if he was thrown out.

You need to believe that all the other candidates for the post are so much worse at their job, that Kotick is over all still better for the company even with the reduced sales.

At least from the outside, this seems doubtful.

@SonOfVon
You can boycott something while talking about it every day.
One does not rule out the other.

@WiltonRoots,

I am only here for the faux outrage.

You can't fight the Kotick, I guess.

Lately I get the feeling that activision is just milking every penny possible out of the blizzard franchises with the intention of dropping the blizzard name completely when it drops.

I hope that MicroSoft can turn things around, but I've got the feeling they bought a sinking ship.

This industry is an absolute effing joke.

@TheCrabMan What's good exactly?

@ATaco Except they buyout hasn't been finalized and won't be until next year. MS has no control of what currently happens with Activision.

So few people care about proving allegations, no need to hate until you have proof

@Slinkoy1 show me some evidence please

This company is an absolute disgrace. They removed actual funny, if slightly inappropriate, jokes from WoW in a pathetic attempt to make it look like they care about women, then they keep an actual predator as their CEO. Won't be buying their games anymore, they're all becoming thinly veiled microtransaction fests anyway.