The acquisition of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft raises many questions about the future of the publisher’s licenses, but this is more the subject of Bobby Kotick who has been talking about him the most since yesterday. The Wall Street Journal investigation is beginning to give more and more details about what happened before this historic deal, while Activision-Blizzard was (well, it still is) in turmoil following cases of harassment. And Bobby Kotick’s solution to this situation was once again outright deceit, as we are used to with the character now.
Silence the press with millions
The Wall Street Journal then reports that to fight against the bad image that sticks to the group, Bobby Kotick considered the idea of paying for the PC Gamer and Kotaku news sites :
“ Mr. Kotick wanted to rush to change the public image around the company, and a few weeks ago he suggested that Activision-Blizzard do some sort of acquisition by including specialized video game sites like Kotaku and gaming pc »
An Activision spokeswoman disputed that claim, and the two sites did not comment. In short, if all this is true, which has always been the case in the investigations of the Wall Street Journal on Activision-Blizzard, it means that Bobby Kotick wanted to buy press antennas so that the media pressure would be less violent in subject of the group (with us, we call that making a Bolloré). Kotaku, for example, has been very virulent towards the man lately, and a takeover would have silenced this kind of incriminating article.
A practice obviously far from being ethical, which once again underlines the very particular character of Bobby Kotick. We can only be happy that this plan did not come to fruition (if only for the independence of the press), just as we can be happy to see Bobby Kotick move away from the group of 2023, even with its huge golden parachute.