“The shit, it always flies in a squadron. “ If he spoke French, the American Robert A. Kotick (known as Bobby Kotick) could adopt this formula of Jacques Chirac. Since filing a complaint on July 22 for acts of harassment and discrimination within the group, the CEO of video game giant Activision Blizzard has seen legal proceedings pile up on his desk. The mobilization of employees against management is not running out of steam either and is swelling at the rate of revelations regularly published in the media.
An article from Wall Street Journal, published on November 16, directly accuses the leader of the company made famous (and rich) by the licenses World of warcraft, Call of Duty Where Candy Crush Saga to have ignored or even covered several cases of harassment and sexual assault. Violent disputes with two of his employees at the end of the 2000s resurfaced and darkened the portrait of the leader.
For the first time in thirty years, the man who made a dying company the leader in video game publishing in the United States no longer seems untouchable: he would have declared that he would resign ” quickly “ if he did not succeed in remedying the internal problems of the company, still according to information from the American financial newspaper.
Creator of an empire
It is difficult to know whether to take this promise seriously or to see it as a maneuver to reassure its board of directors. Above all, we can detect a new risky poker move, a customary strategy of this formidable 58-year-old businessman.
The first dates back to his twenties. Shortly after founding his first company with his dorm mate, the French-American developer Howard Marks, the young man from Long Island will bet on his business rather than his studies of literature and art history. at the University of Michigan. Developing software to facilitate the use of the Apple II computer, he likes to say that he was encouraged to drop out of school by Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, which he considers retrospectively in a blog as one of the bosses “The brightest and most creative in American history”.
But two other bets were even more crucial in his career. In 1990, first, with Howard Marks and another friend, Brian Kelly, he bought Activision, a video game publisher then riddled with debt, for nearly $ 400,000. This pioneer of the sector is no more than a shadow of himself, but Mr. Kotick sees the economic potential of the sector: he was appointed CEO in February 1991.
His faith in the sector will prove to be visionary since in 2006, and thanks to the success of games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Call of Duty Where Guitar Hero, he is at the head of the second American publisher behind Electronic Arts (FIFA, The Sims). Determined to go first, Kotick had his eyes on Blizzard Studios, which then enjoyed enormous success with World of warcraft. This flagship of entertainment on the PC and pioneer of online gaming is then the property of Vivendi, which seeks to consolidate its video game activity.
Bobby Kotick plays there his career to leave or double. At any time, he risks losing his autonomy, of seeing his structure absorbed by the French conglomerate, much bigger than him, or even of being fired once the new structure has been created.
But the result is in line with his expectations. The chairman of the management board, Jean-Bernard Levy, then praised the “Efficient management” of Bobby Kotick, who will keep his position as CEO. Activision, now Activision Blizzard, is number one in video game publishing in the United States. Five years later, when Vivendi resells 85% of its shares to minority shareholders, Mr. Kotick regains full control over this new video game juggernaut.
Make video games attractive to investors
Without ever having programmed a single video game, Bobby Kotick has proven to be one of the most powerful players in the industry. Its asset: knowing how to attract the confidence of investors.
He was only 19 when he found financing for his first company, Arktronics, from Steve Wynn, a businessman who made his fortune in casinos. Its assistance will be renewed on several occasions, notably at the time of Activision’s recovery. In return, Bobby Kotick has made the satisfaction of his investors a cult. “There are nearly a hundred years of financial history which suggest to us why the return on the invested capital is the only object of measurement of the value of a company”, he replied to a web start-uper in the 1990s, according to the financial information site Market Watch.
This obsession led him, during his first five years as CEO of Activision, to completely restructure the studio. He reduced costs, separated from everything that is not related to video games, laid off with all his might and then relocated the company’s headquarters, until then in the suburbs of San Francisco, in Los Angeles. Then, when the company returned to profit, he quickly launched an aggressive strategy to expand by absorbing new studios.
Impose franchises on all media
From the end of the 1990s, Kotick set out to conquer all media. First focused on the PC game, the new Activision is gradually establishing itself on consoles with licenses such as Tenchu Where The Amazing Spiderman. Then, from 2015, the takeover of the British company King (Candy Crush Saga) for more than $ 5.4 billion allows it to gain a foothold in mobile gaming, currently the most lucrative in the gaming industry.
To achieve regular success, Bobby Kotick advocates the development of large franchises. “When a player already knows the characters, the story, the story arcs and the universe in which they find themselves, it is possible to innovate in a flexible way with the technology and the game actions available”, he confided in 2004 to New York Times.
From the acquisition of Activision in 1990, he wanted above all to recover known licenses, such as Pitfall Where Zork, in order to relaunch the company by marketing suites. The release every year from 1999 to 2007 of opus of the skate game series Pro Skater, sponsored by champion Tony Hawk, is emblematic of this strategy.
Most hated man in video games
Driven by Bobby Kotick, this race for profitability, often to the point of exhaustion, contributed to the manager’s bad reputation with fans. Their dissatisfaction crystallized after a controversial statement in 2009, in which he said that his first project, once he put on his CEO suit, had been to “Make the creation of video games less fun”. Bobby Kotick is then given the nickname of“Most hated man in video games” by the specialized site Kotaku. For his part, the interested party considers his sentence out of context and excessive.
In a sector where the public maintains a strong attachment to the creators of their favorite universes, the social situation within Activision Blizzard has fueled the rejection of the Kotick methods among many enthusiasts. While the group tirelessly records record profits each year, layoffs (800 jobs eliminated in 2019) or the brutal closures of structures (such as that announced last year of the European headquarters of Blizzard, located in Versailles) are regular and cause outcry.
The pharaonic salary of the uniquely longevity ruler is also cringe. In June 2021, the Wall Street Journal placed him second in the ranking of American bosses the best paid, with earnings estimated at 154 million dollars over the year 2020. A situation that changes radically in September: following the repeated scandals that shake his group at all levels, he announces to proceed to the drastic (and temporary) reduction of his salary, being satisfied while waiting for the legal minimum.
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Despite everything, he finds himself disowned by some of his employees. In November 2021, nearly 1,900 employees, or almost 20% of its workforce, openly called for his resignation after the accusations of Wall Street Journal against him. Minority shareholders have since followed suit.
1er December, it was the turn of the treasurers of six US states – who have financial interests in the capital of Activision Blizzard, usually through pension funds – to declare that they believe that management does not have the ” skills “, nor ” willingness “ make the necessary changes to transform the culture of the company. After thirty years of economic triumph, Bobby Kotick comes up against the only factor that he seems to have neglected in his irresistible rise: the human factor.