2024-01-04 05:30:00
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It is indeed since last December 29 that Bobby Kotick left his position within Activision Blizzard, and we must believe that tongues are finally loosening! Former developers who worked on the Call of Duty franchise look back on decisions that they believe worsened the quality of the games.
Bobby Kotick would have had a negative impact on the Call of Duty franchise
It’s no secret, but Bobby Kotick hasn’t really done any good for Activision Blizzard in recent years, quite the contrary… And today, she’s a former developer responding under the pseudonym of chhopsky on Twitter (formerly X) who decided to say what she thought of him and the decisions he may have made. Without too much surprise, his feelings are negative and he did not hesitate to explain an incident that took place: Bobby Kotick allegedly threatened to kill one of his colleagues…
I worked on COD for two years as a developer at Demonware. Bobby’s decisions made our games much worse than they were. The first month the game was released, he threatened to have an employee killed. At the general meeting that followed, no one wanted to speak first, so I demanded his dismissal in front of everyone.
christina
Today, she no longer works on Call of Duty titles, but we imagine with great difficulty that these two years spent with Bobby Kotick must not have been easy to experience. And if she dared to speak out, we also the community manager at Blizzard who also wanted to dot the i’s.
Call of Duty wasn’t the only license affected by Kotick’s bad decisions
As you know, Call of Duty is not Activision Blizzard’s only license, far from it. So if we have this one, there is also that of Overwatch with, a few months ago, the release of Overwatch 2 free-to-play.
So, Andy Belford, one of the studio’s community managers, pointed the finger at Kotick’s decisions regarding Overwatch 2 on Steam. The latter explains that the former CEO categorically refused to help the community team anticipate all the (negative) criticism they were going to receive, and despite several requests for resources, it was a definitive no from Bobby Kotick.
I’ll break my silence to share a fun fact: When we were planning to launch OW2 on Steam, my team warned (months in advance) that we were going to be bombarded with reviews. We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, and all of this was flatly refused (…) This is just one example of the culture Kotick has brought regarding at AB: the shit flowed downstream, usually landing on the lowest paid and most overworked people. Management was too busy reacting to directions and decisions that made no sense.
Andy Belford
Today, let’s hope that all these licenses will manage to rise from their ashes with the absence of the former CEO. Only the future will be able to tell us.
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