Former Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick has hit out at ex-EA CEO John Riccitiello, calling him “the worst CEO in video games.”
Talking on podcast Grit along with former EA chief creative officer Bing Gordon, who intimated Riccitiello’s leadership “hastened his departure,” Kotick acknowledged EA’s “business [was] in a lot of ways better than [Activision’s],” but “would have paid for Riccitiello to stay a CEO forever.”
“I’m not saying this because [Gordon] is sitting here,” Kotick said. “Our fear was always that Bing was going to run [EA].
“And we would have paid for Riccitiello to stay a CEO forever. We thought he was the worst CEO in video games.”
Riccitiello left EA in 2013 following poor financial results and numerous layoffs having served as CEO since 2007. He once floated the idea to shareholders that Battlefield players might be willing to pay a dollar every time they needed to reload their guns.
Riccitiello then became the CEO of game engine maker Unity Technologies in late 2014, but left the company in 2023 in the wake of a massive controversy regarding previously announced (and then walked-back) install fees. Riccitiello’s tenure with Unity was marked with several controversial moments, including apologizing to developers for describing anyone who doesn’t embrace microtransactions as the “biggest f*cking idiots.”
Interestingly, Kotick, who led Activision Blizzard when it was acquired by Microsoft in 2023 for a historic $68.7 billion, admitted EA had also tried several times to acquire the Call of Duty publisher.
“[EA] tried to buy us a bunch of times. We had merger conversations a bunch of times,” Kotick said. “We actually thought their business, in a lot of ways, was better than ours. More stable.”
Kotick himself left Activision Blizzard with clear financial success under his tenure, but his time at the top was also mired in controversy. Employees issued a number of complaints about sexism, a toxic work culture, and even walked out over reports Kotick failed to make the company’s board aware of allegations of rape and other serious misconduct. Activision Blizzard has said independent reviews investigated the allegations of sexual harassment and management’s response and found both claims to be untrue.
California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, now the Civil Rights Department, sued Activision Blizzard in July 2021, alleging a retaliatory “frat boy” culture. In December 2023, the California Civil Rights Department reached a $54 million settlement with Activision Blizzard over these claims, finding that “no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations that: there has been systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard,” or that Activision Blizzard’s board of directors including Kotick “acted improperly with regard to the handling of any instances of workplace misconduct.”
In the same interview, Kotick also opened up about Universal’s 2016 adaptation of Activision Blizzard’s Warcraft, calling it “one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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