Jason Schreier reveals new details about controversial CEO Bobby Kotick’s reign at Activision Blizzard, and his desire for a constant stream of new Guitar Hero content.
While video games journalist Jason Schreier has been promoting his upcoming book, called Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, And Future Of Blizzard Entertainment, the insider has revealed lots of new information about the company.
Last week Schreier confirmed that there is, or at least was, a StarCraft shooter in development, led by Far Cry veteran Dan Hay.
After a new round of interviews, Schreier has given details about the ‘bonkers’ ambitions of former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. These include wanting a new Guitar Hero every month and ‘hundreds’ of extra developers to help with growing pains after the success of Overwatch.
In the book, Kotick is quoted as saying, ‘I want to get to a launch every quarter, and then I want to get to a Guitar Hero launch every month.’
The statement was queried by Limit Break Network on YouTube, who asked how serious Kotick was, to which Schreier said:
‘First of all, Bobby Kotick, the way that he operates… some of his executives like to call him the ‘unreasonable man,’ and it’s kind of their job to filter his wild proclamations into an actual plan.
‘He’s kind of one of those CEOs that might just say bonkers things and then everybody else has to interpret that and filter it down.’
Schreier said he wasn’t sure if Kotick literally wanted a new Guitar Hero every month, but added:
‘I think that he did believe that players have this insatiable demand for new content and new things, and will keep buying them. And when they stop buying them, then he will just kill that franchise and move on to the next one. That’s just how he operated.’
Schreier also said what he thought was ‘telling’ about how Kotick works is that he often hired consumer product goods executives over executives from the video games industry.
‘That’s how he saw games, as just products to be marketed and shipped. He didn’t see them as art or experiences that should have greater meaning beyond just selling products to people.’
Kotick was widely disliked by gamers and even his own staff, with more than one attempt to have him fired. However, there’s never been any suggestion that he was incompetent and Schreier reveals that he was probably right in his suggestions of how to handle Overwatch 2, compared to what actually happened.
In a Reddit AMA, Schreier stated that Kotick wanted to hire hundreds of extra developers to help with the increasing workload after the success of Overwatch 1, something game director Jeff Kaplan opposed.
‘Following OW1’s release, Team 4 began to run into a bit of a problem: they had too much work to do. They had to simultaneously: 1) keep making new stuff for OW1, which almost accidentally turned into a live-service game; 2) work on OW2, which was Jeff Kaplan’s baby and would have brought more players into the universe via PVE; and 3) help out with the ever-growing Overwatch League,’ Schreier said.
‘Kotick’s solution to this problem was to suggest that Team 4 hire more people. Hundreds more people, like his Call Of Duty factory. And start a second team to work on OW2 while the old team works on OW1 (or vice versa).
‘Kaplan and Chacko Sonny were resistant to this, because they believed pretty strongly in the culture they’d built (more people can sometimes lead to more problems and less efficient development), and it led to all sorts of problems as the years went on.’
Despite being the CEO of Activision Blizzard for over three decades, Kotick was a deeply unpopular figure, in part because of cutting almost 800 jobs in 2019, while banking $30 million a year for himself.
He was also heavily criticised for underplaying the toxic environment at the company, and was caught leaving a voice mail about having one of his assistants killed – something Kotick later called ‘hyperbolic and inappropriate’.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
MORE : Activision Blizzard settles employment lawsuit for £13 million of chump change
MORE : Activision Blizzard investigates itself over toxic workplace – decides it did nothing wrong
MORE : Activision Blizzard faces new lawsuit accusing them of intimidation and union busting
Sign up to all the exclusive gaming content, latest releases before they’re seen on the site.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
