Video game company must stop supporting its CEO
Iam really hoping that my column this week ages badly. Hopefully by the time you are reading this, it’ll be horribly out of date. Because this week I need to talk about Bobby Kotick. For those of you who don’t recognise the name, Mr Kotick is the embattled CEO of Activision Blizzard – which is one of the biggest video game companies in the world and the makers of Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
I don’t have enough space to go into depth about the dire state of that company – but for a brief rundown, in July of this year a lawsuit was filed by California’s Department of
Fair Employment and Housing after collecting ‘numerous complaints about unlawful harassment, discrimination and retaliation’.
Activision Blizzard is accused of having a ‘frat boy’ culture that has been a ‘breeding ground’ for harassment and discrimination against women.
Then this week a damning report by the Wall Street Journal laid out a series of allegations against Mr Kotick including that he was aware of the allegations of sexual misconduct and mistreatment of women ‘for years’ and had allegedly failed to act upon them.
The WSJ also reported that Mr Kotick has allegedly threatened to kill an assistant.
Despite all this, the Activision Blizzard’s board has repeatedly stood by Mr Kotick and issued messages of support. Even before the lawsuit and the allegations, Mr Kotick has long cut a controversial figure in the gaming world.
Put together, all of the details from the lawsuit and the allegations against Mr Kotick have very much soured me on Activision Blizzard – despite being a regular buyer of its games.
For the first time in years, I won’t be buying the latest edition in the Call of Duty franchise.
I even sold my copy of Overwatch last week. I hadn’t touched it for months, since the news of the lawsuit first surfaced, but naively I had kept it around, perhaps hoping that if action was taken I could fire it up again.
But the board of Activision Blizzard have taken no such action. And Bobby Kotick remains CEO.
Activision Blizzard’s board has stood by Mr Kotick and issued messages of support