Tag Archives: Bobby Kotick

TikTok Crackdown Shifts Into Overdrive With Sale or Shutdown On Table

TikTok,

Legislation that would ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its sale is hurtling toward a vote in the House following months of behind-the-scenes efforts on Capitol Hill. The new push caught the service off-guard, ratcheting up interest from possible buyers and raising the possibility that one of the most popular apps in the country could soon be shut down, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Already, U.S. tech and media titans are circling. In recent days, some executives have discussed buying TikTok if ByteDance agrees to sell. Bobby Kotick, the former chief executive of videogame publisher Activision, has expressed interest to ByteDance Executive Chair Zhang Yiming, according to a person familiar with the situation. Any price tag is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Kotick is looking for partners. At a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference earlier this week, Kotick floated the idea of partnering to buy TikTok to a table of people that include OpenAI Sam Altman, according to people familiar with the situation. OpenAI could use TikTok to help train its AI models if a partner such as Kotick could raise the capital for such an acquisition.

TikTok sees two ways to stop the bill from becoming law, according to a person close to the company. The first is the Senate, where some senators have already expressed opposition to legislation that could effectively ban the app in the U.S., citing wanting to protect free speech and a desire not to meddle in business.

Should it pass both the House and the Senate and be signed by President Biden, TikTok could also challenge the legality of the bill, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.

Forbes reported that there is a real possibility that the US government will pass legislation that China’s ByteDance must divest itself from TikTok or risk being banned in the US entirely. Its making its way through congress and Joe Biden himself said he would sign it if it reached his desk.

As such, US buyers are potentially circling, including a recent departure from the gaming industry, former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

According to Forbes, Kotick left Activision shortly after Microsoft acquired it, ending a tenure marked by scandal involving a culture of sexual harassment at the company with some accusations even leveled at him personally. But he ended up escaping with enormous amounts of cash, and is now trying to find partners to potentially buy TikTok should ByteDance actually be forced to divest.

Engadget reported Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard who stepped down at the end of last year, is apparently interested in buying TikTok as a new bill in the US threatens to ban the app or force its sale.

According to Engadget, Kotick’s alleged interest in TikTok comes at a tumultuous moment for the immensely popular platform after lawmakers introduced the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications app” last week.

In my opinion, having Bobby Kotick (and whomever he partners with) to buy TikTok was not something I expected to happen. His potential partner, Sam Altman, appears to want to use the data of TikTok users to train his AI models. This will not be good for TikTok users.

Microsoft Announces More Xbox Leadership Changes As Bobby Kotick departs

Gaming,

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is stepping down officially December 29th, The Verge reported.

Microsoft has not appointed a direct replacement and instead has rolled the suite of Activision Blizzard executives – including Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, Activision Publishing Rob Kostich, and Activision Blizzard vice chair Thomas Tippl – under Microsoft’s game content and studios president Matt Booty.

Kotick’s departure comes just two months after some big Xbox leadership changes that saw Sarah Bond promoted to Xbox president, leading all Xbox platform and hardware work, and Matt Booty promoted to president of game content and studios, including overseeing Bethesda and ZeniMax studios. Now Booty is getting even more game responsibilities with Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, and Xbox Game Studios all under his watch.

Microsoft is largely keeping the leadership team of Activision Blizzard in place, with some executive-level exceptions. Activision Blizzard chief communications officer Lulu Meservey will leave the company at the end of January. Humam Sakhnini (vice chairman, Blizzard and King) will also depart at the end of December. A number of Activision Blizzard executives will depart in March, too.

Brian Bulatao (chief administrative officer), Julie Hodges (chief people officer), Armin Zerza (chief financial officer), and Grant Dixton, (chief legal officer) are all reporting to Microsoft Gaming equivalents. While Thomas Tippl (vice chairman, Activision Blizzard) is reporting to Matt Booty for now, he will depart Microsoft in March alongside other Activision Blizzard executives.

Additionally, a memo from Matt Booty announced some of the changes taking place at ZeniMax and Bethesda, including that Jill Braff has been named the new head of those studios. Braff worked on the integration team when ZeniMax and Bethesda joined Xbox back in 2021 and will lead the studios’ development teams.

Bobby Kotick posted on Activision Blizzard newsroom: “Bobby Kotick: With Gratitude”

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick sent the following email to employees:

Extraordinary People,

Over the years, my passion for video games has often been attributed to Pitfall, River Raid, and Kaboom! I love those Atari 2600 games, but the game that first captured my imagination was Mystery House, developed by Roberta and Ken Williams. I played it on a borrowed Apple II night after night while in college at University of Michigan.

Mystery House was a text adventure with some primitive sprite-based graphics. (Fittingly, we now own Mystery House and the company that published it, Sierra On Line.) The world in which the game was played was left largely to the player’s imagination. I envisioned rich, vast worlds with all sorts of interactive, animated life that would enable players to fulfill their varied aspirations – all in a simulated universe that offered unlimited possibilities.

Forty years later, as my last day leading this company inches closer, I marvel at how far the talented people at our company have come toward realizing the great potential of games. You have transformed a hobbyist from of entertainment into the world’s most engaging medium. It has been the privilege of my lifetime to work alongside you as we broadened the appeal of video games…

In the email, Kotick mentions Phil Spencer, who has appreciated the magic of ABK for decades, and states: “As we move into our next exciting chapter, you could not be in better hands.”

In my opinion, people who have spent time enjoying Activision Blizzard King games are probably going to be pleased that Bobby Kotick is leaving the company.