Activision Blizzard explains why they had to sell themselves instead of buying EA
Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick explains why he felt it was the right thing to do to sell the gaming company to Microsoft. He says: Even if you had decided to take over Electronic Arts yourself, you would still have been too small to play in the new world of Tencent, Apple and Facebook.
This is the situation:
We analyze the biggest purchase in gaming – Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard
Even if you bought EA, you wouldn’t have been big enough
This is what Kotick says about the sale: Kotick says in an interview with Venturebeat that in the end they decided to sell the company because they just weren’t big enough to play in the new world:
You might be thinking, okay, we’re this big company and we have these many resources. But if you compare us to companies that are worth trillions or $500 billion, you realize that maybe we were a big company in gaming, but in today’s landscape, in our competition, it’s a different world than it was before . […]
Even if we had consolidated with EA, we wouldn’t have had what we need to move forward. So we needed a bigger partner to do what we want to do.
Bobby Kotick
Activision Blizzard is being sold due to Guitar Hero, Skylanders, Candy Crush
What did Kotick want to do? Apparently, a big vision for Kotick was to sell games with related items. He specifically complains:
- He wanted to release a new Guitar Hero, but that would have required building a distribution line and quality assurance for the gear. That didn’t work – the lack of chips was also a real problem.
- Also, he couldn’t do Skylanders as well as he wanted to.
- Candy Crush would have liked to expand Kotick into a “social experience”. Even that didn’t go the way he imagined with the resources from Activision Blizzard.
Skylanders is sold with play figures. The last game was released in 2018.
In the new world, Activision Blizzard competes with giant corporations
Who does he mean by the competition? Kotick lists exactly who he sees as competition in the new world:
- Tencent
- NetEase
- Sony
- Amazon
- Apple
- Microsoft
- Netflix
This is what he says about the sexism scandal: Kotick is asked in the interview whether the sexism scandal has contributed to lowering Activision Blizzard’s share price and thereby making the takeover possible.
Kotick tends to downplay the importance of the scandal for the share price. He says Call of Duty hasn’t gone well and that the postponement of Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 in particular have lowered the course. But ultimately, stock prices would rise and fall for a variety of reasons.
A “very good price” was achieved for the shareholders.
When asked later how he deals with the personal criticism, Kotick says: From his point of view, even a single case of harassment in a company is too many. They have been working on improving the climate for 3 years and have made this a priority since it was known that the Californian authorities were investigating Activision Blizzard for sexism.
For him, the priority is to offer the best possible workplace.
That’s behind it. What Kotick is describing here is the “endgame” of the gaming industry. That’s what he means by the “new era” that has dawned.
It is no longer a battle for players’ money, but for players’ time. So he suddenly sees Netflix as a competitor. The trend is towards “subscription services” and cloud gaming. People should no longer have a console in their living room, but should be able to play any number of games on their television in a subscription service.
Just as people just get Netflix for movies and no longer need a “Blu-Ray” player, Activision Blizzard is now becoming part of Microsoft’s “Game Pass” and cloud gaming.
A few years ago, Kotick set the goal of reaching one billion players worldwide with Activision Blizzard – he apparently saw his chances of doing so dwindle.
Unfortunately, it is noticeable that he tends to downplay the criticism of himself and the leadership during the sexism scandal. Apparently things have been bubbling up in the company for 6 months.
Buying Activision Blizzard could have a significant impact on gaming:
Microsoft buys Blizzard – Will Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 no longer come for PS5?
Reference-mein-mmo.de
