I have complicated feelings about Bobby Kotick.

For the ten years I was at Activision, we never saw him. He never ventured far out of California, and certainly couldn't be bothered to visit a studio as far away as (checks notes) Vancouver, British Columbia. So the only interaction we ever had with him was watching a video every year where he sat awkwardly and talked awkwardly about... stuff.

But at work we always jokingly called him "Uncle Bobby", especially when it was time to thank someone for paying for our latest work lunch or dinner. We had a lot of perks at work, but mostly that was because they had to somehow offset the fact that Amazon and Google would pay server engineers twice as much as they got working for Activision. Because working in video games is FUN, right?

Anyway, then the sexual harassment stuff at Blizzard came out in the open, and it was revealed that not only did Uncle Bobby not give a shit, but that he harassed the women on his own personal staff on the regular.

But the State of California did give a shit, and sued Activision Blizzard, and that's when Bobby (we all stopped calling him Uncle Bobby at that time) decided that he would accept an offer from Microsoft to buy out the company he had spent his entire adult life building.

And Microsoft gave him, literally, a billion dollars just to go away.

Presumably, now that he's a real billionaire, he's hard at work actively trying to burn the entire world down as fast as possible, which seems to be what billionaires do.

Was he always an asshole or did money make him one? I'd lean towards the former, even though I used to have a soft spot for him because he started actually programming games, and because he tried (at first) to enact a hands-off policy with the studios he acquired, unlike EA.

But in the end, I realized that knowing how to program doesn't make anyone more empathic or virtuous. And it's not like Bobby ever really cared that much when Activision slowly wormed its way into every studio's existence. Plus, most of the studios were run by massive shitholes in the first place! It's easy to just throw your hands up, say that you're "letting the studios run themselves", and absolve yourself of any responsibility to take care of your employees. Even though some of them were getting harassed to the point of suicide.

In conclusion, fuck Uncle Bobby.

JimmyJRaynor

Canada17027 Posts

17 hours ago

#5782

On November 22 2025 04:33 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Even though some of them were getting harassed to the point of suicide.

evidence?

the entire investigation surrounding those alleged incidents is tainted. Wipper was fired and her office went far off the rails. DFEH interfered with the EEOC. They are supposed to work together.

Termination and Resignation: Wipper was fired by the governor's office on March 29, 2022. The following day, Proctor resigned in protest over the firing and the alleged interference. Both lawyers had previously stepped down from the Activision case without public explanation earlier that month.
Newsom's Response: A spokesperson for Governor Newsom stated at the time that the accusations of interference were "categorically false".
Whistleblower Considerations: Wipper's attorney, Alexis Ronickher, stated that Wipper was considering "all avenues of legal recourse including a claim under the California Whistleblower Protection Act".

Kotick ran Activision for 30+ years and had many thousands of employees. How many suicides were there? What evidence do you have that harassment led to suicide? Jeanette Whipper got fired for trying to do too much with no evidence. She ended her reign with an open ended threat that Newsome had silenced a whistleblower. Her accusations went no where. She just ran around pointing fingers in every direction.

On November 22 2025 04:33 Jeremy Reimer wrote:
Anyway, then the sexual harassment stuff at Blizzard came out in the open, and it was revealed that not only did Uncle Bobby not give a shit, but that he harassed the women on his own personal staff on the regular.

the investigation was tainted. wipper was fired. other than a bunch of web site quotes from anonymous sources do you have evidence of this?

Miragee

8600 Posts

16 hours ago

#5783

On November 22 2025 02:10 Manit0u wrote:

Show nested quote +

What? I'm part of this community, checking the discords and stuff (except the official discord) and I haven't really see people be too disgruntled.

I'm on the official discord and people complain quite a bit. Steam comments and streams have been mostly super negative ever since buildings were introduced and the player numbers are dwindeling. It's obviously not everyone and there are still positive people/streamers in the community. But the doomerisms made me avoid certain streamers and their chats, even though I originally liked to watch them. It's so bad that it significantly drags my mood down, which is the last thing I need right now.

Jeremy Reimer

Canada1064 Posts

16 hours ago

#5784

On November 22 2025 06:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote:

evidence?

the entire investigation surrounding those alleged incidents is tainted. Wipper was fired and her office went far off the rails. DFEH interfered with the EEOC. They are supposed to work together.

The evidence was in the lawsuits? I'm not a law-talking guy. A lot of people came forward with their stories of harassment. It's not like sexual harassment is uncommon in the video game industry. I was in one of the nicest studios in the nicest country on the planet and I still saw it. People's careers were and are absolutely ruined because of it.

A lot of the rebuttal talking points that came out from Activision after these revelations were attributed to a female manager. Then it was revealed that Uncle Bobby actually dictated these letters to this manager. They were his own words. I don't trust him farther than I could throw him.