Others liked to call Bobby Kotick the ‘unreasonable man.’ (Twitter)
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.’
Kotick was all about the money (Activision Blizzard)
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.’
Overwatch was a massive hit when it came out in 2016 (Activision Blizzard)
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) …read more
Source:: Metro
