Two months after Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was completed, everything restarted.
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, will leave the company that he has worked hard for half his life on December 29th. On Wednesday, he issued a statement to bid farewell to all employees.
On December 21st, Microsoft reported that Cotic officially announced earlier in the day that December 29th, 2023 would be his last day in Microsoft’s game department.
"In the 32 years that I have led Activision Blizzard, our employees and all those who have helped us have continued to contribute to our success. I can’t express my pride for them." He said in the departure statement issued by Activision Blizzard.
The departure of this controversial and topical CEO is bound to affect the direction of Activision Blizzard in the future.
A gift from Microsoft. Who is it for?
Cotic, who has worked in Activision Blizzard for more than 32 years, is known as the overbearing president of Activision Xiaopang. What impact will his departure bring to Activision Blizzard?
After Cotic leaves, what kind of activision blizzard will the new owner Microsoft hope to see?
It is worth noting that some deputy leaders of Activision Blizzard will also leave one after another, including Humam Sakhnini and Thomas Tippl；; Activision’s current chief administrative officer, chief personnel officer, chief financial officer and chief legal adviser will work until next March, and then we will talk about whether to stay or not.
For China players, Activision Blizzard is a love-hate existence.
The games that love it, to be precise, are the games of Blizzard Entertainment, which passively look at mergers and acquisitions: Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Hearthstone.
Hate its overbearing, stop taking clothes in 2009 and stop taking clothes during the Spring Festival in 2023, all of which are green tea performances that Blizzard wants to kidnap players and force China manufacturers to make concessions.
Can the once arrogant blizzard return to its familiar position?
Can we return to the China market under the banner of Microsoft?
In this regard, 21st century business herald reporter Cai Shuyue had an exchange with Shu Le, and this monkey thought:
The overbearing president should have finished class long ago. He achieved Activision, destroyed Blizzard and was finally kicked out of the game.
Bobby Cotic has been the CEO of Activision Blizzard for more than 32 years, but please note that his resume has been extended from Activision to Activision Blizzard, and Blizzard Entertainment was just a company annexed by Passive Vision.
In other words, the world-famous Blizzard game IP has nothing to do with Bobby Cotic, who is an heir.
Bully and fat, disaster game!
From the point of view of merits and demerits, the combination of Activision and Blizzard was achieved by him, and after the merger, the game of Blizzard Entertainment continued to decline, which is precisely because of his various problems in operating strategy as the owner of Activision.
On July 20, 2021, Activision Blizzard was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) to the Los Angeles High Court for long-standing sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
Among them, Cotic’s management style has also become the focus of internal staff criticism.
Some employees have told the media that the personnel contradiction within Blizzard has a long history, and problems such as bad cultural atmosphere and deliberately depressing employees’ salaries have always existed.
In November of the same year, nearly 1,000 Activision Blizzard employees even signed a petition demanding the dismissal of Bobby Cotic.
In a sense, the whole Activision Blizzard has fallen into many problems in recent years, such as cliff-like decline, scandal entanglement and so on, as well as the dispute with Netease over Blizzard’s game agency rights, which led to its game withdrawal from China, all of which bear unshirkable responsibility.
His resignation means that Microsoft made him responsible for the past failures of Activision Blizzard, so as to realize a new beginning of the new Activision Blizzard era under the Microsoft system.
Microsoft’s game dream, three to five years!
At present, many executives of Blizzard report directly to the president of Microsoft Game Studio, which also represents Microsoft’s ambition.
The specific future planning of Blizzard may be in three aspects:
The first is the stable operation of old games.
Including the return of the original core technicians of Activision Blizzard, to ensure that Activision Blizzard can quickly recover its combat effectiveness.
The second is the new game research and development of the old IP.
Especially in the situation that Watch Pioneer has been in succession from the league to the new works, and the old IP only has Diablo’s counterattack on the new works, it is necessary to use more and better old IP new works to consolidate Microsoft’s right to speak in the game world.
Only in this way can Activision Blizzard return to the era cognition of "Blizzard is produced and must be a boutique".
The third is the promotion of joint research and development.
It is very important to develop mobile games through Activision Blizzard IP, especially to jointly develop Activision Blizzard IP mobile games with China game manufacturers, so as to quickly form the influence of Blizzard in the mobile game market and learn the experience of mobile game research and transportation.
In the process of merger, after transferring many rights and interests of Activision Blizzard to friends, what can this blizzard bring to Microsoft? Foolish thought:
Blizzard’s product matrix is still there, but the team is scattered, and it is difficult to restore combat effectiveness in a short time.
However, the existing game super IP matrix can completely create conditions for Microsoft to consolidate its position in console games, explore trial and error in the field of cloud games, expand its territory in the field of mobile games, and establish a virtual world of Microsoft+Blizzard in the field of metauniverse.
But at present, it is limited to conditions, and its running-in period may take one or two years. If it can really form combat effectiveness, it may take three or five years.
How difficult is it to reopen Blizzard’s national service?
As for whether Blizzard can return to China, there is no suspense. Although Tencent and Netease resolutely refuse, Microsoft will definitely give a satisfactory price.
But who are the China manufacturers who can take over the offer?
Based on the idea of Microsoft’s mobile game, and the "abnormal condition" of Blizzard’s technical ability and service requirements, there are not many choices, nothing more than Tencent, Netease and Mihayou …
It’s just that the game has passed, so what if it’s an agent?
China’s game market is no longer in the 2000s, when foreign games can make money by looking for an agent casually.
Therefore, after the New Year, Blizzard’s national costume will stop serving in Zhou Nianji, and if it doesn’t come back, there is no need to come back.
Author Zhang Shule, columnist of People’s Daily Online and People’s Post and Telecommunications, expert of Zhongjing Media Think Tank, and senior TMT industry critic, has newly published "From Introduction to Mastery of Media Writing" (Tsinghua University Press).
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