In 2013, John Riccitiello resigned as EA’s CEO after six turbulent years at the company’s helm. During Riccitiello’s leadership, Activision’s Call of Duty series surpassed Battlefield in terms of popularity, and things didn’t improve when he jokingly suggested that Battlefield players should pay to reload. More recently, former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick expressed the opinion that Riccitiello was the most ineffective CEO in the video game industry.
In a shared interview on Grit, Kotick disclosed that Activision harbored concerns about Bing Gordon potentially taking over EA and exhibiting strong leadership abilities within the company.
Kotick expressed, “I’m not making this statement due to Gordon being present,” and added, “Our concern has always been that Bing might take over EA. We were prepared to keep Riccitiello as CEO indefinitely, considering him the worst CEO in video games.” Gordon also hinted that Riccitiello may have chosen to leave EA prematurely as well.
Despite any personal sentiments towards Riccitiello, Kotick acknowledged that efforts had been made previously to merge Electronic Arts (EA) and Activision into a unified corporation.
[EA] made several attempts to acquire us. We engaged in discussions about a merger,” Kotick reminisced. Later in the podcast, Kotick acknowledged that Activision considered EA’s operations as superior in many aspects, but Gordon quickly noted that Blizzard’s business outperforms even EA’s.
In the same interview, Gordon reminisced about how EA missed out on purchasing Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Blizzard before Activision ended up acquiring all three. Kotick also criticized the Warcraft movie as one of the poorest films he’s ever witnessed and discussed why it was a blunder for Blizzard to devote so many resources to that film project.
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2025-02-12 00:39