Both Activision and Electronic Arts, at least prior to Microsoft’s acquisition of the former, can lay claim to being industry-leading third-party publishers. So it is not shocking that it turns out the two companies have had a bit of a rivalry in the past. This rivalry appears to have gotten personal between former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and former EA CEO John Riccitiello, as Kotick explained in an episode of the GRIT podcast, a business-focused show operated by venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins.
Kotick appeared on the show alongside EA’s former Chief Creative Officer Bing Gordon, who left the role in 2008 after ten years.
“I’m not just saying this because [Bing’s] sitting here,” said Kotick. “Our fear was always that Bing was going to run [Electronic Arts]. We would have paid for Riccitiello to stay a CEO forever. We thought he was the worst CEO in video games.”
Gordon stopped short of outright agreeing with Kotick about Riccitiello as CEO, but did imply that his own departure from EA was connected to Riccitiello’s leadership.
Despite this acrimony, Kotick confirmed during the podcast that Activision and EA shared such similar business goals that they considered merging on multiple occasions. The two companies even sometimes talked about EA buying Activision “a bunch of times,” according to Kotick.
“Their business was in a lot of ways better than ours,” Kotick admitted.
Riccitiello resigned from EA in 2013 due to missing financial goals, then he joined Unity Technologies as CEO the following year. While CEO, Riccitiello oversaw the acquisition of Weta’s digital tools as part of a push to expand Unity beyond games into film and entertainment production. Riccitiello left Unity in 2023 after announcing a disastrous policy change that charged engine licensees by the download that was quickly rolled back.
Kotick himself retired from Activision Blizzard in 2023 following its acquisition by Microsoft. While he was CEO of Activision Blizzard, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against the publisher due to allegations of workplace harassment and discrimination. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Kotick threatened to have his assistant killed in a voicemail, which an Activision spokesperson did not deny but clarified that Kotick apologized for it.
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