In 2013, John Riccitiello stepped down as EA’s CEO following a tumultuous six-year run on top of the company. During Riccitiello’s reign, Activision’s Call of Duty franchise overtook Battlefield in terms of popularity, and it didn’t help when Riccitiello joked that Battlefield players should be charged to reload. Now, ex-Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has shared his belief that Riccitiello was the worst CEO in the video game industry.
During a joint appearance on Grit with former EA Chief Creative Officer Bing Gordon, Kotick revealed that Activision was afraid that Gordon would assume control of EA and prove to be a good leader for the company.
“I’m not saying this because [Gordon is] sitting here,” said Kotick. “Our fear was always that Bing was going to run [EA]. And we would have paid for Riccitiello to stay a CEO forever… like we thought he was the worst CEO in video games.” Gordon also noted that Riccitiello may have hastened his departure from EA as well.
Regardless of his feelings about Riccitiello, Kotick said that there were multiple attempts in the past to bring EA and Activision together as a single company.
“[EA] tried to buy us a bunch of times. We had merger conversations,” recalled Kotick. Later in the podcast, Kotick admitted that Activision thought that EA’s “business [was] in a lot of ways was better than ours,” before Gordon pointed out that Blizzard’s business is even better than EA’s.
During that same interview, Gordon recalled that EA passed on the chance to buy Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Blizzard before Activision ultimately swept up all three. Kotick also called the Warcraft film one of the worst movies he’s ever seen and explained why it was a mistake for Blizzard to focus so much attention on that project.
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