Activision Blizzard on nyt osa Microsoftia, ja vuoden vaihtuessa Activision Blizzardin kovapintainen ja pitkäaikainen toimitusjohtaja Bobby Kotick jätti paikkansa. Tämän seurauksena hänen johtonsa ajan puiminen on alkanut, ja kannanotot ovat olleet varsin armottomia sosiaalisessa mediassa.
Blizzardin yhteisöstä vastaava eli "senior community manager" Andy Belford on sitä mieltä, että Kotick toimillaan aktiivisesti haittasi Overwatch 2 -pelin kehitystä, ja että oli Kotickin vika, ettei peli pystynyt julkaisussaan vastaamaan fanien odotuksiin.
Kotickin toimien puinti jatkunee vielä pitkään julkisuudessa.
"Breaking my silence to share a fun fact: when we planned Overwatchs 2's steam launch, my team warned (months in advance) that we're going to be review bombed. We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, all flatly denied.
Moderation of steam was put on the community team (not a function of community at Blizz), despite my refusal to want to expose members of my team to that level of toxic content/posts. When asked whose decision it was to launch on Steam with no additional help: Bobby. This is only one example of the culture Kotick bred at AB: shit flowed downstream, usually landing on the lowest paid and most overworked individuals. Management was too busy reacting to wildly vacillating direction and decisions that made zero sense. At the end of everything, player experience/worker meant nothing to CSuite and exec leadership. It was all about that quarters earnings call."
<social>https://twitter.com/andybelford/status/1740867335458898168</social>