Current Events > Activision Blizzard CEO nabs $155 million pay package

(+) Yeah! (+)

Shareholders approved the $155 million pay package for Activision Blizzard Inc Chief Executive Robert Kotick on Monday by a 54 percent margin, after the company took the rare move of delaying its vote on executive compensation by a week.

https://nypost.com/2021/06/21/activision-blizzard-ceo-nabs-
155-million-pay-package/

But remember kids, these people need to sell you season passes and micro transactions because it's the cost of development that has gotten so high rather than the greed of the executives.

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This is America.

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Macro transaction

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and fire like all their non-game development staff

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There were people here defending this (or at least the inevitable outcome) a few months ago when they had massive layoffs.
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boycott Blizzard!

I say as I am currently playing Overwatch.

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Activision-Blizzard has laid off another 190 employees as Kotick could rake in an extra $200M

According to a Bloomberg report, the company has slashed just under 190 jobs, 50 of them relating to esports and live events (this seems to be the reason for some sites reporting 50 layoffs and some reporting under 2%/under 190, but Bloombergs piece makes clear the firings came from multiple departments, more than just the 50 in esports). Cut staff will get 90 days of severance, a year of continuing health benefits, and $200 gift cards to Battle.net.

https://massivelyop.com/2021/03/16/activision-blizzard-just-laid-
off-more-employees/

I remember something like this happened in 2020 but not too sure

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Should have used that to overhaul Battle.net. It's so horrendous I deleted it and the few games I had.

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The company has gone from like $35 billion to $70 billion in 2 years

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He should fucking choke on some goddamn caviar.

The overpaid executive tax needs to be a nationwide thing. The bigger the gap the higher the extra tax both on the individual and the company.

Also stock value given as part of Executive should be considered in the calculation

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

The company has gone from like $35 billion to $70 billion in 2 years

And that is more down to Covid then anything he did.

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pikachupwnage posted...

And that is more down to Covid then anything he did.

Nope, the company low was in 2019, it climbed basically throughout all of 2020

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Nope, the company low was in 2019, it climbed basically throughout all of 2020

Yes that is exactly my point?

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pikachupwnage posted...

Yes that is exactly my point?

Oh you mean Covid actually caused the stock to rise? I assumed you were talking about the rebound from covid w/ everything opening back up caused the price to increase.

Video game sales were up in 2020, but looking at the stock it was already rocketing up pretty good before the pandemic, cant contribute all that growth to people staying home, it already had momentum


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pikachupwnage posted...

Yes that is exactly my point?

Your point was the stock tanked after diablo immortal blizzcon then recovered to new records?

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DoomsSD posted...

Didn't they lay off like, 500ish workers a year or two ago? They could have paid their wages, kept them in jobs and still had enough for a round trip to the fucking moon for that pay bonus.

Fuck Activision.

Hell, he could have taken 55 million dollars and there would have been enough money to pay those 500 workers $100,000 a for both last year and this year. Unfettered greed.

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What did he do specifically all on his own to earn that much? A company is not one person.

Hell, why does he need to be paid that much? I can understand a few thousand dollar bonuses, but why 150 million?

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LightningAce11 posted...

What did he do specifically all on his own to earn that much? A company is not one person.

Hell, why does he need to be paid that much? I can understand a few thousand dollar bonuses, but why 150 million?

He got like $1.5 mil in salary, $3 mil in cash bonus, and like $147 mil worth of stock. From a recent SEC filing:

Under Koticks leadership, the companys market capitalisation has increased from less than $10 million to over $70 billion, and total shareholder return has grown by over 8,100% between 2000 and 2020, Activision Blizzard said.

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why is anyone surprised by stuff like this still

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LightningAce11 posted...

What did he do specifically all on his own to earn that much? A company is not one person

Fired 500 middle management that people think were developers when they actually hired devs after the layoffs and cut live e-sports after covid made it clear they weren't necessary. Isn't rushing overwatch 2, isn't rushing d4, and didn't panic after the internet raged at diablo immortal, which also hasn't been released, and course corrected after wc3 reforged to put the tony hawk remake guys on d2 remake.

And whatever shit Activision does, I don't play any of their games or follow whatever the fuck call of duty is doing.

A company is more than 1 person, CEO pay is stupid high, acting like they just sit on their hands is equally stupid. A bad CEO runs a company into the ground, a good CEO grows a company and course corrects. Good CEOs get paid or they go to another company that will pay them.

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Is he solely responsible for all of that himself?

They have nearly 10,000 employees, without them he couldn't have done this right?

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Under Koticks leadership, the companys market capitalisation has increased from less than $10 million to over $70 billion, and total shareholder return has grown by over 8,100% between 2000 and 2020, Activision Blizzard said.

I guessed that'll do it.
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LightningAce11 posted...

What did he do specifically all on his own to earn that much? A company is not one person.

Hell, why does he need to be paid that much? I can understand a few thousand dollar bonuses, but why 150 million?

If anything, there are signs of big fuck ups by the highest levels. The HotS fiasco was do bad that South Korea is considering is law to prevent it in the future. There's so many missteps by management they are going to be having problems in just a few years.

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AAA gaming is a disease

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>"Fuck Activision!!! Support the Devs!"

>*proceeds to buy CoD and Blizzard games year after year*

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SevenTenths posted...

cut live e-sports after covid made it clear they weren't necessary

They cut HotS right after they promised a huge tournament, fucked over Overwatch and Hearthstone by mangling the run times and moving them to YouTube, and killed Overwatch just by announcing OW2. The esports drop from their miscommunication is massive.

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That drop clearly hurt their bottom line. As it's oh right higher than ever. Not to mention you're saying the esports division did a shit job but they should have kept their jobs for doing a shit job?

Follow your thought to it's conclusion

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Im sure laying off all those people help their bottom line to increase their P&Ls

how is blizzard staying afloat? no one plays OW and WoW anymore

SevenTenths posted...

That drop clearly hurt their bottom line. As it's oh right higher than ever. Not to mention you're saying the esports division did a shit job but they should have kept their jobs for doing a shit job?

Follow your thought to it's conclusion

I don't think it was the esports divisions idea to cancel HotS after locking in their biggest tournament, nor to move their platform from Twitch to YouTube.
Activision can sell all the CoD and shitty WoW expacs they want, that doesn't mean they've successfully supported their games. Even WoW is experiencing actual drop off. Financial success does not always equate to critical success.

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fohstick posted...

how is blizzard staying afloat? no one plays OW and WoW anymore

Your ignorant observation is very false. The numbers may have dropped, but those who remain have shown that they are devout. Devout enough for the corporation to milk them for all they can. WoW might be making more now than it has ever due to microtransactions. Plus they continue to cut the staff so the budget is significantly less.

OW makes most of its money off milking the Overwatch League.

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Lmao @ gift cards

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Kotick like a lot of CEOs has incentive bonuses in his contract which means he gets paid more if the company does well. And the company is doing insanely well. Activision was also bankrupt when he took over.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


That's the point. Feed people misleading, clickbait garbage since the angrier they are the more engagement they get.

Im sure it'll all trickle down /s

Broseph_Stalin posted...

That's the point. Feed people misleading, clickbait garbage since the angrier they are the more engagement they get.

"I'm gonna be rich one day, I swear!"

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Time to boycott them.

Blizzard is living the life.

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DoomsSD posted...

Didn't they lay off like, 500ish workers a year or two ago? They could have paid their wages, kept them in jobs and still had enough for a round trip to the fucking moon for that pay bonus.

Fuck Activision.

800(!) workers, and the severance package included A/B gift cards.....

Fuck Bobby Kodick

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EyeWontBeFooled posted...

800(!) workers, and the severance package included A/B gift cards...

And 3 months of pay and a years worth of health insurance. But that doesn't make the headlines.

ChocoboMogALT posted...

Financial success does not always equate to critical success

Stockholders don't care about critical success and again

SevenTenths posted...

Isn't rushing overwatch 2, isn't rushing d4, and didn't panic after the internet raged at diablo immortal, which also hasn't been released, and course corrected after wc3 reforged to put the tony hawk remake guys on d2 remake.

Diablo 3 has no secondary monetization and still got a companion overhaul patch last season. They aren't getting in the way like people want to fear monger because they cant accept that making games is hard. Making games for the god awful community of gamers is soul crushing. And no one does it constantly great for 30 years.

Wc3 reforged didnt suck because of Activision it sucked because of blizzard.

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