To say that ex-Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wasn’t exactly loved by fans of the video game industry is probably a bit of an understatement. Kotick was involved in various scandals that ultimately culminated in workers, unions, and investors wanting him gone from the company he headed up, and yet despite this being the case, Kotick has now revealed there was someone in the industry regarded as a worse CEO.
Speaking on the Grit podcast (thanks, GameSpot), Kotick and ex-EA chief creative officer Bing Gordon revealed that they used to regard ex-EA and ex-Unity CEO John Riccitiello as the worst CEO in the video game sector. It got to the point that Activision even wanted to ensure that Riccitiello stayed at the top of EA instead of letting someone like Gordon take over, as it meant that they would be a less threatening publishing competitor.
Specifically, Kotick stated: “I’m not saying this because [Gordon is] sitting here. 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.”
This is certainly fighting talk and is especially interesting as it’s probably not unreasonable to say that Kotick and Riccitiello are both equally looked on unfavourably after their lengthy stints working in the video game industry.
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