A long descent into hell for the Call of Duty franchise? A former developer talks about the status of the license and the reason for certain errors.
Over the years, several Activision Blizzard licenses that were nonetheless iconic suffered bad reputations. The most recent example is none other than Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which was burned from all angles. The players and the press did not appreciate the trip and this had an impact on the points awarded. The launch of Overwatch 2 was also disastrous and the expectations of fans of the first work were not met. Regardless of the franchise or even the game, there is a commonality between the various failures, according to the publisher’s employees.
Bobby Kotick and the damage done to Call of Duty, Overwatch 2…
You probably know that Xbox Activision has bought Blizzard and that could change a lot as a result. Bobby Kotick, the former head of Call of Duty, has been no longer there since December 29, 2023. As agreed with Microsoft management, he stayed for a while to begin the transition and was released into the wild with a comfortable golden parachute valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. This day was expected by many people and some made it known on X.
Christine Pollock, a programmer who worked on Call of Duty for two years, has very bad memories of Bobby Kotick. “Bobby Kotic’s decisions have worsened the quality of our games”. Andy Belford told him about his bitter experience on Overwatch 2. “I break the silence to tell an anecdote. When I was planning the launch of Overwatch 2 on Steam, my team warned well in advance that there would be a wave of criticism. We asked for more information and resources to help us address this issue. But we were categorically refused.”
What also sticks in his throat is that the moderation of the Steam comments has been entrusted to the community team. He argues that this is not his job and that he wanted to protect his teams in the face of sometimes vicious feedback, but he was never heard.
The behavior of Activision’s former CEO
But these two people, who worked on Call of Duty and Overwatch 2, also denounce other well-known behavior. “A month after my Call of Duty game was released, we learned that he had threatened to have an employee killed. At the subsequent meeting with all employees, initially no one wanted to speak. I demanded his dismissal in front of everyone.” continues Christine Pollock. For Andy Belford, Bobby Kotick never stopped building a toxic culture and systematically attacking the same people. To the employees who were paid the lowest and were already drowning in work. And then there were decisions “that didn’t make sense.”
Bobby Kotick was persona non grata for some Activision Blizzard games like Call of Duty, but there were worse things too. A few months ago, an investigation was launched into harassment, sexism and even sexual assault. The former boss acted like he knew nothing, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the opposite was true. He would have known about serious facts long before the affairs were made public, but tried to cover everything up through discreet agreements.
