KOTICK
Robert
(Bobby)

Robert (Bobby) A. Kotick is an American businessman who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard. He became CEO of Activision in 1991 after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games during the late 2000s, which led to the creation of Activision Blizzard in 2008 and him being named the company's inaugural CEO. He has also served on several boards, including The Coca-Cola Company since 2012 and the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE), which he co-founded in 2009. From 2003 to 2008, Kotick was a director at Yahoo!.

Early life

Robert A. Kotick was born in 1963 in the US, and grew up in New York. His interest in business began at an early age. In junior high school, Kotick had his own business cards, and in high school, he ran a business renting out Manhattan clubs on off nights. He studied art history at the University of Michigan in the early 1980s.

Career

Early career

While Kotick was still a student in 1983 at the University of Michigan, he started a technology company called Arktronics with friend Howard Marks in their dorm room. The two developed software for the Apple II. During his sophomore year, Kotick met and pitched Steve Wynn to invest in Arktronics. Wynn later invested $300,000 in the company. Steve Jobs heard about Arktronics' software. He met with Kotick and Marks in Ann Arbor and advised them to drop out of college to focus on the software business. Kotick took the advice and left the University of Michigan to focus all of his time on his company.

In 1987, Kotick tried to acquire Commodore International. He planned to remove the keyboard and disk drive from the Amiga 500 and turn it into the first 16-bit video game system. He was unsuccessful in persuading Commodore's then-Chairman Irving Gould to sell control of the company. He subsequently purchased a controlling stake in Leisure Concepts, Nintendo's licensing agent, which was renamed 4Kids Entertainment.

In December 1990, Kotick and his partner Brian Kelly bought a 25% stake in the almost-bankrupt Activision, then known as Mediagenic. He changed the name back to Activision, performed a full restructuring of the company, and refocused the company on video games. Kotick became CEO of Activision in February 1991. From 1997 to 2003, Activision acquired nine development studios and released its first hit game in 1995.

At Activision, Kotick set out to build "an institutional quality, well-managed company with a focus on the independent developer." In a June 14, 2010, interview with gaming blog Kotaku, Kotick stated, "…Part of the whole philosophy of Activision was whether you're owned outright or not, if you're a studio you have control of your destiny, you could make decisions about who to hire, flexibility on what products to make, how to make them, schedules appropriate to make them, budgets."

Kotick also served as a founder of International Consumer Technologies and was president from 1986 to January 1995. In 1995, International Consumer Technologies became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision.

Activision Blizzard

In November 2006, Kotick started discussing a merger with the games division of Vivendi, a French entertainment conglomerate, which included Blizzard Entertainment and Sierra Entertainment. Kotick engineered the Activision Blizzard merger, which created a new company, Activision Blizzard. Shareholders of Activision Blizzard approved Kotick as CEO of the combined company on July 9, 2008. Kotick said he aimed to build on Blizzard's successes in the Asian market to introduce Activision's games there.

Kotick has used Activision Blizzard's industry position to push partners for changes that he maintains would benefit the gaming community. In July 2009, Kotick threatened to stop making games for the PlayStation 3 platform if Sony did not cut the price of the console. Kotick also urged the British government to reward Activision for continuing to invest in the country's pool of game developers by providing Activision with the same kinds of tax incentives provided by Canada, Singapore, and eastern bloc countries. Kotick has launched an Independent Games Competition with $500,000 in total available prize money for small developers working with new platforms and has stated that "keeping passion in game development is something that's important to him."