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Bobby Kotick

CEO, Activision Blizzard · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Bobby Kotick is the CEO of Activision Blizzard, a Fortune 500 gaming company he formed through a major merger. Under his leadership, the company manages major entertainment franchises including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft.

14statements → 11claims → 5claims resolved → 0%fully supported → 3.93/5average certainty → 1.79/5average debate potential →

0 supported 4 partly supported 1 contradicted 6 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 8 assertions · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 6 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Bobby argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Activision offered up to $7B to buy Blizzard standalone from Vivendi
“And I asked them to sell us Blizzard, and we didn't have any interest in the rest of their games business, but we wanted Blizzard. And they said no repeatedly, and we offered them four billion, and then five billion, and then six billion, and then seven billio…”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 14:08 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
33% certainty 4
50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

242 words/min while actually speaking · 3 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Bobby Kotick: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to 5,063 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Bobby Kotick is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

Everything Bobby Kotick said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Video games will eventually become as popular as traditional sports
“Video games is the only competitive medium that is going to give me that experience, and that purpose, and that sense of belonging, and that camaraderie that you get from sport. And so of course it's going to be as popular as sport, if not more popular as spor…”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 21:57 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Augmented reality will have more near-term impact than virtual reality
“AR is gonna have more near-term impact than VR.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 33:05 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Jobs threatened to cancel Apple's contract unless Kotick dropped out
“I will rip, and I can't say the word, I will rip this effing contract up right now if you don't quit college. So I quit the next day.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 5:35 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Disclosure
Building a WoW competitor internally would have cost $1B and seven years
“And we looked at it and said, if we even could figure out how to do it would take us Five, six, seven years, and a billion dollars, and the likelihood is we wouldn't do a good job of it”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 12:22 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Contradicted
Activision offered up to $7B to buy Blizzard standalone from Vivendi
“And I asked them to sell us Blizzard, and we didn't have any interest in the rest of their games business, but we wanted Blizzard. And they said no repeatedly, and we offered them four billion, and then five billion, and then six billion, and then seven billio…”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 14:08 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fortnite was the first game where spectating drove viewers to play
“Fortnite, I think, was the first game where people would spectate, and it would actually be a catalyst for them to play.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 24:18 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Esports will never join the Olympics due to commercial ownership conflicts
“I actually don't think, like, the Olympics has never been about a commercial enterprise, and so if you think of the analog, right, there's not, like, if you had to pick a game, You're now endorsing someone's commercial enterprise.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 26:48 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Disclosure
Kotick bought a 25% stake in Activision for $440,000 in 1990
“So I bought a 25% stake in Activision for 440,000 dollars, and I became the largest shareholder.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 9:45 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Partly supported
Activision traded a 51% stake for Blizzard and $2B in cash
“We'll stay a public company, you sell us Blizzard, or give us Blizzard and two billion of cash, and we'll give you 51% of the company.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 14:24 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Insight
Sports succeed primarily due to tribalism and local affiliation
“The reason why sports are so successful is tribalism and that having a local affiliation was so crucial to the success of sport.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 25:57 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Partly supported
Activision Blizzard players average one hour of daily gameplay
“Video game, our average duration of gameplay, that includes games like Candy Crush, is an hour per person per day. Games like Call of Duty or World of Warcraft are hours a day.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 28:22 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Partly supported
Kotick built an Apple II GUI suite a year before Mac launched
“So we designed this mouse and a word processor and a spreadsheet and a database All for the Apple II with a graphical user interface about a year before the Macintosh was released.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 2:07 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Partly supported
Activision Blizzard serves 400 million customers across 196 countries
“Today, we sell in a 196 countries around the world. We have four hundred million customers and anyone in any socioeconomic strata can actually play games.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 19:42 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream
Assertion Not checkable as stated
StarCraft reached 5 million registered players in South Korea at its peak
“The height of its popularity in Korea, StarCraft had five million registered players.”
Bobby Kotick Feb 26, 2019 ▶ 22:51 a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | Gaming Goes Mainstream Feb 26, 2019 24m
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