We Knew OW2 Would Be Review Bombed On Steam: Activision Blizzard Devs Open Up About Their Time Under Bobby Kotick

As of last Friday, Bobby Kotick is no longer CEO at Activision Blizzard – a fact that we’re sure most gamers are celebrating. It seems that the developers who worked under Kotick on games like Call of Duty and Overwatch are too, or at least they’re relieved to have him gone. In fact, now that they don’t have to worry about a hammer coming down on them from the big boss, they have stories to tell.

We’re sure that more stories will roll out over time. Still, since his departure, at least two devs have had something to say: Christine Pollock, who spoke about her time working on the Call of Duty franchise as part of Demonware, and Andy Belford, who discussed how the Steam Overwatch launch was handled as poorly as it was because of decisions made by Kotick.

Pollock’s story involves Kotick allegedly threatening to “have an employee killed”. This came out during her first month at Demonware, and during an all-hands meeting, she decided to follow up on it and demand that he be fired. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but that isn’t really the point of Pollock’s thread. Rather, she notes that she was in a place where she could do that without as big of a fear of repercussion because of her position. She also notes that this is the kind of thing that senior staff should be doing because junior staff will be more afraid to do so. She also offers advice on how to go about it, such as staying calm and recording what you’re saying, just in case you get a call from HR.

i worked on COD for two years as a programmer at demonware

bobby's decisions made our games worse

in my first month it came out he threatened to have an employee killed. in the all-hands that followed, no-one wanted to speak first. so i demanded his firing in front of everyone https://t.co/yhlM5xqPPg

— christina 死神 (@chhopsky) December 29, 2023

Belford, for his part, decided to offer insight into what happened when the Overwatch 2 Steam launch took place, and the team was trying to prepare for the inevitable review bombing. According to Belford’s tweets, the team warned Blizzard that the review bombing would happen and asked for resources to help with what they knew would occur. They were turned down.

Everything was put on the community team, who were not equipped to deal with the issue. When Belford asked who made the decision, the answer was Kotick. Belford notes that this is just one example of how little worker and player experience mattered to Kotick and the other executives.

Breaking my silence to share a fun fact: when we planned OW2’s steam launch, my team warned (months in advance) that we’re going to be review bombed. We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, all flatly denied. https://t.co/bALYcb0lg0

— Andy Belford (he/him) 💙 (@andybelford) December 29, 2023