Bobby Kotick

In October 2016, Kotick confirmed the creation of Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League. In November 2016, Activision Blizzard inked a deal with Kotick where he might receive bonuses if certain financial benchmarks were met concerning M&A. Earlier that same year, Activision had acquired companies such as King and Major League Gaming. In late 2016, he was given a pay hike because the company was performing well, with a contract that locks him in until 2021. In June 2017 it was Fortune who said that Kotick had become “the longest-serving head of any publicly traded tech company.” Under him, the company was still developing films about its video games, and coming out with new video game sporting projects. In February 2019, the non-profit organization As You Sow ranked Kotick 45th in a list of the 100 most over-paid chief executive officers of the United States. According to the report, Kotick made $28.6 million in the year prior, equal to 306 times more than the average Activision Blizzard employee.

A native of Long Island, New York, Kotick resides in California with his family. He and his wife divorced in late 2012. He had a cameo role in the 2011 film Moneyball. Kotick has donated to University of Michigan sports.

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, "…[P]art 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 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."

In October 2009, Kotick founded the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE), a non-profit benefit corporation, after speaking with former Veteran's Administration Secretary Jim Nicholson about how best to serve veterans. The endowment helps soldiers transition to civilian careers after their military service. Kotick recruited an advisory board composed of veterans representing the various service branches. In 2017, CODE announced that efforts would now encompass both US and U.K veterans, with a goal of placing 100,000 veterans in high-quality positions by 2024.

Some statements Kotick has made about his business strategy have led to controversy. He has focused on developing intellectual property which can be, in his words, "exploited" over a long period, to the exclusion of new titles which cannot guarantee sequels. Kotick described this business strategy as "narrow and deep" or "annualizable" and cited it as key to attracting development talent who may not be drawn to "speculative franchises." During Activision Blizzard's Q2 2009 financial results conference, Kotick was asked about his "comfort level" regarding pricing of some of his new games. After Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith answered that there was "strong retailer acceptance and support" for the pricing plan, Kotick joked that "if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further." Although Phil Elliot of Gamesindustry.biz understood the comment as a joke, he added that the comment could be seen as "insensitive at a time when consumers are likely to be feeling the economic pinch."

Kotick engineered the Activision Blizzard merger, and stockholders of Activision Blizzard approved Kotick as CEO of the combined company on July 9, 2008. In 2009, as reported by Forbes magazine, Robert Kotick received approximately US$3.2 million in salary, benefits, options and incentives for his work with Activision Blizzard, of which $953,654 was his actual salary. By 2013, Kotick was the second-highest compensated CEO in the United States, earning $64.9 million , mostly in stock.

Kotick is a non-executive director for The Coca-Cola Company and a board member at the Center for Early Education and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He previously served as a Yahoo! board member from March 2003 to August 2008 and as a board member for the Tony Hawk Foundation.

Kotick and his partner Brian Kelly bought a 25% stake in Activision in December 1990. Kotick became CEO in February 1991. 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.

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.

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

Robert A. Kotick (born 1963) is an American businessman who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard. He was the head of several technology companies early in his career. He purchased a stake in Activision in 1990, and became CEO the next year. Kotick engineered the Activision Blizzard merger, and he became CEO of the combined company in 2008. He is on several company boards. From 2003 until 2008, he was a director at Yahoo!. In February 2012, he became a non-executive director of The Coca-Cola Company.

Robert A. Kotick was born in 1963 in the US, growing 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 the University of Michigan in the early 1980s.