Xbox CEO Matt Booty takes over Activison Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s duties

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will officially resign on December 29. A number of other top figures will also leave the game studio at the end of this year or a little later. They are not immediately replaced. Instead, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty will take over their duties.

Bobby Kotick

In addition to Bobby Kotick, this includes Blizzard vice chairman and King Humam Sakhnini, Activision Blizzard vice chairman Thomas Tippl, chief communications officer Lulu Meservey and “a handful of other executives.” writes The Verge, who has seen an internal memo. Other top executives, including Blizzard CEO Mike Ybarra, will remain at the studio, but will report to Matt Booty starting next year. The latter currently manages Xbox Game Studios, including Bethesda parent company ZeniMax, and now also includes Activison Blizzard.

In another change, Jill Braff, who now works as general manager at Xbox Game Studios, will become the head of Bethesda and ZeniMax. This makes her the direct manager of big names within the company such as Todd Howard.

Kotick has been CEO of Activision since 1991. In 2008, the company merged with the French Vivendi Games, renaming the company Activision Blizzard. The company acquired Candy Crush developer King in 2015. Earlier this year, Microsoft completed the acquisition of the gaming company. Shortly afterwards it became clear that Kotick will remain at the helm of Activision Blizzard until the end of the year.

In recent years, Activision Blizzard has been in the news for an alleged ‘culture of sexual harassment’, something Kotick allegedly knew about it. Staff asked Kotick to resign in 2021. However, California’s Civil Rights Department found no evidence of wrongdoing by Kotick after a two-year investigation.