Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick named to the board of post-merger Skydance
From the convergence of Paramount and WB comes a newly-formed company that has tapped Kotick to sit on its board.
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The $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount has been finalized , with the resultant company adopting the name Skydance. The new company, which includes a video game division but oversees all manner of media including film, cable news, and streaming services, has put together a board of directors that includes ex-Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick to help lead it.
As part of the Skydance megamerger, the video game divisions of both companies are coalescing, combining Paramount Games Studio with WB’s own internal developers including Avalanche Software, NetherRealm Studios, Rocksteady, TT Games, and WB Montreal and WB Boston. These teams have put out games like Hogwarts Legacy , Mortal Kombat One , Suicide Squad , LEGO Batman , and Gotham Knights in recent years.
The new division, called Games and Experiences, will be led by Tony Driscoll, who held executive roles at Epic Games, Warner Bros., AT&T, and Disney in the past.
The overall company, not just its video game division, has tapped notable figures like Emerson Collective founder and president Laurene Powell Jobs and Bobby Kotick to sit on the board. Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair is also coming on as an advisor for the company. A press release from Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison praises Kotick’s leadership of "a global entertainment company through three decades of sustained growth" and his record of "building enduring franchises."
Those three decades in question came to a chaotic conclusion in 2023, when Microsoft’s 2023 acquisition of Activision-Blizzard-King was completed. Microsoft purchased Activision-Blizzard after a lawsuit filed by the State of California sent the publisher's shares tumbling and tanking its valuation. Kotick left the company a few months later .
Said lawsuit accused the company of enabling a culture of sexual harassment. Sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal said Kotick was aware of the harassment during his time as CEO, with some accusing him of inappropriate behavior. This reporting also revealed that Kotick had previously settled a lawsuit filed by a former assistant who accused him of threatening to kill her in a voicemail.
At the time, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said Kotick apologized to said assistant while denying the other allegations. California and Activision Blizzard settled their lawsuit in 2023 with no admission of wrongdoing, and the company set up a $45.97 million fund to compensate current and former employees who experienced sexual harassment between 2015 and 2020.
Despite all this, Skydance praised Kotick’s record saying "he showed a rare ability to anticipate shifts in how consumers engage with entertainment, investing in new platforms, new business models and new ways of reaching fans while keeping creative excellence at the center of the enterprise."
