Bobby Kotick is gone – but not entirely. He comments on the Warcraft movie and therefore makes new enemies.
Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard, was not particularly popular among players – and probably not among his employees either. Yet now he finds a way to attract the community’s ire once again by criticizing something that was quite popular among fans – the Warcraft movie. Kotick describes it as one of the “worst movies he has ever seen” and blames it for the departure of Chris Metzen.
What happened? Bobby Kotick was interviewed on the “Grit Podcast” and spoke extensively about his time at Activision Blizzard.
According to Kotick, the Warcraft movie was a “terrible idea” and distracted Blizzard from more important things. Because the movie required resources and prevented them from continuing to make good games – this led to delays in patches and new expansions.
Moreover, he considered the movie to be one of the “worst movies he has ever seen”.
At the same time, the movie was partly responsible for Chris Metzen suffering from burnout and leaving Blizzard shortly thereafter. According to Kotick, he had gotten too invested in the film and wanted to make sure it was perfect.
How successful was the Warcraft movie? It is hard to say. Especially in the USA, the film was not well received and did not have good results. However, globally, especially regarding the Asian market, the film can indeed be considered a success.
Nevertheless, there was criticism from all sides. While the orcs in the movie received much praise for looking extremely convincing, the armor of the humans was particularly criticized. It did not fit well with the film’s more serious style and strongly reminded viewers of the comic look from World of Warcraft – this clashed with the appearance of the orcs.
It was just a solid fantasy film – unfortunately nothing more, and thankfully nothing less.
This is how the community reacts: Bobby Kotick has never had a good standing in the community due to many statements and incidents in the past. When his comments about the Warcraft movie were revealed, this rejection intensified even more. On the subreddit for WoW, there are some comments:
- “I hope Bobby ends up in the maw.” – Background_Ad_582
- “And I think Bobby Kotick is a terrible idea.” – Dadpurple
- “Between that and all the statements in Jason Schreier’s book, it really seems like Bobby had a mission: to torpedo everything related to Warcraft.” – AedionMorris
However, there are also a few voices that point out that Kotick might have a point with his assessment. Because the movie was released during the time of Warlords of Draenor – and World of Warcraft suffered from severe content drought at that time.
We analyzed the chances for a second Warcraft movie here.
