Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard
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Vivendi execs considered firing Activision Blizzard's Bobby Kotick over buyout

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Vivendi’s leaders considered firing Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick over matters related to the sale of the French company’s stake in the big video game company.

Court documents show that Vivendi’s leaders wanted to fire Kotick because he refused to approve the sale of Activision Blizzard to groups that did not include Kotick’s own investment group, Bloomberg reports. The documents offer a rare peek inside a boardroom battle in one of the biggest transactions in video game history.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.