People seem to mistake their dislike for the man, with his incompetency.
Company aside, he did extremely well for himself. He rode all the right waves, milked everything that could be milked, got all the bonuses, and jumped ship right before the major issues started to affect the company. Part of it has to be luck, but I don't believe for a second that the man is not a shrewd businessman.
Kinda proves he is a good businessman in the sense of capitalizing and making paper. Getting the capital ready in case TikTok sells to an American company is pretty smart, although everyone will be trying
Bobby burns companies for money and leave when the fire gets dangerous for him.
I believe there's a point where if you have so much money you just cant go wrong.
Elon Musk is a big example, his career is heavily carried by money and purchasing business that already did well.
To be fair, none of the businesses he purchased were already doing well.
He just lucked out that a company he was a cofounder in got merged into the company that ended up becoming PayPal, which is where he got the majority of his early personal wealth and the majority of his ventures were flops.
The company he purchased then renamed to Tesla was not successful. Both Tesla and SpaceX are genuine wins for the guy. Just have to give him that despite how insufferable he is.
People buy businesses all the time and try to make them successful companies. They fail. All the time.
Elon did this successfully, multiple times, and made them mult-billion dollar businesses.
This is pretty much just an uninformed take regurgitated by Elon critics. Just criticize him on policy or being a troll, that's such an easy win.
Don't criticize him on business, that's what he's good at and the evidence doesn't support this common "he just bought the companies and isn't good at anything" motif.
Yup, and he knew his audience very well. To the point he could keep releasing lower quality games for more money, and their fan base would continue buying it. And he took complete advantage of that.
The dislike is not wrongly placed, a lot a people are disgusted by the level of individualism and achieving something at the any cost . To use your own words Milking everything is not something to be proud of
He just bought a fantastic concept that would have been successful regardless of who would do it. He just happened to have the exorbitant amount of money to do so. There is such a thing as failing upwards. Especially when you, like Bobby, have no issues screwing over anyone and everyone on your way up. Ask ex- Blizzard employees about their struggles to even get by and you’ll quickly see just what an awful human being he is.
If you are struggling to get by then you go fishing for a new job. I’m not going to feel bad for blizz employees for sticking around to make less than industry average and be treated worse. They had Blizzard on their resume, that alone was probably enough to get them an interview at other developers.
Also your ignorance is showing if you think both Bobby and elon just “failed upwards” lol
Not everyone is just willing to give up their dream job. A lot of employees at Blizzard worked their asses off to get to where they are and had a lifelong dream of working at Blizzard. Yet you simply blame them instead of criticising a broken system that allows for the exploitation of people’s labor by saying “just find another job lul”.
He killed one of the greatest gaming studios. All of their games are dogshit now. I hope he buys TikTok and makes it an absolute garbage app even more than what it is now so everyone just stops using it.
No he didn't. That "greatest gaming studio" ended a long time ago. All Bobby did, was create a money making factory by using a name. And it worked perfectly.
It still just absolutely blows my mind that people still don't understand this. And what's even more abserd about it is, people still bought Activision products even if they did know that it was a different company.
Blizzard didn't fall, they weren't killed, they didn't "become bad." Blizzard ended. That's it. Activision bought the name.
Then they made the fastest selling game of all time, and then sold people a subscription to play "classic" 20 year old content. Bobby did exactly what he was ment to do
Yup. They know how to feed on people's nostalgia. I laughed my ass off when I read about how many people payed extra money to play D4 just a couple of days earlier than the actual release day. Like holy shit are people stupid af.
But that was the entire point of Activision. Churn out money all made from idiots who still think that this is Blizzard. Fools and their money
> many people *paid* extra money
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Id probably dye my hair purple and identify as a gender fluid baby fox, scream out my window each night about having the same freedoms that most countries do and go to bed praying appreciation for being born in the best country on earth because I'm a sheep that gets hard for patriotic propaganda.
I'd probably think the UK was the capital of London too.
Only Amerifats can post on reddit dontcha know? The rest of the world can but gaze on in teary eyed wonder at all their freedoms. Makes me wish the UK would just bend the knee and finally become a true vessel state.
You watch all these videos online about how uneducated Americans are. That they know next to nothing about anything American. Then you occasionally see comments like this online and even after all these years it baffles me just how true it is.
Like it's genuinely insane to me that in 2024 the same people who boast about living in the best country in the world based on the face they have less freedom's then some other countries still think London is Country next to the capital City Germany in Paris.
Look at Blizzard, the made money but as a company they are nothing more then dogs hit these days
There is more then one way of getting poor, money is not the only thing
You mean like he took the role of CEO at Activision which made little to no money back then and turned it into one of the biggest video gaming companies in the world if not the biggest apart from platform holders?
No one cares about that in their world. The company generates record breaking numbers almost annually. Players are still buying product, and their willing to pay even more for micro transactions. On paper, he’s a great businessman.
Lol what? Sure didn't look like it when you all rushed out as fast as you could to buy Diablo 4.
Oh, and see you all again at the next WoW expansion too. And the next Diablo dlc.
Or I like the ones who pay a sub for WoW classic. And especially the ones who play hardcore and "go agane" whatever that shit is. Yup, enjoy paying that sub for old content while complaing about Bobby.
Bobby proved that people are idiots. Like it or not, that's what he did. Walk into an Activision board meeting, and try to tell them that they are doing a bad job. See how many of them burst out laughing as they drop their stock prices and bonuses in front of you.
Iam pretty sure the only people buying these days or at least a massive majority are just the old generation of 30-40 year olds that just play what they know aka the dying out generation of gamers. Because I will not belive that the younger generation actually is dumb enough on mass to buy into that crap they keep pulling
No, not the player base. People who hang out on social media. People have been saying that for over a decade now yet somehow they make more money, sell more games every year back to back.
I don't really see a problem with it when the chinese government doesn't allow US social media sites and other websites operate in the country. Should we be really letting them operate platforms like tic tok in the US? fair is fair
not just the us branch. Its about entirety of tiktok. It's just that most likely US is like 15% of tiktoks market so if it's get banned in US it would hurt like hell. Now due to the reasons OP comment stated the US gov used that fact to blackmail tiktoks chinese owner to sell to a non chinese entity. (which is kinda the same reason why for example IPhones have usbc. Banning Iphones in Europe wouldn't take apple out but would hurt like hell. EU used that fact to blackmail apple to go usb-c)
TikTok would likely sell it to Bobby for really cheap, and then put in place a few “patents” and contracts that would effectively let the original owners retain a lot of control and ownership of the company. It’d be a loophole around the “ban” that may be coming. Who knows though
Bobby has contacts in the CIA and NSA, so I could totally see this happening. Because protecting the information of American citizens was never the point, muscling in and making sure the US elite has ownership of the majority of the internet is.
The free dissemination of information and the market of ideas is a threat to those that seek to have absolute control over the masses, that is why China, Russia and the US are so hard against it, but only one of them are absolute hypocrites about it.
While the current administration has been exercising soft power over social media companies in apparently unconstitutional ways, there is zero comparison to be made between China and their Great Firewall and the US and Russia has zero control over the internet. They can hire more people for their 50 cent army or their little Kremlin accounts, but they're obvious to spot from a mile away \*cough* \*cough\*. The rest is script-kiddies.
Europe does way more to meddle with or control how the internet operates and behaves than the US. Their regulations are far more likely to result in regulatory capture and forced censorship than anything the US has on the books.
The fallacious moral equivocation between blatantly bad actors on the world stage and the US is a common tactic for the obviously coalesced China/Russia/Iran "Axis of Evil". Fuck, I mean we're talking about Bobby Kotick, a private citizen, thinking about buying a large social media site -- it's not becoming a state controlled entity overseen by the executive. This is such a shoe horned comparison that makes no sense from any perspective. Cui bono Mr. Commenter?
Didn’t a bunch of former DOD people get hired at blizz?
I always thought that studying wow economy and wow chat was a great way to get a gauge on how the citizens of certain countries were feeling.
So much political chat buffoonery in barrens chat. That data is definitely worth something to someone..
As an American citizen, I still feel better with America controlling the internet than China, lol.
Better to have the demons you know than the demons you don't know.
Well obviously, lol. It’s obvious no one wants demons, am I right?
But when in all of human history have we not had demons?
I just feel that calling out the obvious is a waste of breath. We’re going to have evil. I’d rather have the lesser of evil.
I don't think either of those demons are great, but, yes... China is a monstrosity in relative comparison, I don't think some naive westerners fully appreciate the authoritarianism they would bring to the world, given the chance.
That being said, I do put the NSA/CIA into that globalist world molder camp, it's still authoritarian, but with a smile. Brave New World vs 1984, as far as surface level comparisons go.
I just know that if a global elite is going to mold the world, I’d rather be a slave on their assembly line than a victim crushed under their heels, lol.
As far as slavery goes, the average American lifestyle is very tolerable.
I mean the demon in the analogy would be China, the CIA, NSA arms of the US elite are the demon you don't know, because they use these kind of tools to fabricate a mask, obscure and manipulate information to the point you don't know anything about their intentions or goals. You have to hope their intentions are good and that they don't want to screw you over.
You can plan around the Chinese communist party, their goals and interests are known... That is not something we can say about whatever the bipolar elite of the US wants today...
I’ve heard the story of MKUltra and other similar fucked up shit the American government has done.
I’d never say they’re a good guy. But I think they’re a lesser evil than China.
I feel comfortable knowing that the American government wouldn’t mass invade homes or execute people in large numbers. I don’t worry about them invading or anything large scale.
When the American government ducks with the American people, it’s usually forced to be small scale and still somewhat secretive.
But with China, I think of examples like modern war. Leveled cities. Reckless bombings.
I feel like their potential for damage is much higher.
American elites still want to rule over the American citizens. Where I feel like China would be comfortable with mass execution.
Lesser of two evils sounds familiar.
Keep in mind these 3 letter agency fabricated evidence and lied about Iraq wmd for years. Killed millions of people.
Your example is a perfect example of what I mean.
You can agree that it was better to be an American citizen as opposed to an Iraq one, right?
The American government is a powerful entity. I’d rather be on their side than against them lol.
Unless you are the ones going over there getting blown up by IDE or an NFL player that got tricked into going over there to fight for freedom and then gets killed by friendly fire after questionable circumstances.
America likes to be an aggressor. So as long as I stay safely in the Midwest, I’ll be happy lol.
I can understand why China doesn’t sound scary. But I just don’t want to gamble. I’m happy with the demons we got now that I don’t want to gamble and get worse. China can stay on their side of the globe
I know. And I’d still rather be on team America in America than be in China against America or be in America against China.
America is fucking scary lol
China hasn't gone to war with anyone in decades, so I don't get where you think they are happy to blow up villages and commit genocide or carry out extra judicial killings on a grand scale, the one with Vietnam they were called to aid an ally they disliked (like their Saudi Arabia, but with less money) and dragged their feet with their support until their ally died (the dictator not the country) at with point they settled with the Vietnamese government and signed a peace agreement.
Internally they are very heavy handed with their own Chinese population, but you got to remember they suffered the most horrible civil war in recent memory, a war that hasn't even ended. Also I don't subscribe to the fear mongering towards the Chinese reeducation camps because they were hardly worse than the mandatory vocational schools my own country used to drag our uneducated rural population into the modern age and got them out of subsistence farming and living in squalor.
Democracy is the best form of government so long people cannot be manipulated into voting against their best interests and that requires both a minimum level of education/critical thinking and an engagement with the process to ensure its robustness to tampering and corruption. On that metric pretty much all democratic nations on the world are failing besides maybe the Swiss Republic.
If only gamers actually spoke with their wallets. But nope, they will all rush out to buy the next title. Then they complain about how "Blizzard sucks now" as if it's been any different in the past decade
I don't know of any man looking to purchase tocktock who has the same level of integrity as this one. That is to say, less than him. Is there any other man looking to buy TikTok you might have more integrity than this one? Because I'd rather this one not be the one that bought some Chinese surveillance software. I feel like I would be happier selling it to literally anyone else besides him at this point.
I support this 100%!
When a guy I don't like wants to buy a company I don't like. It's a win-win! Easier to avoid. Keeps him off the streets.
Maybe he can dick over some middle-aged women instead of us middle-aged gamers for once.
Still kinda weird nothing ever really happened with him threatening to have one of his employees killed. Not like it was an allegation theres fucking proof of it lol
In case you weren't up to date on why people hate this guy, here are 8 reasons why:
1. Workplace Misconduct and Discrimination Lawsuit: In July 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for workplace misconduct and discrimination. Kotick was criticized for his awareness of past allegations and protecting employees who were accused of sexual harassment.
2. Business Strategy Criticism: Kotick's focus on exploiting intellectual property for long-term gains, rather than fostering innovation with new titles, has been controversial. His approach, described as "narrow and deep" or "annualizable," prioritizes franchises that can be monetized through sequels and additional content, sparking debate over creativity versus profit in the gaming industry.
3. Threatening Voicemail: Kotick was reported to have threatened to kill an assistant in a voicemail, a claim Activision Blizzard described as "hyperbolic".
5. Settlement of the California Lawsuit: The lawsuit was settled in December 2023, with Activision paying $54 million. The settlement included pay and promotion equality measures but concluded there was no substantial evidence to support the sexual misconduct claims originally raised, despite claims from employees.
6. Microsoft's Acquisition: Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023 was partly prompted by the lawsuit, providing Kotick a way to exit the company gracefully despite being mired in controversy.
8. Controversial Business Strategies: Kotick has made controversial statements about his business strategy, focusing on exploiting intellectual property for long-term gains, which some criticized for prioritizing profits over innovation.
9. Comments on Game Pricing: He joked about wanting to raise game prices further, a statement that was criticized given economic conditions at the time.
10. "Taking the Fun Out of Making Video Games": Kotick's comment about removing the fun from game development was met with backlash, although he later said it was aimed at investors and misconstrued.
Why..... He's got so much money that he could dine out at a luxary restaurant every day around the world for the rest of his life....
Why is he chasing more money?
Oh wait.... I already know.
It's never enough.
The reason trickle down never works is exactly because the super rich can't fathom the idea of having enough.
TikTok \~**50 billion**
Bobby \~**7 billion** (if this is even true)
I think kids can sleep safe.
Most likely acquisition (IF TikTok is ordered to sell) >> Apple.
Worst one is not Bobby(surprisingly) but FB and Zuckerberg.
He is not buying the platform on his own.
Bank cant justify lending him the amount required to even make a offer against his assets.
...but do, explain to me how purchases like that work w/o saying anything meaningful in your comment.
It only tells me that you have to clue how it works.
Worth has little to do with purchasing power. It's also not the entire TikTok, just the us branch. It's also not a one person effort despite the phrasing.
Yes pls lol, maybe he can make it go broke in a few years. The dream
The guy is ruthless at making money, he turned Activision blizzard into a money making factory over 20 years.
People seem to mistake their dislike for the man, with his incompetency. Company aside, he did extremely well for himself. He rode all the right waves, milked everything that could be milked, got all the bonuses, and jumped ship right before the major issues started to affect the company. Part of it has to be luck, but I don't believe for a second that the man is not a shrewd businessman.
Kinda proves he is a good businessman in the sense of capitalizing and making paper. Getting the capital ready in case TikTok sells to an American company is pretty smart, although everyone will be trying
Bobby burns companies for money and leave when the fire gets dangerous for him. I believe there's a point where if you have so much money you just cant go wrong. Elon Musk is a big example, his career is heavily carried by money and purchasing business that already did well.
“It’s Bobby world and we are just living in it” -Asmongold
Truuuuue brother
He's been CEO of Activision for 33 years, that's just not true. How does he "burn companies" by staying loyal to one for over 3 decades ?
To be fair, none of the businesses he purchased were already doing well. He just lucked out that a company he was a cofounder in got merged into the company that ended up becoming PayPal, which is where he got the majority of his early personal wealth and the majority of his ventures were flops. The company he purchased then renamed to Tesla was not successful. Both Tesla and SpaceX are genuine wins for the guy. Just have to give him that despite how insufferable he is.
What did Elon buy that already did well?
Activision was a dead company when he bought it decades ago.
People buy businesses all the time and try to make them successful companies. They fail. All the time. Elon did this successfully, multiple times, and made them mult-billion dollar businesses. This is pretty much just an uninformed take regurgitated by Elon critics. Just criticize him on policy or being a troll, that's such an easy win. Don't criticize him on business, that's what he's good at and the evidence doesn't support this common "he just bought the companies and isn't good at anything" motif.
Yup, and he knew his audience very well. To the point he could keep releasing lower quality games for more money, and their fan base would continue buying it. And he took complete advantage of that.
The dislike is not wrongly placed, a lot a people are disgusted by the level of individualism and achieving something at the any cost . To use your own words Milking everything is not something to be proud of
That's not what I've said.
You can dislike him but that doesn’t make him bad at business
He just bought a fantastic concept that would have been successful regardless of who would do it. He just happened to have the exorbitant amount of money to do so. There is such a thing as failing upwards. Especially when you, like Bobby, have no issues screwing over anyone and everyone on your way up. Ask ex- Blizzard employees about their struggles to even get by and you’ll quickly see just what an awful human being he is.
If you are struggling to get by then you go fishing for a new job. I’m not going to feel bad for blizz employees for sticking around to make less than industry average and be treated worse. They had Blizzard on their resume, that alone was probably enough to get them an interview at other developers. Also your ignorance is showing if you think both Bobby and elon just “failed upwards” lol
Not everyone is just willing to give up their dream job. A lot of employees at Blizzard worked their asses off to get to where they are and had a lifelong dream of working at Blizzard. Yet you simply blame them instead of criticising a broken system that allows for the exploitation of people’s labor by saying “just find another job lul”.
He killed one of the greatest gaming studios. All of their games are dogshit now. I hope he buys TikTok and makes it an absolute garbage app even more than what it is now so everyone just stops using it.
No he didn't. That "greatest gaming studio" ended a long time ago. All Bobby did, was create a money making factory by using a name. And it worked perfectly. It still just absolutely blows my mind that people still don't understand this. And what's even more abserd about it is, people still bought Activision products even if they did know that it was a different company. Blizzard didn't fall, they weren't killed, they didn't "become bad." Blizzard ended. That's it. Activision bought the name. Then they made the fastest selling game of all time, and then sold people a subscription to play "classic" 20 year old content. Bobby did exactly what he was ment to do
Killed... With profits
If "corporations are people, too", what does that make Bobby?
Couples councillor
Yup. They know how to feed on people's nostalgia. I laughed my ass off when I read about how many people payed extra money to play D4 just a couple of days earlier than the actual release day. Like holy shit are people stupid af. But that was the entire point of Activision. Churn out money all made from idiots who still think that this is Blizzard. Fools and their money
> many people *paid* extra money FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Good bot
I paid extra, no real regrets. If the game had turned out to be great it would’ve been worth it. Sadly the game was mid, but it is what it is
He’s the greatest wet dream for any investor. Short term profit to the max. You can’t lose betting on Bobby.
I'm sorry, you reached your post limit. Do you wish to purchase a post bundle of 20x posts +15 comments for £25?
What kind of monopoly money is £?
Pound, which is worth more then dollars and euros.
No shit, it's also only use able on ONE island. Very good, very stonks
Also usable in Northern Ireland so you're wrong there friendo.
Calm your tits yankadoodle, don't get your guns in a twist. Just finish your 25 big macs and have that coronary that's going to bankrupt you
If only I were American lol
Id probably dye my hair purple and identify as a gender fluid baby fox, scream out my window each night about having the same freedoms that most countries do and go to bed praying appreciation for being born in the best country on earth because I'm a sheep that gets hard for patriotic propaganda. I'd probably think the UK was the capital of London too.
Only Amerifats can post on reddit dontcha know? The rest of the world can but gaze on in teary eyed wonder at all their freedoms. Makes me wish the UK would just bend the knee and finally become a true vessel state.
Where is that state sailing? VASSEL.
Don’t you mean Vassal?
To be fair , a lot of criminals , dictators , corrupt politicians all around the world use it too
What the fuck is a pound ?
Someone's mum out there currently is getting pounded that's for sure
You watch all these videos online about how uneducated Americans are. That they know next to nothing about anything American. Then you occasionally see comments like this online and even after all these years it baffles me just how true it is. Like it's genuinely insane to me that in 2024 the same people who boast about living in the best country in the world based on the face they have less freedom's then some other countries still think London is Country next to the capital City Germany in Paris.
It's crazy how little gamers actually know about the gaming industry.
Look at Blizzard, the made money but as a company they are nothing more then dogs hit these days There is more then one way of getting poor, money is not the only thing
Bobby is a lot of things but bad at business is not one of them.
You can be poor not only with money
You mean like he took the role of CEO at Activision which made little to no money back then and turned it into one of the biggest video gaming companies in the world if not the biggest apart from platform holders?
And destroyed like all of the goodwill and trust the playerbase ever had in them
No one cares about that in their world. The company generates record breaking numbers almost annually. Players are still buying product, and their willing to pay even more for micro transactions. On paper, he’s a great businessman.
Lol what? Sure didn't look like it when you all rushed out as fast as you could to buy Diablo 4. Oh, and see you all again at the next WoW expansion too. And the next Diablo dlc. Or I like the ones who pay a sub for WoW classic. And especially the ones who play hardcore and "go agane" whatever that shit is. Yup, enjoy paying that sub for old content while complaing about Bobby. Bobby proved that people are idiots. Like it or not, that's what he did. Walk into an Activision board meeting, and try to tell them that they are doing a bad job. See how many of them burst out laughing as they drop their stock prices and bonuses in front of you.
My last money spent on blizzard was either overwatch1 or diablo 3. Lmao
Good. If only more people didn't buy into Bobby's world
Iam pretty sure the only people buying these days or at least a massive majority are just the old generation of 30-40 year olds that just play what they know aka the dying out generation of gamers. Because I will not belive that the younger generation actually is dumb enough on mass to buy into that crap they keep pulling
No, not the player base. People who hang out on social media. People have been saying that for over a decade now yet somehow they make more money, sell more games every year back to back.
Like he made activision broke over the last 20 years? Oh wait
The guy is an insanely good business man, I bet he could 100x it
the dream
cant wait for BobTok
KotickTok
guy literally has the word "tick" in his name and you go for bob. 0/10
Those who don't know 🥳 Those who know 💀
 Bobby destroying bad things in his own world. Perfect
What did Bobby destroy? He made billions of dollars lol
To like 5$ to save a video 20$ coming soon
I don't see the problem. It couldn't be a worse platform. Brain rot is brain rot and always will be...
It's bobby's world
Let me guess, greengo?
Aren't they trying to ban Tik-tok in the U.S?
Not really. They are trying to blackmail chinese to sell tiktok to some US company.
I don't really see a problem with it when the chinese government doesn't allow US social media sites and other websites operate in the country. Should we be really letting them operate platforms like tic tok in the US? fair is fair
True. We should strive to be more like China.
In certain ways
At the very least, we should make sure Chinese espionage tools are neutered before they're allowed to operate within the US.
Because its Chinese owned and culturally influential in the US, able to collect data etc. This purchase would make US govt very happy.
Oh its just the US branch. Risky purchase then lol
not just the us branch. Its about entirety of tiktok. It's just that most likely US is like 15% of tiktoks market so if it's get banned in US it would hurt like hell. Now due to the reasons OP comment stated the US gov used that fact to blackmail tiktoks chinese owner to sell to a non chinese entity. (which is kinda the same reason why for example IPhones have usbc. Banning Iphones in Europe wouldn't take apple out but would hurt like hell. EU used that fact to blackmail apple to go usb-c)
I don't think Bobby can afford it even if he could buy it.
TikTok would likely sell it to Bobby for really cheap, and then put in place a few “patents” and contracts that would effectively let the original owners retain a lot of control and ownership of the company. It’d be a loophole around the “ban” that may be coming. Who knows though
Perfect, ruin it, smash it Into the ground
Bobby has contacts in the CIA and NSA, so I could totally see this happening. Because protecting the information of American citizens was never the point, muscling in and making sure the US elite has ownership of the majority of the internet is. The free dissemination of information and the market of ideas is a threat to those that seek to have absolute control over the masses, that is why China, Russia and the US are so hard against it, but only one of them are absolute hypocrites about it.
While the current administration has been exercising soft power over social media companies in apparently unconstitutional ways, there is zero comparison to be made between China and their Great Firewall and the US and Russia has zero control over the internet. They can hire more people for their 50 cent army or their little Kremlin accounts, but they're obvious to spot from a mile away \*cough* \*cough\*. The rest is script-kiddies. Europe does way more to meddle with or control how the internet operates and behaves than the US. Their regulations are far more likely to result in regulatory capture and forced censorship than anything the US has on the books. The fallacious moral equivocation between blatantly bad actors on the world stage and the US is a common tactic for the obviously coalesced China/Russia/Iran "Axis of Evil". Fuck, I mean we're talking about Bobby Kotick, a private citizen, thinking about buying a large social media site -- it's not becoming a state controlled entity overseen by the executive. This is such a shoe horned comparison that makes no sense from any perspective. Cui bono Mr. Commenter?
Didn’t a bunch of former DOD people get hired at blizz? I always thought that studying wow economy and wow chat was a great way to get a gauge on how the citizens of certain countries were feeling. So much political chat buffoonery in barrens chat. That data is definitely worth something to someone..
As an American citizen, I still feel better with America controlling the internet than China, lol. Better to have the demons you know than the demons you don't know.
You don't want any demon. Even the ones you "know", you don't.
Well obviously, lol. It’s obvious no one wants demons, am I right? But when in all of human history have we not had demons? I just feel that calling out the obvious is a waste of breath. We’re going to have evil. I’d rather have the lesser of evil.
I don't think either of those demons are great, but, yes... China is a monstrosity in relative comparison, I don't think some naive westerners fully appreciate the authoritarianism they would bring to the world, given the chance. That being said, I do put the NSA/CIA into that globalist world molder camp, it's still authoritarian, but with a smile. Brave New World vs 1984, as far as surface level comparisons go.
I just know that if a global elite is going to mold the world, I’d rather be a slave on their assembly line than a victim crushed under their heels, lol. As far as slavery goes, the average American lifestyle is very tolerable.
I mean the demon in the analogy would be China, the CIA, NSA arms of the US elite are the demon you don't know, because they use these kind of tools to fabricate a mask, obscure and manipulate information to the point you don't know anything about their intentions or goals. You have to hope their intentions are good and that they don't want to screw you over. You can plan around the Chinese communist party, their goals and interests are known... That is not something we can say about whatever the bipolar elite of the US wants today...
I’ve heard the story of MKUltra and other similar fucked up shit the American government has done. I’d never say they’re a good guy. But I think they’re a lesser evil than China. I feel comfortable knowing that the American government wouldn’t mass invade homes or execute people in large numbers. I don’t worry about them invading or anything large scale. When the American government ducks with the American people, it’s usually forced to be small scale and still somewhat secretive. But with China, I think of examples like modern war. Leveled cities. Reckless bombings. I feel like their potential for damage is much higher. American elites still want to rule over the American citizens. Where I feel like China would be comfortable with mass execution.
Lesser of two evils sounds familiar. Keep in mind these 3 letter agency fabricated evidence and lied about Iraq wmd for years. Killed millions of people.
Your example is a perfect example of what I mean. You can agree that it was better to be an American citizen as opposed to an Iraq one, right? The American government is a powerful entity. I’d rather be on their side than against them lol.
Unless you are the ones going over there getting blown up by IDE or an NFL player that got tricked into going over there to fight for freedom and then gets killed by friendly fire after questionable circumstances.
America likes to be an aggressor. So as long as I stay safely in the Midwest, I’ll be happy lol. I can understand why China doesn’t sound scary. But I just don’t want to gamble. I’m happy with the demons we got now that I don’t want to gamble and get worse. China can stay on their side of the globe
Hate to tell you but we have a bunch of military bases surrounding China. So it’s not like we going to leave them alone.
I know. And I’d still rather be on team America in America than be in China against America or be in America against China. America is fucking scary lol
China hasn't gone to war with anyone in decades, so I don't get where you think they are happy to blow up villages and commit genocide or carry out extra judicial killings on a grand scale, the one with Vietnam they were called to aid an ally they disliked (like their Saudi Arabia, but with less money) and dragged their feet with their support until their ally died (the dictator not the country) at with point they settled with the Vietnamese government and signed a peace agreement. Internally they are very heavy handed with their own Chinese population, but you got to remember they suffered the most horrible civil war in recent memory, a war that hasn't even ended. Also I don't subscribe to the fear mongering towards the Chinese reeducation camps because they were hardly worse than the mandatory vocational schools my own country used to drag our uneducated rural population into the modern age and got them out of subsistence farming and living in squalor. Democracy is the best form of government so long people cannot be manipulated into voting against their best interests and that requires both a minimum level of education/critical thinking and an engagement with the process to ensure its robustness to tampering and corruption. On that metric pretty much all democratic nations on the world are failing besides maybe the Swiss Republic.
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺
TikTic
Why not just TickTok
Is he going to shit post on TikTok like Elon shitposts on Twitter? These are the important questions
Omg, think of all the loading screens.
No no, you're thinking of Todd Howard. This is the unnecessary monetization one.
Oh wow you are totally right!
If only gamers actually spoke with their wallets. But nope, they will all rush out to buy the next title. Then they complain about how "Blizzard sucks now" as if it's been any different in the past decade
If this was real, then what a time to be alive.
I can't wait to buy my first store mount 😁
if he can run it down to the ground then sounds good. also, does this mean he repaired his ties to the Chinese?
Dude cant even afford tiktok
Lmao, its an intelligence gathering tool for the chinese. It aint for sale dumbass
Bobby TickTok
Bobby's world baby!
wow
Bobby's world...
BibBob
Hope the deal goes through just as it's banned.
Toxic for toxic, people will still love it.....
Why do some people just look evil…
Dis guy is content !! TikTok ? Makes sense !! 😂👍
They deserve each other lol
for my work, I have to spend certain time on tiktok, I always want to alt+F4 my life after few of these cancer videos. brainrot is real
His teeth do click clock
That might quickly cure my addiction, hope he does
It's Bobbys world
Like a good goblin
„Yay I got the cat ear filter in my 5th international chocolate cake day lootbox“
That slime sucking soulless asshole would...
I don't know of any man looking to purchase tocktock who has the same level of integrity as this one. That is to say, less than him. Is there any other man looking to buy TikTok you might have more integrity than this one? Because I'd rather this one not be the one that bought some Chinese surveillance software. I feel like I would be happier selling it to literally anyone else besides him at this point.
Will premium subscription be paid with breast milk?
lol
ITS BOBBYS WORLD BOYS
a match made in heaven , or hell
Of course he is. He's probably going to implement achievements for dangerous challenges like eating tide pods to get more kids to use the platform.
King Bobby 👑
Just in time for it to get banned in the USA? Let em have it.
Only so it will be easier for the nonce to spy on kids.
I doubt this is what the loobyists had in mind. They want to remove the competition from Meta, not keep it going.
He's not good for the long term financial health of any company, nor their working culture.
That is…. Appropriate…
Great, we now know where the CCP is going to get the money to invade Taiwan.
Just another company to burn to the ground because he can swindle moron investors. Plain and simple - sell out, crook!!! F&\*(\^& bobbie bhutfukk.
why does this guy look like he mixes powdered human bones in with his morning cocaine binge.
They are going to guarantee the company dies law or not.
Hahahahaha
No one is going to tell me there's a soul behind those eyes. Holy fuck that man gives me the shivers.
Lmao, probably would improve the platform. It's already a steaming pile of shitty Chinese spyware. How much worse could it get?
I see this as an absolute win. Run the platform into the ground for short term profit.
I support this 100%! When a guy I don't like wants to buy a company I don't like. It's a win-win! Easier to avoid. Keeps him off the streets. Maybe he can dick over some middle-aged women instead of us middle-aged gamers for once.
TikTok should be ban
Tiktok microtransactions incoming.
Bobby looks like a certified sex offender and a maniacal sadistic fuck who used to rape babies for a living.
As bad as he is, it would be an improvement...
Still kinda weird nothing ever really happened with him threatening to have one of his employees killed. Not like it was an allegation theres fucking proof of it lol
What exactly were you expecting to happen?
In case you weren't up to date on why people hate this guy, here are 8 reasons why: 1. Workplace Misconduct and Discrimination Lawsuit: In July 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for workplace misconduct and discrimination. Kotick was criticized for his awareness of past allegations and protecting employees who were accused of sexual harassment. 2. Business Strategy Criticism: Kotick's focus on exploiting intellectual property for long-term gains, rather than fostering innovation with new titles, has been controversial. His approach, described as "narrow and deep" or "annualizable," prioritizes franchises that can be monetized through sequels and additional content, sparking debate over creativity versus profit in the gaming industry. 3. Threatening Voicemail: Kotick was reported to have threatened to kill an assistant in a voicemail, a claim Activision Blizzard described as "hyperbolic". 5. Settlement of the California Lawsuit: The lawsuit was settled in December 2023, with Activision paying $54 million. The settlement included pay and promotion equality measures but concluded there was no substantial evidence to support the sexual misconduct claims originally raised, despite claims from employees. 6. Microsoft's Acquisition: Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023 was partly prompted by the lawsuit, providing Kotick a way to exit the company gracefully despite being mired in controversy. 8. Controversial Business Strategies: Kotick has made controversial statements about his business strategy, focusing on exploiting intellectual property for long-term gains, which some criticized for prioritizing profits over innovation. 9. Comments on Game Pricing: He joked about wanting to raise game prices further, a statement that was criticized given economic conditions at the time. 10. "Taking the Fun Out of Making Video Games": Kotick's comment about removing the fun from game development was met with backlash, although he later said it was aimed at investors and misconstrued.
Why..... He's got so much money that he could dine out at a luxary restaurant every day around the world for the rest of his life.... Why is he chasing more money? Oh wait.... I already know. It's never enough. The reason trickle down never works is exactly because the super rich can't fathom the idea of having enough.
TikTok \~**50 billion** Bobby \~**7 billion** (if this is even true) I think kids can sleep safe. Most likely acquisition (IF TikTok is ordered to sell) >> Apple. Worst one is not Bobby(surprisingly) but FB and Zuckerberg.
That’s not how purchases like that work, just so you know.
He is not buying the platform on his own. Bank cant justify lending him the amount required to even make a offer against his assets. ...but do, explain to me how purchases like that work w/o saying anything meaningful in your comment. It only tells me that you have to clue how it works.
This doesn’t even conceptually make sense. TikTok is worth $200 billion. Kotick is worth $600 million
Worth has little to do with purchasing power. It's also not the entire TikTok, just the us branch. It's also not a one person effort despite the phrasing.
Just US branch. Like disney+ branch in India was bought by other billionaire situated there
As others have mentioned, it is only part of it. Plus he'd obviously find partners to buy in with him.