Former executive: EA missed all opportunities and even expected to acquire Blizzard

2025-02-16 20:41:05|Myriagame |source：minecraft skins

Former EA chief creative officer Bin Gordon revealed in a recent podcast episode that EA had rejected the opportunity to own Call of Duty and Guitar Heroes, and even refused to acquire Blizzard.Gordon was in conversation with former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, and Kotick's company ended up profiting from all of the above games.

Activision did not ultimately acquire Blizzard directly, but achieved the acquisition of Blizzard by merging with the gaming division of Blizzard's parent company Vivendi in 2008.Kotic said that Blizzard, especially World of Warcraft, was the only profitable part of Vivendi's gaming business at that time.Gordon recalled that before that, “there was once, (Vivendi) offered to sell Blizzard for $800 million,” but “(Former EA CEO Larry Probst) was reluctant to meet them.”

To summarize the differences in EA and Activision's acquisition strategies, Gordon said: "Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Blizzard, EA was first exposed to these opportunities, but missed them all." Bin further stated: "That's whyI respected (Kotic) very much and he said 'No, no, it would be great to have these.' And then you keep the talent.

“I’m pretty sure some of the creative leaders in these companies, if anything else, might not stay, so you’ve created some miracle to keep them working efficiently for a long time.”

It's more than that.In subsequent conversations, Kotic revealed that EA has tried to acquire or merge with Activision several times over the years: "They tried to acquire us many times, and we have negotiated mergers many times."

I don’t know which node of the timeline EA is in regards to matters related to "Call of Duty".Because Infinity Ward was originally formed by developers who were dissatisfied with the development of the Medal of Honor series and were unwilling to continue working with EA.Gordon refers to the possibility that EA initially lost these talents, rather than later snatching Infinity Ward and Call of Duty from Activision.

The issue of talent retention is very interesting because Activision and EA have different reputations in this regard.The founding members of Infinity Ward eventually left the studio to form Respawn, which ironically returned to EA.That seemingly fierce division still occupies a prominent position in the development of "Call of Duty".In recent years, Blizzard has also been working hard to find a direction for development, especially after Activision’s sexual harassment crisis was exposed in the early 2020s.

Although Activision drove away key talents and had a relatively poor reputation among players, EA has long been unmatched in terms of closing or hollowing out its beloved studio after acquiring it:At this point, Visceral Games, Origin Systems, Westwood, Pandemic, and BioWare today will all come to mind.

What do you think of these two publishers from a creative or artistic perspective? In the big game of business and pure cash flow, Activision led by Kotick is obviously the winner—not just winning the EA.The company's reputation has easily escaped the influence of sexual harassment and labor rights scandals, and has also led to Microsoft's unprecedented $68.7 billion acquisition, with its massive series such as Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft and Overwatch.Still released regularly.In contrast, EA is gradually moving closer to medium scale in the industry, and its situation is not very good.The "Apex Heroes" and "Star Wars Jedi" series of Rebirth Entertainment have become eye-catching highlights due to the decline in revenue from EA sports games and the waste of BioWare resources.

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