Activision Blizzard King CEO Bobby Kotick has shared his latest employee letter to the public, and they do not hesitate to let it known what they think about Sony.
For those not in the know, the company does make some of its internal communications public, using their own Substack. This new letter, as you may imagine, is about the company’s pending deal with Microsoft.
Much of the letter covers bases we have already covered ourselves. The acquisition has been momentarily paused while regulators around the world review its terms for approval.
Notably, Bobby talked about the European Commission and the UK CMA, and approval from Japan’s JFTC. Activision also told employees about the ten year deals Microsoft struck for Call of Duty with Nvidia, Nintendo, Boosteroid, and Ubitus.
What’s really notable are the parts of the letter where they talk about Sony:
“You may have seen statements from Sony, including an argument that if this deal goes through, Microsoft could release deliberately “buggy” versions of our games on PlayStation.
We all know our passionate players would be the first to hold Microsoft accountable for keeping its promises of content and quality parity. And, all of us who work so hard to deliver the best games in our industry care too deeply about our players to ever launch sub-par versions of our games.
Sony has even admitted that they aren’t actually concerned about a Call of Duty agreement—they would just like to prevent our merger from happening.
This is obviously disappointing behavior from a partner for almost thirty years, but we will not allow Sony’s behavior to affect our long term relationship. PlayStation players know we will continue to deliver the best games possible on Sony platforms as we have since the launch of PlayStation.”
At this point it’s easy to imagine this as Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby influencing his employees on what to think. To a certain degree, of course, as their company leader and head manager that is true. But don’t think that this isn’t a feeling shared throughout the company already.
The company’s Chief Communications Officer Lulu Cheng Meservey famously first revealed that Sony told them directly that they just wanted to block Activision’s merger with Microsoft. While Activision would understand their partner’s hesitation in seeing the deal go through, their stated position and attitude indicates that Sony doesn’t really care for Activision’s well-being.
The way this letter reads is a clear indication that Activision Blizzard King’s relationship with Sony has already changed. Whether the deal even goes through or not, this is already a wedge that exists between the companies now.
They also indicated they would continue to approach publishing games on PlayStation in good faith in the future, but it doesn’t sound like that is for Sony, as much as it is for Activision Blizzard fans on PlayStation.
That does indicate, for example, that Activision would not hesitate to make arrangements in the future that would make Sony less money, if it’s still better for PlayStation players. Overall, though, it was certainly a way to send a message not just to Sony, but the whole industry.
