Although world-renowned video game publisher Activision Blizzard came out on top, Dec. 28 was a mixed trading session for the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.26% to 36,398.21, and the S&P 500 index fell 0.10% to 4,786.35. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI) shares advanced 1.86% to a total of $66.67 on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021.
Industry experts note that was the stock’s sixth consecutive day of gains. However, Market Watch reported that Activision Blizzard, Inc. closed behind its 52-week high of $104.53, which was reached last Feb. 16. According to Market Watch, “the stock outperformed some of its competitors Tuesday, as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) fell 0.35% to $341.25.” Also, at 13.5 million, the trading volume surpassed its 50-day average volume of 12.0 million.
For Decades, Activision Blizzard Has Been a Giant in the Video Game Industry
Bobby Kotick is the CEO of Activision Blizzard, the video game publishing empire responsible for such popular titles as Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Crash Bandicoot, World of Warcraft, Tony Hawk’s superpopular skateboarding series, and Diablo. Kotick has over 30 years of experience in the gaming empire, giving him the longest record of any CEO at a video game company.
Throughout his career at Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick successfully led the video game company, which has over 10,000 employees, to a market value of approximately $70.9 billion with annual revenues of $8 billion. “I was really fortunate,” he says.
“I always felt like I would be more in control of my destiny if I were the publisher and the developer,” explains Blizzard Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. “But had I not had the experience of working with Electronic Arts in the 1980s, I don’t know that I would have been as motivated to go off and start my own publishing company.”
Humble Beginnings Building Blizzard Activision
Despite their successful stock day in December, Activision Blizzard’s CEO Bobby Kotick remembers when the company needed to recycle aluminum to pay the bills. “We had to take the cans from the soda machine and redeem them because we needed the money,” he recalls. “We also had to sell the furniture.”
Kotick credits the dedication of his employees for helping build the Blizzard Activision empire. “But there was a passionate group of people who were at the company who wanted to bring back some of the original Atari Activision games. And then there was a group of people who wanted to make text adventures into graphic adventures. We were a small company, it was like 60 people, but that was really the beginning of my tenure as the CEO of the company.”
Bobby Kotick Reflects on His Career at Activision Blizzard
Bobby Kotick believes “you have to start with a passion for what you do, and love what you do, and love the people you work with. And 30 years is my Activision history, but it’s 40 years of making software. So, if I didn’t love what I was doing, I would go do something else.”
