Activision Blizzard CEO (and James Corden fan) Bobby Kotick is out – but not just yet

Microsoft finally closed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard today, but it sounds like Bobby Kotick will be staying on as CEO through to the end of 2023.

It may have taken about 20 months, but as of today, Microsoft has officially acquired Activision Blizzard. That of course comes with a heap of questions, and one of the big ones is obviously: what about Bobby Kotick? In an email sent to all Activision Blizzard King employees, as reported by The Verge, Kotick appears to be staying on as CEO of the company, at least until the end of 2023. "Phil has asked me to stay on as CEO of ABK, reporting to him, and we have agreed that I will do that through the end of 2023," wrote Kotick. "We both look forward to working together on a smooth integration for our teams and players."

Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard for 70 Billion! | VG247's take on the unexpected future

It should be noted that in the past couple of years, there have been calls for Kotick to resign, in part because of sexual harassment and bullying allegations that led to multiple lawsuits. Kotick had reportedly also been aware of said allegations for years, and even had several allegations against him as well. With the deal now having gone through, it's also possible that Kotick will receive as much as $400 million from Microsoft as a payout.

With Activision Blizzard under the Microsoft banner, it now owns massive titles like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Candy Crush Saga. That doesn't mean that these games will suddenly be exclusive to Xbox, multiple deals (including one with PlayStation) have guaranteed that, and you shouldn't expect all of Activision Blizzard's catalogue to be available on Game Pass until next year either.

Activision Blizzard joins developers like Bethesda, Mojang, Doublefine, and a number of others as Xbox first-party studios, as well as all of the developers it owns itself.