Following the horrible confirmation that over 800 employees were affected by the recent Activision Blizzard layoffs and the staggering 15 million dollar bonus that the company’s CEO awarded himself, a petition has now gone viral calling for his head.
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As the industry fights for unionization after several shocking world-wide layoffs that left many suddenly without jobs nor notice, Game Workers Unite has proposed a new petition regarding the CEO:
If you support the 800 Activision Blizzard employees who were laid off while the c-suite personally raked in millions, sign our petition to #FireBobbyKotick! ✊🏽✊🏿✊🏾//t.co/rA3DM81Zai
— Game Workers Unite ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏾 GDC (@GameWorkers) February 14, 2019
According to the petition itself, the industry and gamers alike seemingly back up CEO Bobby Kotick to take the place of the 800 employees caught in the layoff whiplash. They added, “Bobby Kotick has been raking in $30 million dollars a year as Activision CEO, that massive income doesn’t come from nowhere.”
They cite stolen wages, his recent 15 million dollar bonus, and his recent boats about the 9% bump to stockholder values as reasons for this petition to gain support. They pleaded, “Please sign this petition in solidarity and send a message to Activision Blizzard’s c-suite that we won’t let their greed ruin the games we love and uproot the lives of workers anymore!”
At the time this article was written, almost 1,200 signatures have been added to the list with an ultimate goal of 2,000. If this is something you wish to check out for yourself, the full petition can be found here.
As for the layoffs, they reportedly span across several divisions, including Activision, Blizzard, King, and a few other smaller studios. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick mentioned, “While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees.”
What do you think about the position and how the CEO has handled the company thus far? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy.
