Today's New York Times profiles Bobby Kotick, the boss of Activision Blizzard and longtime bête noir of many a longtime gamer, many of whom have created unflattering portrayals of him quickly found by Google Image search. Well, he wants you to know this doesn't help his game. See, he's divorced and on the prowl.


"Think about what it's like for my dating life when the first picture that comes up is me as the Devil," Kotick tells the Times.

A lot of the stuff in the Times' profile also surfaced in a Kotaku profile more than two years ago— the mob-movie air of the early days, hitching a ride on a casino mogul's corporate jet, the subterranean meeting that got his first venture off the ground, brushes with Steve Jobs and the like.


But it does relate some other fun facts.

• Kotick duped the Sheriff's Office of San Mateo County, Calif. Kotick took over Activision (then known as Mediagenic) at a time when the company's assets were being seized to pay debts. When a deputy arrived to repo an expensive IBM mainframe in 1990, an office assistant surrendered a PDP-11 instead.

• He's unremorseful about the showdown with Infinity Ward's founders. "You find out two executives are planning to break their contracts, keep the money you gave them and steal 40 employees," he said. "What do you do? You fire them."

• He calls himself a libertarian, and voted for Mitt Romney.

There's some other business-y stuff concerning Call of Duty's sales, Activision's share price and pressures on it, and Activision's success despite the overall sour picture of video game sales. But the key detail is that you meddling video gamers are cockblocking him. Guys, guys, stop high-fiving like that. Please.


At Activision, a Hero and Villain, Zapped Into One [The New York Times]