Blizzard Co-Founder Leaves For Real in April 2019

2019 seems to be off to a great start for gamers, but maybe not so much for Activision Blizzard: two of their top executives, Activision Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann and Blizzard CFO Amrita Ahuja have stepped down, and back in October, Blizzard Entertainment co-founder Mike Morhaime stepped down as president of Blizzard. In his case, he stuck around as a creative consultant so the company wouldn’t go without his vision and guidance (which, as the other co-founder has already left the company, was pretty darn important). However, not only was that role temporary, it was very temporary: and a new filing has shown he plans to leave completely before 2019 is even halfway over.

"As previously disclosed, on October 3, 2018 Michael Morhaime entered into an agreement with Activision Blizzard, Inc. (the 'Company') pursuant to which he would provide strategic advice to the Company in an advisory capacity. Mr. Morhaime’s employment with the Company as a strategic advisor will conclude on April 7, 2019."

The current president of Blizzard is J. Allen Brack, the longtime executive producer on World of Warcraft, and while he hasn’t had much of a chance to prove himself, he was in charge of the company when they decided to announce Diablo: Immortal at Blizzcon. And even if that wasn’t his direct decision (companies will spend months ahead of time planning these things) it certainly reflects poorly on his leadership.

Plus, with Activision in such a rickety spot (from a structural standpoint: financially they’re still fine, probably) having one of the pillars of Blizzard up and vanish completely will probably hurt them worse than it would normally.

Both companies are swimming in money, of course, no one is afraid they might collapse. But companies do stupid things when they panic and have poor leadership. And that is absolutely the situation Activision finds itself in right now.

At least it’ll be kinda funny.