The DICE Game Awards were held on February 24th, 2022. This video game award show, which is commonly referred to as the “video game Oscars,” saw a slew of awards taken home. However, the winners from the event were the second most interesting story to come out of the evening.
After joking about popular games and NFTs to open the show, Kinda Funny’s co-founder, Greg Miller, bluntly stated, “f*ck Bobby Kotick.” This statement was met with a mixture of applause and silence as most of the audience appeared to agree with Miller’s sentiment.
“As we got closer and closer to the DICE Awards, I knew that I wanted the monologue to say something real about both NFTs and the abuse that’s been allowed to run rampant in the industry,” Miller said in an email thread with Kotaku. “I had seen Geoff get blowback from the Game Awards for not naming names, so I was prepared to fight to get stuff like this in. As for the crowd, I don’t think they expected us to go so hard. There was usual smattering of laughs and groans but there was the addition of stunned silence. Everyone who approached me afterward said they loved it and stood by the message—no one told me I was wrong.”
Miller was clearly attacking Kotick for the unsafe work environment that had been established at Activision-Blizzard. The workplace was so toxic that the company was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing over its “frat boy” workplace culture.
The Profit‘s Take:
There’s not much of a business discussion here. I’m not going to comment on the allegations going on at Activision-Blizzard. I don’t know enough about the situation or Bobby’s involvement to comment on it. Don’t get me wrong, I have been critical of Bobby Kotick in the past. With that being said, though, this is totally inappropriate to be doing at an awards show. That’s not the time or place for a personal attack, especially not with that kind of language. We need to be able to be critical in this industry while not making any personal comments or attacks. To be honest, though, I wouldn’t have known the DICE Awards had happened if not for this headline.
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