Bobby Kotick is confident that one of the lawsuits against the Activision and Microsoft deal should have helped Embracer.

Bobby Kotick believes that one of the lawsuits against the Activision and Microsoft deal should have helped Embracer

Back in 2022, the Swedish pension fund Sjunde AP-Fonden (also known as AP7) went to court to challenge the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit is still ongoing, and former ActiBlizz boss Bobby Kotick, together with his lawyers, wrote a letter stating that this lawsuit could have been beneficial to Embracer Group.

As a reminder, the prosecution claims that Kotick tried to push through the purchase as quickly as possible to avoid the consequences of the sexual harassment allegations that were brought against him at the time. Kotick denied this claim and said that AP7 had ulterior motives, including "indirectly harming Activision" and helping Embracer Group.

In short, Kotick believes that:

• The lawsuit was filed with malicious intent: at the time it was filed, AP7 board chair Emma Ihre held a senior position at Embracer.
• Among other things, Embracer intended to use the lawsuit to strengthen its position in California by making life difficult for Activision. This would have made it difficult to hire new employees and prevented mergers and acquisitions, which were the company's main growth engine.
• The "indirect blow" to AB was supposed to help Embracer increase sales of its own games by paralyzing its competitor's development. Embracer dismissed Kotik's words, stating that the holding company did not need to resort to legal action to compete with Activision.

"We are flattered that Mr. Kotick considers us worthy competitors to Activision. However, as difficult as it may be for him to admit, we did not and do not need the help of any Swedish pension fund in this rivalry."

The same letter from the lawyers and Bobby Kotick claims that sales of Call of Duty in 2025 fell by 60% compared to 2024. One of the reasons cited is games such as Battlefield 6. Kotick emphasized that such a decline effectively refutes the US Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) statement about "a lack of competition in the FPS action genre" due to the deal with Microsoft.

Activision Blizzard itself, under the wing of Microsoft, also showed poor results — its recent performance was well below long-term targets, writes Kotik.