Electronic Arts’ former creative director Bing Gordon (who is probably not sponsored by Microsoft’s search engine) says the company didn’t do what it should have!

Gordon appeared on the Grit podcast, where he revealed that Electronic Arts had its head in the sand when it came to competitors. The publisher could have acquired the rights to Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, and even bought Blizzard! That didn’t happen because Activision moved first. It merged with Vivendi’s video game division in 2008 (the French giant was behind Blizzard!) and the result was Activision Blizzard, now owned by Microsoft.

Gordon revealed that there was a time when Vivendi asked for $800 million for Blizzard, but Larry Probst, then CEO of Electronic Arts, refused to meet with them. Gordon explained that Electronic Arts looked at these two IPs and the company and gave up on both! That’s why he respects former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, because he jumped at the chance to merge with Blizzard to create one of the biggest publishers in the gaming industry. Gordon says that if Kotick hadn’t been at the helm, the creative leaders wouldn’t have stayed around for very long, so it’s kind of a miracle that they stayed around as long as they did.

During the interview, Kotick revealed that Electronic Arts had tried many unsuccessful acquisitions and mergers with Activision. Infinity Ward was founded by former Medal of Honor developers, and it was the studio that created Call of Duty because they didn’t want to continue working with Electronic Arts. Except that many people from Infinity Ward went on to form Respawn Entertainment… which was bought by Electronic Arts! And Blizzard has been dealing with the Activision Blizzard sexual harassment scandal lately.

And Electronic Arts is known for closing or shutting down many studios. BioWare is an example of the latter, while Visceral, Origin Systems, Pandemic and Westwood are examples of the former…

Source: PCGamer