After leaving the position he held for more than three decades, Bobby Kotick wants to buy TikTok and thus solve the great crossroads that the social network faces in the United States.
In December, Bobby Kotick said goodbye to Activision Blizzard after 32 years working in the company. It was the chronicle of a death foretold, as it appeared in the terms of the merger operation signed with Microsoft a year before.
Since Kotick's departure as president of Activision, the company has made a few decisions. Among them, letting Toys for Bob go, which are now independent.
And what has become of Bobby Kotick? The 61-year-old American businessman now has another goal in mind, although to achieve it he will have to face a multimillion-dollar sum.
We are talking about TikTok, the popular social network that is sweeping the world, which has even ousted Snapchat and Instagram in its particular sector.
Good old Kotick wants to buy TikTok, or at least that is what they claim in The Wall Street Journal. It has an advantage, and that is that the matrix that the social network has is ''obliged'' to sell the platform.
It's all due to a new law that has been approved in the United Stateswhich aims to abide by the ties that companies have with the Chinese government.
Will Bobby Kotick achieve his new goal?
According to this article in The Wall Street Journal, Bobby Kotick has contacted the co-founder of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to negotiate a possible purchase. This parent company has strong ties to the Chinese government.
There is no official confirmation, but everything indicates that Kotick's approach towards Zhang Yiming is real. At least, the former president of Activision already he would have conveyed his intentions.
In principle, Bobby Kotick's idea is to undertake the purchase, valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, together with other investors. One of them would be Sam Altman (OpenAI).
Why should ByteDance divest from TikTok? The Chinese corporation has two options: sell the platform within six monthso cut all ties with the Government of China.
If they refuse, the United States government will prohibit them from accessing any US web domainand they will not be able to operate with the North American public either.
''This is my message to TikTok: break with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,'' said Mike Gallagher, chairman of the US Select Committee.
If ByteDance refuses to cut its ties with China, then they will have to get rid of TikTok, and Bobby Kotick is waiting there. We'll see if he achieves his goal or not.
Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard is preparing to launch its games and licenses on Xbox Game Pass, starting with Diablo IV (March 28). Despite the departure of Toys for Bob, perhaps the studio will collaborate with Microsoft on its next game… so the dream of Crash or Spyro is still alive.