Former Activision boss Bobby Kotick has filed a defamation suit against G/O Media over a pair of 2024 articles.
A record of a March 11 defamation filing titled “Robert Kotick v G/O Media Inc” can be viewed in Delaware court records, but the complaint itself is not currently publicly available. Courthouse News, which first reported on the suit, writes that Kotick is “seek[ing] damages to be determined at trial” regarding articles on former G/O Media site Gizmodo and current G/O Media site Kotaku about Kotick’s reported interest in buying TikTok.
As context into Kotick, the articles both discussed a California Civil Rights Department investigation into Activision Blizzard that was settled in 2023. The final California settlement makes note that “No court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations” and that the “[d]efendants deny all allegations of wrongdoing, liability, and damages.”
Courthouse News quotes Kotick’s complaint as reading,
Kotaku and Gizmodo went out of their way to include withdrawn, false allegations relating to workplace issues which G/O Media knew had been conclusively disproven by numerous investigations.
Courthouse News writes that Kotick “and his representatives repeatedly wrote to G/O Media demanding corrections to the articles.” Both Kotaku and Gizmodo’s articles were updated after publishing to add details about the settlement.
Despite this, Courthouse News writes that Kotick claims “the articles continue to ‘mischaracterize’ the agreement,” and quotes the complaint in stating that the allegations were included “purely for the malicious purposes of causing further harm to Kotick.”
A 2022 Washington Post story exploring Kotick’s history of litigation says that he has “shown a willingness to devote enormous resources to even the most minor feud” and has “engaged in years-long battles against enemies big and small.” A representative for Kotick disputed those characterizations, describing the then-owner of Activision as a “reluctant litigant.”
Although Courthouse News says Gizmodo is mentioned in the filing against G/O, G/O sold the site to European company Keleops in June 2024.
(Aftermath’s staff previously worked at Kotaku; additionally, Nathan and Riley both worked at The Washington Post, though not on the above-mentioned story.)
