Gaming is weird. One day you're the king of a multibillion-dollar hill, and the next, you're the face of a massive corporate acquisition that reshapes the entire industry. For decades, when people talked about the Call of Duty CEO, they were talking about Bobby Kotick. He was the guy who took a struggling company called Activision in the early 90s and turned it into a juggernaut.
He's gone now.
Following the massive $68.7 billion merger with Microsoft, Kotick officially stepped down on December 29, 2023. It wasn't exactly a quiet exit. If you’ve followed the news, you know his tenure was marked by incredible financial growth and, eventually, a mountain of legal trouble and employee protests. Now, the "CEO" of the franchise isn't really one person—it’s a massive hierarchy within Microsoft Gaming, led by Phil Spencer.
Who actually runs Call of Duty now?
Honestly, the structure is a bit corporate, but it matters if you care about where the games are going. After Kotick left, Microsoft didn't just hire a "Call of Duty CEO" to replace him. Instead, the leadership was absorbed into the Xbox ecosystem. Matt Booty, who is the President of Game Content and Studios, has a massive hand in this. But the person most people look to for the day-to-day "vibe" of Activision Publishing is Rob Kostich.
Kostich has been the President of Activision for years. He’s the guy who oversees the actual rollouts, the seasonal updates, and the long-term roadmap for Warzone and the annual premium releases. He’s effectively the general of the CoD army, even if he doesn't have the "CEO" title on his business card anymore.
It's a heavy lift. You have thousands of developers across Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software all trying to keep a 20-year-old franchise feeling fresh.
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The Kotick Era: Success at a Massive Cost
You can't talk about the Call of Duty CEO history without looking at the numbers Kotick put up. It’s staggering. Under his watch, Activision went from nearly bankrupt to a company that Microsoft was willing to pay nearly 70 billion dollars for.
He had a philosophy: focus on a few big franchises and milk them for everything they’re worth. It worked. Call of Duty became an annual tradition, like Madden or FIFA. But this "growth at all costs" mentality eventually fractured the company culture. In 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sued Activision Blizzard, alleging a "frat boy" culture, sexual harassment, and discrimination.
Kotick was right in the middle of it. Reports from The Wall Street Journal suggested he knew about many of these issues for years and didn't act. That was the beginning of the end.
The Microsoft Takeover and the Future of the Franchise
When Microsoft finally cleared all the legal hurdles with the FTC and the UK’s CMA, the first order of business was stabilizing the ship. Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, has a very different reputation than the previous Call of Duty CEO. He’s seen as a "gamer first" executive.
Does that change the game?
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Kinda. We’re already seeing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 hitting Game Pass on day one. That’s a massive shift in business strategy that Kotick likely would have fought against because it eats into those sweet $70 premium sales. Microsoft is playing a longer game. They want subscribers, not just one-off buyers.
Why the CEO Change Matters for Players
If you’re just someone who hops on to play a few rounds of Search and Destroy after work, you might think the CEO doesn't matter. You’d be wrong.
The CEO sets the budget. They decide if a game gets an extra year of development or if it’s rushed out the door to meet a quarterly earnings report. Under the previous Call of Duty CEO, we saw a lot of "crunch"—developers working 80-hour weeks to hit deadlines. Microsoft has promised a more sustainable approach, though only time will tell if that holds up when a release date starts looming.
The studio shuffle
- Treyarch: Usually the kings of "vibe" and competitive balance.
- Infinity Ward: The technical wizards who built the engine.
- Sledgehammer: The utility players who often get the short end of the development cycle.
The new leadership has to figure out how to keep these studios from burning out. We've already seen Raven Software unionize, which was a huge deal in the industry. The post-Kotick era is much more focused on labor relations than the previous decade was.
Misconceptions about the Call of Duty Leadership
A lot of people think the CEO of Activision is the one designing the guns or picking the maps. Obviously, they aren't. But they do dictate the monetization.
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When you see a $30 bundle in the store for a skin that glows in the dark, that’s a directive from the top. The Call of Duty CEO role is primarily about maximizing "ARPU"—Average Revenue Per User. Microsoft is trying to balance this by giving more "value" through Game Pass, but don't kid yourself: they still want you buying those Tracer Packs.
What’s Next for the Leadership?
The dust hasn't fully settled. Microsoft is still laying off thousands of employees across its gaming divisions as they "optimize" the merger. It’s a brutal reality of big tech.
The current leadership, under Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond (President of Xbox), is trying to move CoD away from being just a console game. They want it everywhere. Mobile is huge—CoD Mobile and Warzone Mobile are massive earners. They are also bringing the franchise back to Nintendo platforms after a decade-long hiatus.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Investors
If you're tracking the leadership of this franchise, here is what you need to keep an eye on over the next 18 months:
- Watch the Credits: Keep an eye on the leadership roles listed in the new games. If you see high-level departures from the "old guard" at Infinity Ward or Treyarch, it usually signals a shift in the game's creative direction.
- Game Pass Metrics: The success of the current Call of Duty CEO structure depends entirely on whether Game Pass numbers spike during a CoD launch. If they don't, expect a return to the old, more aggressive monetization styles.
- Regulatory Filings: Microsoft is still under a microscope. Any changes in how they handle the Call of Duty IP on PlayStation or Nintendo will be documented in their quarterly reports.
- Studio Autonomy: Look for signs that studios are being given more than the standard 3-year dev cycle. If a game gets delayed, it’s actually a good sign for the health of the franchise, as it means the new bosses value quality over a quick buck.
The era of the singular, controversial "Call of Duty CEO" is over. We are now in the era of corporate consolidation, where the franchise is just one piece of a much larger Microsoft puzzle. Whether that leads to better games or just a more polished corporate image remains the biggest question in gaming.