Bobby Kotick is like some kind of comic book villain

As though Bobby Kotick wasn’t already shameful enough. Here’s an entire trio of new atrocities from the Activision CEO and his company.

Bobby tried to underpay his defense attorney, and got sued for it. Kotick was mixed up in a sexual harassment and wrongful termination suit (although, to be fair, he didn’t do the sexual harassing). Kotick bounced around attorneys during the case, and ended up trying to underpay one of his defenders, Patricia Glaser, for her services. This story does have a happy ending, Kotick has been order to pay Glaser over $1 million.

That wasn’t the only legal trouble Robert’s been mixed up in lately. His company was also recently defeated in court by a man named Greg Hastings. He’s a paintballer who had worked with Activision to have his brand/persona stuck into some paintball games (yes, those exist). Upon shipping one such game, Activision turned around, and within 24 hours, Hastings reports “they sent me a letter and they said, ‘We feel you’ve abandoned your franchise, and we’re going to commence making games called Greg Hastings Paintball without Greg Hastings.’” Hastings fought and won his case against Activision, stating “A billion-dollar company tried to steal my identity, and I was able to fight and regain my identity.”

On top of all this, comes word that a profoundly anti-creative and focus-testing obsessed environment exists within Activision which filters out new ideas, and female heroes in games. The only games Activision has published with female leads since 2005 have been licensed trash featuring the likes of Dora and Barbie. Gamasutra reports:

Look to that methodology to explain why all of Activision’s flagship properties are male-led, says the source: “If Activision does not see a female lead in the top five games that year, they will not have a female lead,” says the other source. “And the people that don’t want a female lead will look at games like Wet and Bayonetta and use them as ‘statistics’ to ‘prove’ that female leads don’t move mass units.”