Activision made headlines last April after Bobby Kotick, perhaps gaming's most overpaid CEO, agreed to a 50% salary cut on his next year's compensation contract. That would drop him from $1.75 million down to just $875,000, which is still a lot, but baby steps.
Frequent Activision critic CtW Group argued that the pay cut was mostly a publicity stunt and that Kotick was still being enormously overpaid due to the many awards that stack up millions upon millions in equity pay. CtW calculated that Kotick made roughly $124 million total in awards for 2020 and that he'd basically make the same amount in 2021 even after the proposed pay cut.
CtW told Activision Blizzard shareholders to vote "no" on the say-on-pay proposal at the company's annual shareholder meeting, even managing to get the vote delayed by a week so shareholders had "adequate time to review and consider" Activision's responses.
Last week, the say-on-pay proposal passed with just 54% support from Activision/Blizzard shareholders. In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, CtW director of executive compensation Michael Varner said that such low support is extremely rare and that less than 4% of Russell 3000 index companies receive support in the 50% range.
"Activision will be expected to make even further changes in response to a vote where 46% of shareholders expressed discontent; they will not be able to 'rest on their laurels' solely with the changes they made thus far to Mr. Kotick's pay,” Varner added. “Also, this marks the sixth time in the past eight years Activision has received less than 70% support for its Say on Pay proposal, and the 2021 vote is the lowest support the company has received on this proposal in its history."
And in case you were worried about Kotick not being able to afford a dozen new Maserati's every year, don't be. According to the Financial Times (by way of PC Gamer), Kotick is still expected to pocket $155 million in 2021 thanks to all those awards coming due this year and a rise in Activision Blizzard's stock price.