Activision Blizzard is Firing CFO Spencer Neumann

Published: January 1, 2019 2:17 PM /

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Activision-Blizzard

Activision Blizzard is having a year of ups and downs. Since October, the company's stock has dropped significantly, and now it is firing their Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann.

Yahoo Finance reports that Neumann's firing is "unrelated to the Company's financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures."

This is an interesting statement, as Activision Blizzard's stock has dropped significantly in the past few months. The company has seen some major releases since August, including World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Destiny 2: Forsaken, Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, and Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

Despite these huge titles in the video game world, they have not saved the company's stock from plummeting. After the stock reached its year-long peak in early October at around $83 USD, the stock went on a downward spiral and is at around $46 USD as of today.

As of today, his replacement will be Dennis Durkin, who joined Activision Blizzard in 2012 as the Chief Financial Officer and then becoming its Chief Corporate Officer in 2017. His previous experience includes 12 years at Microsoft, where he was part of corporate development and eventually became the Xbox CFO/COO.

Neumann might be out, but another big-name company has picked him up: Netflix. According to Reuters, in the next few days, we should expect to see an announcement that Neumann is being picked up by Netflix where he will become their new CFO, the same title he held at Activision Blizzard.


Quick Take

What might be more interesting is not the firing of Neumann, but the fact that he was picked up by Netflix. We've seen Netflix becoming more and more interesting in video games, be it shows such as Castlevania, or the newly-released Black Mirror episode that is effectively an FMV choose your own adventure title (much like their Minecraft Story Mode title based on the game of the same title by Telltale). Then there's the partnership with the now-defunct Telltale Games, and the company's intention to still launch the Stranger Things title that was planned. I suspect that Neumann, being an industry veteran, might help them up their game, so to speak. 

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austin
| Staff Writer

Austin cut his teeth writing various  fan-fiction stories on the RuneScape forums when he was in elementary school. Later on, he developed a deep love for… More about Austin