Well, duh. Doesn't mean Kotick's not kicking himself regardless.

To be fair, although he might be kicking himself now, given the facts available at the time he probably said what anyone would have said. I myself used to play warcraft 3 and specifically remember having the thought that making a mmo out of warcraft was a stupid idea :P And here i am now, checking wow.com daily for the latest news on my favourite game.

And let's face facts, if Kotik HAD acquired Blizzard back then, he would have ruined it completely and there would be no World of Warcraft and no 7 billion dollar Blizzard today.

If anyone has a chance to read it, the latest addition of GameInformer actually had a really interesting piece about him. I'm not saying I agree (or really like what he does 99.9% of the time), but it sorta shows WHY the man is an extremely money grubbing CEO.
Guess somebody (though ever so grudgingly) has to SLIGHTLY defend the man....only slightly.

Davidson and Associates obviously did not agree with your way of thinking. I'd say they made a pretty sound investment. Slightly better than the APR on a typical savings account, anyway. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic. :P)

I really, really doubt he's kicking himself, given all the money Blizz brings into the Activision pot every year. Also, while I understand the hate for Kotick I don't necessarily agree with it: he's a CEO, not a gamer, and like Iwata or Stringer, he's employed to make money, not good games.