The message I had obtained was unsettling—for a second. Then it was simply actually complicated.
Again on January 20 of this 12 months, at 5:15pm ET, I obtained an electronic mail with the topic line “Authorized Correspondence re Bobby Kotick.”
It was from the regulation agency Clare Locke, a agency I’d heard had been emailing reporters in recent times about their protection of Kotick, the previous, longtime CEO of Activision Blizzard.
The letter was threatening. A lawyer from the agency launched themselves as “defamation counsel to Bobby Kotick.” They issued a “demand” that I “appropriate” a Recreation File article I’d revealed every week prior.
The article that had irked them had been a scoop of types. I’d written a couple of a 2022 lawsuit introduced by a Swedish pension fund, AP7, over Microsoft’s buy of Activision Blizzard. The swimsuit wasn’t information, however I used to be first to overview and report about Kotick’s intensive pushback to the fund’s claims.
The pension fund’s core rivalry was that the sale had been rushed by Kotick to keep away from the results of sexual misconduct scandals swirling across the firm in 2021. (He’d not been accused of misconduct himself in these fits, to be clear.)
As I wrote on the time, Kotick had denied the allegations of the rushed sale. Past that, Kotick used a December 2025 reply to the Swedish fund’s lawsuit to assign blame for these office scandals, the dangerous press and even for the AP7 lawsuit.
I’d discovered Kotick’s arguments novel and newsworthy. Throughout almost 3,000 phrases, I defined Kotick’s take: {that a} Swedish gaming firm was behind the Swedish fund’s lawsuit (the Embracer group; they denied it); that the Microsoft-Activision deal was not rushed and was secured at what Kotick felt historical past had confirmed to be an optimum value for shareholders; that he believed a conspiracy of individuals at unions authorities companies, PR companies and the media had spun up claims of widespread office misconduct at Activision Blizzard in 2021. The article gave context for all of this, letting readers assess the claims and weigh their credibility.
As I’d later write to Kotick’s legal professionals:
I might be shocked for those who may level to any information article about Bobby Kotick within the final 5 years that has spent extra of its wordcount articulating his viewpoint. He’s welcome to do an interview with Recreation File any time.
Nonetheless, there they had been in my inbox that Tuesday night: Clare Locke, the regulation agency that secured a $787.5 million settlement from Fox News over false statements about voting machines. They had been emailing me, threatening that failure to adjust to their demand may assist a declare of “precise malice,” a authorized customary for libel.
Until…
Until, they stated, I added a key paragraph to my article. This was a paragraph that I already knew Kotick’s legal professionals had been emailing reporters about for a minimum of a 12 months, and it was a paragraph that was already in my article.
The paragraph they wished is from a 2023 settlement that California’s Civil Rights Division struck with Activision Blizzard. The settlement had closed a two-year-old lawsuit over alleged sexual discrimination on the sport maker. The paragraph principally stated that claims of systemic or widespread sexual harassment—or of execs like Kotick tolerating such habits—had by no means been confirmed.
I’d already seen proof that Kotick’s legal professionals had pushed for the settlement’s language to be added to reviews about 2021 sexual discrimination and misconduct lawsuits introduced towards Activision Blizzard by California and, individually, by the U.S. federal authorities (each fits had been since settled).
I knew that Kotick and his legal professionals felt that the California settlement language ought to be talked about in the identical breath as references to an article he hated and denied, a November 2021 Wall Street Journal article claiming Kotick knew “for years” of sexual misconduct at Activision Blizzard.
So, within the Recreation File article that Clare Locke emailed me about, within the curiosity of making certain I used to be being truthful and balanced relating to the individual I used to be overlaying, I had already included the next excerpt from the California settlement [emphasis added in bold]:
(Kotick has repeatedly pushed again towards that November article within the Wall Avenue Journal, citing amongst different issues, language from a court-approved consent decree as a part of Activision’s 2023 $54 million settlement over the California swimsuit. It states: “no courtroom or any impartial investigation has substantiated any allegations that: there was systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard [or] that Activision Blizzard senior executives ignored, condoned, or tolerated a tradition of systemic harassment, retaliation, or discrimination.”)
On the night of January 20, I used to be incredulous. How do you write a 4 web page authorized risk a couple of week-old article and miss this?
Whereas scrambling to additionally make my children dinner, I wrote a prolonged reply to Clare Locke’s legal professionals, principally asking them to chill it with the threats and to begin making sense.
Partly, I wrote:
I hope you possibly can perceive why I’m having hassle understanding what you’re asking for, when the assertion you’re demanding to see in Recreation File’s article already seems in Recreation File’s article.
Precise malice, as you realize, refers to a reckless disregard for the reality. I’m undecided what your argument is when my article already states your consumer’s place.
Right here is the place I ought to remind you, the reader, that I’m an impartial journalist. I publish on Substack, and have availed myself of the Substack Defender program that gives writers on the platform with authorized assist. However I’m no Wall Avenue Journal or New York Instances, nor even IGN or GameSpot in relation to things like, effectively, having a authorized division.
There are extra enjoyable issues for me to do as an impartial journalist than writing again to a strong regulation agency representing a really wealthy individual. On the night of January twentieth, I used to be simply attempting to prepare dinner some pasta, broccoli and hen nuggets for hungry twins.
Nonetheless, I wrote again to them.
Two hours later, I received a reply. Summarizing: A lawyer for Clare Locke stated they’d “reviewed an incomplete model” of my article they usually “apologize for the confusion.”
(My guess: Somebody didn’t learn previous the piece’s paywall, despite the fact that they’d had a full week to scrounge up the funds to take action. What I’d revealed above the paywall was balanced, as was what got here after.)
That was virtually that, however one thing in regards to the scenario bothered me.
The letter had been marked “confidential.”
I hadn’t agreed to that, and I disliked the concept highly effective individuals on the beat that I cowl would act like they may unilaterally management what I’d inform my readers about.
On the morning of the twenty first, having already gotten the highly effective regulation agency to again off, I oh-so-wisely re-approached them with only one other thing.
I thanked them for clearing issues up the evening earlier than however famous that I’d by no means agreed to maintain their letter confidential.
I’m all for agreeing with a supply to maintain issues off the report, however that’s the factor. Now we have to agree. You may’t simply declare it. I’m not sure by that.
I wrote to Clare Locke’s lawyer and stated, partly:
I belief the matter is resolved. It was disappointing to need to spend much less time with my children final evening to be able to deal with your authorized letter. Household time’s valuable.
I’ll add, for readability’s sake, that, whereas your letter stipulated that it was confidential, I didn’t conform to these phrases. Sooner or later, do you have to want to talk with me confidentially, I’m comfortable to conform to classifying our communication as “off the report” previous to the precise communication—as is customary with any skilled journalist.
The agency’s lawyer replied, in a roundabout way addressing the confidentiality challenge however asserting that the matter was resolved.
In Could, I advised this story on an episode of Simon Parkin’s podcast My Perfect Console, however I held off on sharing it immediately with Recreation File readers.
I held off to keep away from stepping on the toes of one other reporter, the journalist Mikhail Klimentov. He’d interviewed me within the spring of 2025 about an investigation he was engaged on relating to Bobby Kotick legal professionals urgent the media so as to add the California settlement language to tales referencing the 2021 lawsuits. And about how some shops had modified their tales and the way some merely deleted them.
Initially, I used to be a third-party supply for Klimentov’s reporting, offering on-the-record context in regards to the state of the video games media. I’d heard in regards to the letters however hadn’t put the time into pursuing the story. I assumed it was fascinating, and I used to be glad he was overlaying it.
When the outlet that Klimentov was going to run his reporting in dropped the story, I started speaking to him about doubtlessly publishing his reporting on Recreation File. This was tentative.
Then, in January, after I received my very own Clare Locke letter, I advised Klimentov that I didn’t suppose it might make sense for me to publish him, not with me now being a part of the story. I had my very own model of this case to inform. However I wanted him effectively and stated I’d chorus from telling my story till he may get his reporting on the market.
Final Friday, Klimentov lastly ran his investigation, in an almost 48-minute video report for Folks Make Video games. It covers varied Clare Locke letters, how media shops reacted to them and what to make of all this. His video weighs the deserves of Kotick’s request and appears at among the articles that had been modified (one in all which had a obtrusive error). I extremely suggest watching it:
(Notice, I did some editorial consulting for a Folks Make Video games video final 12 months however nothing to do with this report.)
Whereas many retailers haven’t left any public proof that they up to date their Kotick protection at Kotick’s counsel’s request, a minimum of one has.
Again in October 2025, the mainstream outlet Reuters utilized the most transparent article replace I’ve seen. On the third of the month, they revealed an article in regards to the state of the Swedish pension fund’s lawsuit. Days later, they added this:
In an October 7 letter despatched after publication of this text, Kotick’s defamation counsel disputed claims of widespread harassment at Activision.
“Not a single investigation, courtroom discovering, verdict, or ruling ever concluded that there was any benefit” to the allegations of widespread harassment at Activision, Tom Clare and Nick Brechbill of Clare Locke wrote.
I’ve by no means added a press release to my article on Recreation File, as a result of none was wanted. Not for equity’ sake, nor to satisfy any calls for of Kotick’s legal professionals.
I’ve nonetheless wished to be clear with Recreation File readers. If somebody highly effective is questioning my reporting, is threatening a lawsuit over it… if that risk is a part of a sample involving different video games media shops and if, in my case, the entire thing ran right into a ridiculous ditch, I would like you to learn about it.
I additionally share this as an actual instance of how I deal with threats to Recreation File. I arise for my very own reporting, even when it’s not comfy to take action.
(In that very same class of standing up for the work I do, I’ll level to an incident in late August. Asocial media publish I revealed to X/Twitter relating to reporting I did about Take Two and GTA VI was hit by bogus copyright declare by a agency working for the writer. I pushed again and got it reversed; even whereas a much bigger video games media outlet let themselves be censored.
That is the opposite motive I’m sharing this story: To emphasise that coping with threats from highly effective individuals is among the prices of overlaying the online game business independently and as fearlessly as attainable. That is the place you are available in. Your assist, via free and paid subscriptions (sign up here!), might help me hold doing that. It might make sure that I’ve received the back-up I want. And it may assist make fiascoes like this even much less of a fear, so I can spend my evenings coping with extra essential issues, akin to ensuring I steam the children’ broccoli excellent.