Why Bobby Kotick is in Moneyball

I spotted this news story from Reuters which asked — and got an answer to — a question that I have heard a lot of gamers ask: “Is that really Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, talking to Brad Pitt in the trailer for Moneyball?”

Mind you, some people were more surprised than others (one particularly ridiculous, anything-for-traffic headline: “What the F*** is Bobby Kotick Doing In This Brad Pitt Movie?”), but, yes, it is really him. Check this trailer, about 15 seconds in:

The answer turned out to be a good one: charity. Bobby is friends with director Bennett Miller, and he agreed to the cameo only if Miller made a film for the Call of Duty Endowment, the charity Bobby set up to give veterans quality jobs when they return to civilian life. Reuters has a full quote:

We were having dinner and Bennett was talking about Moneyball and he asked me a little bit about an owner’s psychology and what an owner would be like. I started reading the script and I said, I really think the words don’t capture how an owner would react to this part of the conversation.  I also loved Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball . We were having this back and forth and Bennett said ‘why don’t you do it? It would make the role very authentic.’ And I said, ‘I will, but only if you made my Call of Duty endowment movie.

Miller agreed, and apparently we’ll see the results of both ends of this deal soon — Moneyball opens September 23, and the Endowment film’s release is TBD.

Meanwhile, Bobby intends to make this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: “I don’t get a credit and you’ll never see me acting again.”