Its only been 4 years since this studio was acquired under Spencer. Thats clearly to little time to actually follow through on the promises he so grandiosely makes (at least if it drops the share price of the company they want to buy).

Thats the problem with the hands off approach people praised Microsoft/Xbox for.

Well, at least now the Activision Blizzard employees know what to expect about the "changes" Microsoft would bring to them and won't be disillusioned.

What I do find pretty damning is the run around tactic MS went with apparently:

Microsoft PR initially reached out during the reporting process for this story to offer potential interviews on some of the topics it covers. Despite repeated follow-up attempts by Kotaku, however, those interviews never materialized. In response to a long and detailed list of questions, Microsoft provided only a series of statistics, brief background comments, and the following statement on behalf of the head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty: