Mike Ybarra, Blizzard’s End of Year President in his blog post Summarize the state of the company.
According to Ybarra, 2022 was a great year for Blizzard, whose matches were played for 12 billion hours last year. Meanwhile, an unnamed survival game is being prepared, whose team is twice the size of a year ago. He noted that this would be the company’s first new IP since Overwatch. The head of the project is Dan Hay, who came from Ubisoft (he is the producer responsible for the Far Cry games there). We don’t know much about him. It’s so overhauled that it’s coming to PC, and according to this year’s job posting, it’s set in a location filled with heroes we’ve never met, stories never told, and adventures we’ve never seen before.
Ybarra added that they will bring back BlizzCon in 2023, which has had problems in the past few years not only due to the pandemic. In fact, the idea was rejected in 2020 due to the coronavirus, but in principle there should have been an alternative program in 2021 (it would have been BlizzConline), but Blizzard eventually froze the plans, due to discrimination and sexual harassment within the company. As a result, the “Blizzards”‘s reputation quickly deteriorated. The company will say more about BlizzCon back at the beginning of the year, and it already has a new official producer in the person of April McKee.
On Blizzard’s work culture, Ybarra reiterated that the company has added several new employees: Jessica Martinez in a “brand-new position of Vice President of Culture” and Makaiya Brown as President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. According to Blizzard’s president, culture is not an individual job, and the company has “assembled a culture team from across Blizzard’s functions to help us improve the way we work.” Blizzard took a “deep look at the mission, vision and values upon which it was built; it is a project our staff and players will see results in the new year.”
However, as part of Activision Blizzard, Blizzard has also been involved in cases of harassment and sexism…
Source: PCGamer
