Should the WoW team hand the reins over to younger talent?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

As we just got off a relatively long patch cycle that people acted like was the longest cycle ever, I don't think its a very wise decision.

Obviously if something comes up legally, then people will have to be moved out, but just randomly firing people makes no sense at all, especially if you actually were upset by this longer season 1.

Either way, I imagine we wont be seeing season 3 this year, thanks to this.

I mean at this point the game's struggling, BFA was a massive bomb and Sadowlands has been received lukewarm at best, major influencers are now outright jumping ship to competitors, and then you throw the fact that the WoW team was a major vector of issues from The Report, and the people working on the game are basically in full mutiny at this point against Ion, Bizzard, and Activision in general, and there's no chance he rides this out.

[MoanaLisa]

...the people working on the game are basically in full mutiny at this point against Ion...

Sorry, I haven't seen Ion's name pop up at all in employee tweets and statements. Furthermore, the 'mutiny' against Blizzard and Activision isn't at all about WoW's quality or lack thereof.

[Zorachus]

Get rid of Ion immediately, he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near 10.0.

All his stupid "systems" need to be nuked permanently and nothing like them ever allowed again in WoW.

Thanks to Ion, we have Shittylands.

[muto]

Yeah new ideas would be nice. Tired of playing Systemcraft, which started in WoD with Garrisons.

[Nize]

As we just got off a relatively long patch cycle that people acted like was the longest cycle ever, I don't think its a very wise decision.

Obviously if something comes up legally, then people will have to be moved out, but just randomly firing people makes no sense at all, especially if you actually were upset by this longer season 1.

Either way, I imagine we wont be seeing season 3 this year, thanks to this.

They could always just cut some content they might have planned for 9.3 to save time. I'm sure at this point they know SL is dead in the water, so pulling a half-assed 9.3 so they could focus on the next box content is definitely something that's being considered, similar to WoD.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

All they need to get though their heads is stick to what you do well. Stop trying to delete everything in the game and reinvented it every expansion pretending its all new stuff. Then just go with it a bit and let things PROGRESS forward. I get expansions are resets in a way.. but they have been like.. such a hard reset every expansion for like the past 3-4 its just like you are watching the hand of the dev reach over and push a button labeled "reset".

[deenman]

In the wake of this controversy, now seems a good a time as any to shuffle leadership roles in Blizzard. Hand over WoW to the young people who applied to Blizzard because they grew up loving Warcraft - people who appreciate the old lore but have new ideas.

Sega did something similar in recent years and we got Sonic Mania out of it. 9.2 is already going to be super delayed anyways.

the wow team has no say in who develops the game,the executives decides who gets hired for what roles

[Souflikar]

Start with J. Allen Brack.

[BronzeCondor]

Handing over the reigns of anything to young leadership is a risk due to the experience gap.

With that said, if Blizzard handed the reigns over to the cotton candy haired individuals at Blizzard, White Guilt would be the central focus of the next expansion, their sales & subscriptions would plummet, and they'd blame the failure on the past culture of the company.

[Sastank]

I like how people just assume the literal worst and think it must just be literally every single person there doing shit. So they should all be witch hunted and out of jobs.
Like what?

[Magical Mudcrab]

Kotick needs to go. Townsend needs to go. Brack needs to go. Hazzikostas needs to go. Pretty much any executive-level staff member who allowed the company to become the horrible workplace it apparently is needs to be purged from Activision Blizzard.

That needs to happen first before Blizzard can even think of restoring their status as a prestigious games developer.

This is such a deluded take. Kotick is responsible for many problems, but this is definitely not one of them. The problems that have been revealed in Blizzard within the last week predate the merger in 2008 and are endemic to the company.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry, I haven't seen Ion's name pop up at all in employee tweets and statements. Furthermore, the 'mutiny' against Blizzard and Activision isn't at all about WoW's quality or lack thereof.

What do you mean? We can totally read between the lines and find that the real reason that people went to HR was to complain about the declining quality of World of Warcraft expansions and not the blatant sexism found throughout the company's leadership. /s

[hydrium]

Get rid of Ion immediately, he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near 10.0.

All his stupid "systems" need to be nuked permanently and nothing like them ever allowed again in WoW.

Thanks to Ion, we have Shittylands.

You're never going to see Ion let go unless he leaves himself.

Finance and marketing are in charge of the decision making and Ion's stupid fucking systems keeps metrics and engagement high even if it is zombies logging in to do their slave labor. Ion is the best thing to ever happen to Blizzard's bottom line seeing how revenue is up even considering the game is hemorrhaging players.

Blizzard isn't about making fun gameplay, they're about keeping you logging in and wasting your fucking time.....and you do it.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Sorry, I haven't seen Ion's name pop up at all in employee tweets and statements. Furthermore, the 'mutiny' against Blizzard and Activision isn't at all about WoW's quality or lack thereof.

Absolutely. Many people can't get over their own agenda here. The current issues have only tangental relation to "our" usual pet grievances and are probably at best a factor in them, but not the root. Whoever thinks whatever comes out of the current scandal will lead to improvments to WoW is delusional. This isn't even on the radar of the employees right now.

[Jinpachi]

At this point, 3 things need to happen

#1 Eject all perverts from the company

#2 Figure out who is left and what their ability/experience is

#3 Construct a competent team accordingly


Until #1 is done, NOTHING will change. NOTHING.

Shit, they wont have a company left if they do #1. The younger talent replacing all the old blizzard vets work for the competition now. What's left at blizzard is essentially a team full of last picks on the gym floor.

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What a dumb suggestion that old people are the problem here. It's not old people, it's dumb people. The boo'ing from the dumb, cringe people in the Blizzcon video here:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1418629194683125761

The people whining that content might be delayed as Blizzard deals with this crisis. These people. The people that don't understand that a sub doesn't pay for content. These people.

I'd say the problem isn't "old" devs, it's a mentally deficient fan-base. It's these people that grow up wanting to make games, apply for jobs at Blizzard, and the cycle repeats itself.

Bold of you to assume you're not one of the deficient fans.

[Soon-TM]

I like how people just assume the literal worst and think it must just be literally every single person there doing shit. So they should all be witch hunted and out of jobs.
Like what?

It usually happens when leadership sweeps !@#$ under the rug for years and years. Eventually, it is very hard to know who was an actual jackass who couldn't keep his dick in his pants (with very few exceptions), who was willfully turning a blind eye to all the crap going on, and who was afraid of coming forward due to fear of being fired, or even worse, blacklisted. So saints end up being burnt along with sinners, as we say in Spanish.

[Crionics]

When the work place turns into something this bad, the bosses need to get the boot. Not knowing what's going on in your work place when you're the boss is pretty inexcusable imo. Good leaders and bosses could never be kept in the dark about all of this stuff that happened. They really had no idea this type of abuse was so widespread? Did they never leave their offices? They either knew or they're so inept they're oblivious. Fire them all. It's win-win in a way. The game has been stale for a bit and needs fresh direction and incompetent or uncaring bosses that created a hostile work environment get punished.

[BrintoSFJ]

In the wake of this controversy, now seems a good a time as any to shuffle leadership roles in Blizzard. Hand over WoW to the young people who applied to Blizzard because they grew up loving Warcraft - people who appreciate the old lore but have new ideas.

Sega did something similar in recent years and we got Sonic Mania out of it. 9.2 is already going to be super delayed anyways.

Japanese idea of taking inspiration from old and American idea of taking inspiration from old is very different. There is no way Blizzard will go any higher than this with its current Ips with younger generation.

[exochaft]

I would favor a young personnel influx into leadership positions. Hopefully, younger minds and values aren't as predatory as the current "frat boys" and leaders.

I can safely say that the more things change, the more things stay the same... especially when it comes to human nature.

One of the issues you run into when hiring for higher positions and management is that the younger people tend to be ill-equipped for it, whether it's knowledge or even maturity. It's not always the "good ol' boys" club of hiring friends, it's literally because more experienced people tend to handle such positions better. If you can find young people with as much experience as the old guard, that's great but highly unlikely. It's even more important during such times at Blizz to create some stability, not going nuts and completely upend things even further.

In terms of mentality, as alluded to above, youth are typically not the best option in that department. I mean if we're going to use the term "frat boy" culture in this regard, that's literally implying typical behavior exhibited by young kids in frats. The younger you are, the more likely you're going to be making decisions based upon emotions, or at the very least make poor decisions due to a lack in experience. Again, exceptions do apply, but they're still exceptions.

The best you can do is hire who is best for the job with what you have. While employing "young, fresh minds" sounds nice, the chances that you will find what you need with that criterion is slim to none. You're better off finding "fresh minds" than qualifying them as young, as you can even hire someone who isn't young and is outside of the industry, who has loads of experience (whether job or life experience, as both matter) and can jump into the job with minimal downtime.

[ek0zu]

They could always bring any other top Leader that has no experience in the MMO industry, it could work, there is no point circulating around the same people that built star wars galaxies, everquest and some other game 20 years ago.

I am sure that there are people in the industry who have lots of experience in game development but not in the MMO industry that could bring some fresh air in the product that WoW is nowadays.

Why not bring in people from Terraria or from Risk of Rain? People who did massive things with little to no funding? Maybe those people are not interested but i think it would be cool to reach out to some very good developers out there that have proven themselves.

I am also sure that there are lots of people within the company who work hard, are talented and have the background to give as a good game, better than the one we have now. I know that the world needs people with "experience" and our western society always asks for things that are unrealistic, i believe that there are many people out there that if they get the chance they can thrive, something that is not nowadays happening very often.

[Kokolums]

They don't need YOUNGER talent. They need extroverts. They need people who actually LIKE interacting with other people. WoW is obviously designed by people who like video games but hate people.