Looking at her resume, she's been actively working in game dev since 1999. So it's quite likely she's been a game dev longer than many of the crud complaining about her have been gaming. Or even been alive.
Politics aside, solid hire. She's got a great track record. So does Ybarra. Not a cure for everything going on, but I can't fathom anyone having a problem with either.
If I would try to be misandrist I would post every single criminal statistic on this planet? Lol.
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I was at first skeptical about Ybarra and why they would need to put a man at Oneals side, especially one who isn't really into game development himself, but then I remembered that there are also many accusations of a shit ton of bullying going on against departments which are not directly connected to game development, like quality control and customer support and that there is a strong caste system in current Blizzard. Like, that they are literally forced to eat the rests of the game devs when they order food, which is fucked up. Him seemingly being more of a plattform and services guy, I hope that he will ensure fairer and more respectful conditions for these employees. Also he seems to be a hell of a World of Warcraft player and pretty active, so I think if they also restructure the World of Warcraft team, he may do some good there.
Maybe. Hard to say - appointing two could be many things - they want to avoid "You're just appeasing men/woman!" by appointing one, or they didn't have a clear candidate, so both have a shot at President or CEO down the road. Don't know. It's a surprising move, for sure. But looking at both of them, they both have clear leadership qualities, along with dev cred and such. Ybarra has experience in platforms and PC, and that's Blizzards stated future, and she's a known solid producer who will know how to build and maintain teams that get projects done on time, on budget, and are well received by players (even with her Destiny 2 black mark on her record).
Most of the posters in this thread should just post 'I hate women" and be done with this, because that's what their comments boil down to.
I can't be misandrist and neither can I be racist. I have male friends and my girlfriend is white.
I also read that back with Brack, they did something similar with basically a triumvirate leadership, so it could be just normal, which is also something I didn't knew when I was first skeptical about that choice. But generally I am on your right, both have insanely good credentials and Ybarra being an active WoW player really made me happy. When it comes to Destiny 2, wasn't VV just there in a supporting function? I'm also generally curious on what changes we will see at the individual game teams.
And thats why I stopped bothering and just started to call everyone an Incel, lol. Its funny how its 2021 and most of these people still live in 2016 and haven't noticed that lefties are edgy too now.
I don't care who they pick to lead the company. But it is interesting to me that so much of the criticism and concern is aimed at the woman and not the ex-console guy who has been at Blizzard for less than 2 years. Definitely makes you wonder...
I mean... Ion is part of the problem (the way I see it), but if he was to go away, he'd be instantly replaced by another corporate yesman. It is the whole company culture what needs to change, a couple of folks leaving here and there won't change anything in itself. For all we know, a hypothetical replacement for Ion could perfectly e.g. even double down on mechanics that encourage buying tokens.
The SVP of HR at Blizzard also just got the boot. Looks like heads are starting to roll.
Curious to see what affect this has. A lot of people have been unhappy with Blizzard's direction the last several years, so it's worth trying new leadership.
I kind of agree with some of the sentiment here re: Activision control. I'm not for turning games development into a factory operation, but Blizzard has squandered their relative autonomy and most of their goodwill over the last decade. They haven't been publishing new games or really taking advantage of their IP, it's clear that there's been systemic mismanagement on some of the teams, they've just generally let a lot of stuff go to shit.
Jen Oneal / Vicarious Visions seems to have a pretty solid track record, especially in recent years, both in terms of successful releases and in proactively establishing good workplace culture and hiring practices.
I'm not as familiar with Mike Ybarra. I've never been in the Xbox camp, but Games Pass seems pretty pro-consumer and he helmed that. Also makes me feel optimistic that he actually seriously plays WoW at a fairly high level. If he sincerely cares about the game, which seems to be the case, then he probably wants it to be better.
Last edited by Kathranis; 2021-08-04 at 02:14 AM.
That has nothing to do with not being able to be misandrist or racist. White people can have black friends and still be racists. A woman can be married to a man and still be misandrist and sexist. Same as a man can be married to a woman and have many female friends and still be misandrist or sexist. Women can and are even sexist towards other women.
This is what I think about a lot. Blizzard was kept relatively independent for a long time, but the results of it in the latter half of the last decade have been, honestly, underwhelming. Activision's claw will dig deeper in Blizz now, but there comes a point where you have to take a hard look at the situation and be honest about it.
Blizz has not used it's relative independence well. While I loath the idea of a factory like operation, at this moment, maybe they do need some oversight. And that leaves a terrible taste in my mouth when I say it.
I don't want solutions. I want to be mad. - PoorlyDrawnlines
And they only picked this Microsoft guy because he's not a long time Blizzard executive. The point is there are reasons to believe they're both "token" hires.. but one of them is getting overwhelmingly more attention... which to me suggests a lot about what motivates the concern.
Excellent point. Titan was under Morhaime's watch, and that seemed to have sucked up a lot of resources and gutted morale and basically broke Metzen. They made a big deal out of projects being worked on at the Blizzcon when Diablo:Immortal was announced, but the only one to see the light of day was D4, and that was expected anyway.
Both Sbarra and Oneal have hands on experience managing product pipelines and product development. People have been speculating for years that Blizzard's pipeline is broken. Brack didn't seem to have any real success at fixing it.
Doubtful any of this is based on one issue. There's a lot going on internally, obviously. We're just getting the thunder and lightning flashes from the battle up on Mt. Olympus.