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

[SNES-1990]

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.

[Clbull]

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.

[Sentynel]

Considering the fact that they are constantly hiring for literally every position, I'd say there are plenty of young people in the WoW team. I assume there's a healthy amount of rotation in the WoW team.

[Chriisto]

Considering the fact that they are constantly hiring for literally every position, I'd say there are plenty of young people in the WoW team. I assume there's a healthy amount of rotation in the WoW team.

He is talking about young people in leadership roles, not the kids who go pick up the coffee

[AngerFork]

Transition towards new people in leadership roles? Sure. The WoW team has seemingly stagnated & it absolutely has affected the game. New people in the top roles might just invigorate the entire team & make the product better overall. Maybe use 9.2 and/or the 10.0 expansion to transition new people to these roles with fresh ideas & a love for the game the current leadership seems to have lost.

Hand over the reins to younger talent? Not so sure there. While the younger talent may be better & absolutely should be considered, there's a lot of stuff in the industry that can sink any project, such as scope creep. Handing it to someone inexperienced could likely cause massive delays which given how desperately WoW needs a more immediate win could well kill the game. Especially with Activision constantly breathing down their necks trying to take the company over. That's to say nothing of the ageism implied by specifying "younger talent" as opposed to simply "new leadership." Definitely younger talent should be considered for those roles, but given how prevalent ageism already is in game dev, I'd rather not force that as a specific qualification.

[Tarvi]

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.

[ablib]

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.

[Metrox]

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.

The stockholders would favor doing nothing except the minimum to keep stock prices high. Rocking boats don't generate dividends.

Guess who has the ultimate decision power?

[NordWitcher]

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.

You know that’s the stupidest thing right? Who do you think are working right now in Blizzard? Folks that grew up in WoW. Ion is an Elitist Jerk raider from back in the day. And now he’s game director for WoW.

[Berius]

You know that’s the stupidest thing right? Who do you think are working right now in Blizzard? Folks that grew up in WoW. Ion is an Elitist Jerk raider from back in the day. And now he’s game director for WoW.

Ugh just hearing 'Elitist Jerks' makes me shiver. Was never a fan of Elitist Jerks site. Regardless of the knowledge they had, they had a dickish way of doing things. They truly were elitist jerks and proud of it!

[Roxinius]

not even about the lawsuit the people running it now have 0 clue what the player base even wants

[MrDaemon]

I am pretty sure dev team is being denied implementing things as they want. All the new systems are designed to extend sub time, unless this changes, younger talent will fix nothing. Look at raids, they are insanely well made because they don't have to follow any rules there. There are some balancing issues here and there but that is expected.

Legendaries, Torghast, not being able to upgrade m+ items to max, time gated renown, conduits taking forever to upgrade to max, not being able to fly at expansion launch, even fucking fly paths are retarded so you have to travel for a long time, low amount of loot, personal loot, laughable amounts of anima when you needed thousands to even buy something
All these things have bad reputation because they have to be designed to extend sub time.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I was thinking of this today. I think odds are high and growing Ion's canned before 9.2 is announced at this point, but who really should replace him at this point? Muffinus I'd imagine is the "next in line" guy, but after The Report and given the direction the game's been heading, is he the guy to take over the team and turn the game around?

Feels to me like what Blizz should do is bring in someone from outside the WoW team, someone with knowledge of where the MMO industry is sitting in 2021 instead of someone that's basically learned from Ion "Destiny/Diablo Gameplay".

[Berndorf]

Purging the old guard leadership seems like a good starting point but that hardly guarantees a better game afterward imo. It might produce a better game if the new leadership is less short term profit driven though.

[glowpipe]

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.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...eb2x&context=3

[MoanaLisa]

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.

Management is largely dealing with people, sitting in meetings, tracking down and co-ordinating schedules and paperwork. I'm not sure that this is where you want the sort of people you're proposing. I'm not saying they couldn't use some fresh blood. They could. But in order to attract the sort of people that can really change Blizzard they have some work to do first.

[zhero]

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.

no, she deserved the booing. she was just repeating talking points without knowing much about the game.

[MoanaLisa]

To be fair he said leadership change, not specifically management in the role you are describing.

I can pretty much guarantee you that any name you toss out as a "leader" at Blizzard spends most of their day doing exactly those things. That's what big corporations are. Quite obviously, 1000 employees don't manage themselves (very well).

EDIT: One of Blizzard's problems (in my opinion) is their fealty to consensus, i.e. committee management. There are names we know but how Blizzard really works is getting supervisors, managers and the rest to all sign off on stuff. I'm not a fan of this style of management. If you remember the entire business during Warlords about flying, it went on for months because they couldn't get a consensus from the team leads on what to do.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

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.

[Th3Scourge]

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.

The longest patch cycle ever for the start of an expansion with little to no content. People have a right to be pissed