Numerous other terminations and resignations followed in the wake of that suit, both among employees implicated by it and not. Diablo 4 director Luis Barriga and lead designer Jesse McCree both departed Blizzard in the summer of 2021 shortly after California's sexual harassment lawsuit rocked the company. The Diablo 4 team also had to adapt to sudden leadership changes last year. As one example, a team of approximately 20 developers was roughly cut in half by attrition as employees left the company for better pay or work environments, two of the paper's sources said.
The current and former Blizzard staff interviewed by The Washington Post have mixed predictions for Diablo 4's reception.Īnother reason employees feel overtime is necessary, according to the report, is loss of talent over the past year. This change was to distance the character away from a developer, who the character was named after, who was terminated from the company following accusations of toxic behavior.The stock incentives are "really just a way for the company to, without mandating crunch, make people want to work much, much longer hours, and stress themselves out, and burn themselves out to save the company money," a Blizzard employee told The Washington Post. This event served as a major milestone to show off new products, but the company affirmed to fans that more details about upcoming games would be revealed elsewhere.Īlong with this, one of Overwatch's most iconic characters - McCree - was renamed to Cole Cassidy. Recently, Blizzard announced that Blizzcon, the company's long-running fan expo and online event, has been delayed indefinitely to "reimagine" the event. Despite the delay for Overwatch 2, however, Blizzard stated that the game will still be present in the upcoming Overwatch League season in the Spring.
However, with recent shifts to improve company culture and fill vacant roles, it's unclear when we'll see more of these games in the future, let alone their release date. While I am not totally sure what form that will take, I am excited to embark on a new journey to find out."ĭiablo IV and Overwatch 2 are the next entries in two of Blizzard's most popular franchises. This energy has inspired me to step out and explore how I can do more to have games and diversity intersect, and hopefully make a broader industry impact that will benefit Blizzard (and other studios) as well.
I am doing this not because I am without hope for Blizzard, quite the opposite-I'm inspired by the passion of everyone here, working towards meaningful, lasting change with their whole hearts. "Effective immediately, Mike Ybarra will lead Blizzard. "I want you to hear from me personally that I have made the decision to step away from co-leading Blizzard Entertainment and will transition to a new position before departing ABK at the end of the year,"said Oneal in a statement on the Blizzard blog. Along with the announcement that Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 would be delayed, the co-head of Blizzard Entertainment, Jen Oneal, who had just taken on the role in recent months, has announced her departure from the company as well.
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