Blizzard president Mike Ybarra believes players have “no patience” and are constantly calling for new content. Speaking to The VergeYbarra discussed Blizzard’s effort to give players what they want while balancing a desire for quality and the business realities of making money.
“Players have no patience,” Ybarra said. “They want new stuff every day, every hour. We’re trying to react that way while holding the Blizzard quality bar high. We know players want new content literally almost every single day. At the same time, it takes large teams to be able to deliver that.”
Ybarra went on to talk about Blizzard’s effort to make sure players don’t feel like they are getting taken for a ride when it comes to value for their money.
“I always tell the teams, ‘When someone spends one dollar or a penny with Blizzard, I want them to feel good after they do that. How do we get to a world where we know that’s always going to be the basis of what we ‘re doing?'” he said.
Blizzard is now owned by Microsoft following the Xbox company’s $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. Ybarra awning Bloomberg that he foresees a future where Blizzard’s decision-making will be faster than it was before. “Going to [Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer] and saying, ‘Hey, can we do this?’ I think he would look at me and go, ‘Run your studio,'” Ybarra said.
During BlizzCon 2023 recently, Blizzard made a number of big announcements. One of them was the Worldsoul Saga for World of Warcraft, and this will span at least three expansions. The first of these, The War Within, is scheduled for release in Fall 2024.
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