Holly Longdale, Executive Producer & Vice President for World of Warcraft, spoke in an interview about how the acquisition by Microsoft has affected Blizzard after the first few months.
What did Holly Longdale say? The Executive Producer for World of Warcraft talked about life at Blizzard under the Microsoft banner. First, Longdale explained how helpful it is to be closely connected with all the experienced minds from Team Xbox now.
They have already had intensive exchanges with the developers of Mojang (Minecraft) and Zenimax (The Elder Scrolls Online), discussing what has worked in the past and what hasn’t. Blizzard can now benefit directly from these experiences.
Furthermore, the WoW head explained that there has been no outside influence so far:
No one is asking us to do anything. World of Warcraft is doing very well, and they [Microsoft, note of the editorial team] are very proud of what WoW has achieved, so it’s almost as if we can just do our thing and continue to be fantastic. They have supported us enormously, and it’s as if Blizzard can just be Blizzard.
Holly Longdale in an interview with VGC
More than just a PR cliché?
How should I evaluate these statements? During BlizzCon 2023, Mike Ybarra had already emphasized that Blizzard has become more independent, self-responsible, and confident due to the acquisition by Microsoft than it was in previous years under the leadership of Activision and Bobby Kotick.
Would Ybarra still sign this statement a few months later? After all, in January 2024, there was a bombshell news with massive layoffs (especially at Activision Blizzard), the cancellation of Blizzard’s survival project, and the dismissals of Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham.
With The War Within, WoW is starting a new chapter this summer:
It seems very unlikely that all these things happened without Microsoft’s direct influence.
Moreover, one must not forget that Blizzard had already transformed into a giant service-focused corporation due to the immense success of WoW long before Activision could negatively influence the culture and projects of the creators of Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft.
The current corporation Blizzard, with its thousands of employees, can never become the “good old Blizzard” again, but must continue to rely on service products, tap into new demographics (for instance, through mobile releases), and milk its core franchises.
However, we can hope that in the future—thanks to Game Pass and the resources of Microsoft—there will be at least sporadic player experiences from Blizzard that remind us of old classics and provide great single-player experiences. Obsidian and the small Pentiment prove that such projects are possible under Microsoft.
More on this topic: Blizzard wanted to be free from Activision – But Microsoft does not allow that
