Mike Ybarra, the head of Blizzard, has taken steps to restore trust among fans of the game developer – or at least that is his hope.
As a Blizzard fan, it has not been easy in recent years. Not only have all the major games from the once-popular developer greatly declined, but many scandals surrounding the company – ranging from sexism to abuse and death threats – make it hard to look forward to upcoming games.
Mike Ybarra, the current Blizzard CEO, is aware that the trust of nearly all players has been shaken. In a blog post, he stated that they want to regain trust – and revealed what steps are being taken to achieve that.
Who is Mike Ybarra? Mike Ybarra is the current head of Blizzard. For a short time, he ran the company alongside Jennifer Oneal, but she left the co-leadership after just a few months, leaving Ybarra to hold this position alone. He is fairly popular among players, partly because he regularly streams, maintains contact with the community, and plays World of Warcraft at quite a high level.
What did he say? In the article on the official Blizzard site, Ybarra discusses how the past year has been quite tough – and COVID-19 was just one of the reasons, referring to all the incidents and revelations surrounding Blizzard and the major abuse scandal.
The main goal is to rebuild trust in Blizzard, both among fans and employees.
The efforts that are being pursued or are already in the implementation phase include:
- The leadership team will be held accountable for improving the company culture. Compensation and success will be directly linked to the goal of creating a safe, inclusive, and creative workplace.
- More full-time positions will be created to improve the company culture. Usually, these are often roles taken by people who already have full-time jobs. This should now change, and the new leadership includes:
- A “Culture Leader” who will aim to preserve the best of today and strive for necessary improvements.
- New organizational leadership in the HR department to enable teams to create a safe, positive workplace for everyone.
- A “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leader” who will be solely responsible for progress in these areas across multiple levels.
- The size of the “Compliance and Investigation” team, which deals with violations and allegations, has tripled, and clear guidelines for accountability and unacceptable behavior have been developed, which apply to all employees, including management.
- Data on representation has been shared internally with employees, and clear goals have been set to improve these values.
- There is now an “Upward Feedback Program” so employees can evaluate their supervisors, which will be used as a means to assess the quality and effectiveness of the managers.
These are just a few of the changes, and surely more will follow in the coming months.
At the end, Ybarra also revealed that there will soon be new content and information about games – what this could be has been discussed in this article.
