Mike Ybarra se ohlédl za rokem 2023

Blizzard Games in 2023

Loo­king back on this year, we had a gre­at focus on put­ting peo­ple at the forefront of eve­ry­thing we do — both pla­yers and our teams at Blizzard.

• The World of War­craft team wor­ked hard throu­ghout the year to ensu­re the­re was alwa­ys some­thing fun to do in both Dra­gon­fli­ght and Clas­sic, with more pla­yers joi­ning us right now than we saw at the launch of Dra­gon­fli­ght! The WoW com­mu­ni­ties also wor­ked toge­ther to rai­se USD $1.5 mil­li­on for Blu­e­Check Ukra­i­ne.
• Hearths­to­ne laun­ched three expan­si­ons — taking us to a music fes­ti­val, allowing us to wield the power of the Titans, befo­re finally brin­ging pla­yers to the heart of the Badlands. We also brou­ght on a new game direc­tor this year, Tyler Biel­man, and the team con­ti­nu­es to inspi­re with the­ir creativity.
• War­craft Rum­ble laun­ched at Blizz­Con, and mil­li­ons of pla­yers around the world are reve­ling in the joy­ful chaos.
• Dia­blo IV had an ama­zing launch, and Sea­son of Blo­od is a gre­at exam­ple of how the team is growing the­ir game alon­g­si­de the­ir players.
• Dia­blo Immor­tal cele­bra­ted its first anni­ver­sa­ry whi­le intro­du­cing the first new class for the uni­ver­se in near­ly 10 years, the Blo­od Knight.
• Overwatch 2 cele­bra­ted Pri­de in-game for the first time ever, and joi­ned for­ces for legen­da­ry cros­so­vers with our very own Dia­blo, One-Punch Man and LE SSERAFIM.

The 2023 Blizzard Community By The Numbers

Blizzard Culture in 2023

We alwa­ys say that we want to think of our cul­tu­re work at Bliz­zard like the work on our games – part of who we are. We’re alwa­ys buil­ding and ite­ra­ting on dif­fe­rent ini­ti­a­ti­ves, pro­grams, and more. We belie­ve gre­at ide­as are core to Bliz­zard and should come from any­whe­re. Ear­lier this year, we relaun­ched Bliz­zard Uni­ver­si­ty (or Bliz­zU, as we like to call it) and intro­du­ced Pame­la Bur­ga as our new DE&I Offi­cer. Toge­ther, we hos­ted hun­dreds of tra­i­nings and events aimed at edu­ca­ting our teams and buil­ding our inter­nal com­mu­ni­ties, total­ling in 11,282 sign-ups throu­ghout the year! We laun­ched new employee networks, and brou­ght the Inclusi­on Nexus back to Blizz­Con 2023. Our teams wor­king on acces­si­bi­li­ty con­ti­nue to inspi­re, with World of War­craft con­ti­nuing to take mas­si­ve ste­ps for­ward, and Dia­blo IV being nomi­na­ted in the Inno­vati­on in Acces­si­bi­li­ty cate­go­ry at The Game Awards. This award reco­gni­zes advan­ce­ments we’ve made with dex­te­ri­ty assistan­ce (inclu­ding but­ton remap­ping); text assistan­ce (inclu­ding transcri­bing spo­ken word to chat); visi­on assistan­ce (with audio cues) among many other are­as so we can ensu­re our games are avai­la­ble and pla­ya­ble to as many peo­ple as possi­ble. Within our indust­ry, we are making it a pri­o­ri­ty to con­nect with, sha­re, and learn from our peers: at GDC, the 2023 D.I.C.E Sum­mit, mul­tiple dis­ci­pli­ne-spe­ci­fic con­fe­ren­ces, and throu­gh con­tri­bu­ting to impor­tant research ini­ti­a­ti­ves like the Design Pla­y­book for Digi­tal Thri­ving.

Blizzard in 2024

Of cour­se, alon­g­si­de plan­ning for and hol­ding Blizz­Con 2023, we have been plan­ning for next year. 2024 is going to be a mas­si­ve year for the War­craft uni­ver­se, with a collecti­on of anni­ver­sa­ries coming up: 30 years sin­ce the first War­craft game, 20 years of World of War­craft, 10 years of Hearths­to­ne, and the one-year anni­ver­sa­ry of War­craft Rum­ble! We have some fun acti­vi­ties plan­ned throu­ghout the year to cele­bra­te within all of our com­mu­ni­ties (and across them!), and we’ll be rele­a­sing the first install­ment of the World­soul Saga, The War Within. Hearths­to­ne will bring a new way to play Batt­le­grounds with fri­ends with Duos, alon­g­si­de more incre­di­ble the­mes and mecha­nics for upco­ming expan­si­on sets. War­craft Rum­ble will roll throu­gh sea­sons, brin­ging new minis, Raids, and even more ways to have fun in Aze­ro­th on the go.

Dia­blo IV will have new sea­sons, and its first expan­si­on, Ves­sel of Hat­red, will also be rele­a­sed in 2024: this will con­ti­nue the sto­ry of Mephis­to and Ney­relle, and bring with it a brand-new class never befo­re seen in the Dia­blo uni­ver­se. Overwatch 2 will have three new hero­es next year (Ven­tu­re, a hero codena­med Spa­ce Ran­ger, and a yet-to-be-reve­a­led tank), the new Cla­sh mode, a rework of Com­pe­ti­ti­ve mode, and much more.

Then the­re are our pro­jects in deve­lo­p­ment. We look for­ward to sha­ring more about these pro­jects with you when the time is right. As I said at Blizz­Con, this is a brand-new era for Bliz­zard – now part of Micro­soft Gaming – and so much more is possi­ble as we double-down on what we love to do: craft genre-defi­ning games and legen­da­ry worlds for all to share.

I want to end the year with a thank you — for sup­por­ting our teams here at Bliz­zard, whe­ther it’s throu­gh how you play our games, what you sha­re with us on social media, and more. This is only the begin­ning, and we couldn’t be more exci­ted to be here alon­g­si­de you.

See you in 2024!

• Mike “Qwik” Ybarra