Bloomberg News has reported the filling of the vacant top spot at Blizzard Entertainment (after Mike Ybarra was forced out as president), has been filled by Johanna Faries. My first reaction of course was “who?” since you normally hear familiar names that get shoveled around in the gaming industry. She comes via Activision Blizzard where she was the general manager for Call of Duty (specifically esports/league related stuff). Previous to that, she was a VP for club business development for the NFL.
In plain simple layman’s term, the majority of her background is teams related marketing/development and very little PC/console/mobile gaming experience at the executive level. This move by Microsoft Gaming kind of aligns with my feelings that they plan to dismantle the corporate structure at Blizzard Entertainment (removing the independence it used to value). So rather than finding someone from within those ranks to become the primary liaison in the new reporting structure, they chose someone from the Activision side (and someone who has little actual experience with gaming development).
Esports has also taken a dump in recent years, but there is that renewed push again to try and sell it to advertisers again post-COVID. IMHO, the consumer market has spoken. The general masses don’t view esports the same way they view traditional sports. Gamers also have different consumption habits (live streaming) where the ad revenue aspects of streaming platforms remind me of how web metrics were “gamed” back in the early days of the commercial internet. If Twitch isn’t making money (requiring all of the changes they’ve been implementing recently), that tells you something about the actual reality (including over paying for a lot of the bigger personalities who aren’t necessarily benefiting the entire eco system). But that esports side of the equation is her primary background/experience with the gaming industry since joining Activision Blizzard from the NFL.
The one positive is Blizzard Entertainment is finally being overseen by a female. Unfortunately, they really also needed a female leader who has an actual clue about the dynamics of the sort that Blizzard Entertainment has with their franchises. You can’t teach that sort of stuff (and learning is going to be a challenge because executives tend to be way too ensconced in their own realities, not to mention the baggage of scandals that has plagued Blizzard for the past few years that she will need to manage and deal with). I guess time will tell how successful she will be in this role.
