At least two top executives of Blizzard, Mike Ybarra, the President and CEO of Blizzard, and Allen Adham, the Chief Design Officer and Co-founder of Blizzard, have resigned along with the layoffs of 1,900 Microsoft gaming employees.
Ybarra expressed his gratitude to all the Blizzard employees and players who supported him but announced that he will now be a devoted fan of Blizzard from the outside.
Ybarra’s departure is significant as he had been an employee of Microsoft for 19 years (2000-2019), initially in the Windows development team before moving to the Xbox team. He then joined Blizzard in 2019 and rose to the top position at Blizzard in 2021. He had the opportunity to lead Blizzard during a transitional period, but when Microsoft became the owner of Blizzard, he decided to leave Microsoft for the second time.
Matt Booty, the Head of Microsoft’s Game Content Studios, mentioned in an internal email that a new President of Blizzard will be appointed next week.
In December 2023, several executives of Activision Blizzard, including CEO Bobby Kotick, announced their departure after the completion of the acquisition. This marks a complete shift in leadership for both Activision and Blizzard under the new ownership.
Mike Ybarra welcomed Phil Spencer during his visit to Blizzard studios in October 2023.
Meanwhile, Allen Adham is the last remaining co-founder of Blizzard. The other two co-founders, Michael Morhaime and Frank Pearce, had previously left Blizzard, with Morhaime establishing a new studio called Dreamhaven in 2020. Blizzard now no longer has any founding members.
In addition, Booty announced that Blizzard has canceled a new survival-themed game that was unveiled in 2022. The development team will be moved to other projects instead.
According to Bloomberg, the game, internally named “Odyssey,” had been in development since 2017 by Craig Amai, a former World of Warcraft team member. It was described as a game similar to Minecraft or Rust but set in a new universe unrelated to Blizzard’s other games. However, the game faced technical difficulties due to the switch from the Unreal Engine to Blizzard’s in-house engine called Synapse. The development team hoped that once Microsoft became the owner of Blizzard, the new management would approve switching back to Unreal. However, Microsoft ultimately decided to cancel the project because of significant delays compared to the original plan.
TLDR: Two high-ranking Blizzard executives, Mike Ybarra and Allen Adham, have resigned alongside the layoffs of 1,900 Microsoft gaming employees. Ybarra, who had been with Microsoft for 19 years, became a fan of Blizzard instead. Matt Booty, Head of Microsoft’s Game Content Studios, announced the appointment of a new President for Blizzard. In December 2023, several executives of Activision Blizzard, including CEO Bobby Kotick, left the company after the acquisition. Allen Adham remains Blizzard’s only co-founder. Blizzard canceled a new survival-themed game and shifted the development team to other projects. The canceled game faced technical challenges due to an engine switch.
Leave a Comment