If you’re familiar with my work over here at Windows Central or my notoriety on social media, you may be aware that I have over 10,000 hours inside World of Warcraft.
I’ve spent a staggering amount of time in the land of Azeroth, Blizzard’s pioneering MMORPG that changed gaming forever. For a time, it felt like the game was truly unstoppable and without equal, but with its 20th anniversary recently behind it, the gaming landscape looks very different.
World of Warcraft continues to hold its own, but there’s more competition than ever for “service” type games that are the cornerstone of Blizzard’s entire operation.
Whether it’s Fortnite, Minecraft, or more recent upstarts like Marvel’s Rivals or Path of Exile, there are more credible alternatives to Blizzard’s classic franchises than ever before. That’s even before you begin considering the rise of new, addictive forms of entertainment like streaming and algorithmic social media.
It’s against this backdrop of incredible challenge and change that I recently spoke to Blizzard President Johanna Faries, who just completed her first year stewarding some of the industry’s most beloved games.
From the NFL, to Call of Duty, to Blizzard
Coming out of Harvard, Johanna Faries started her career in the U.S. National Football League (NFL). For 12 years Faries worked across a variety of roles within the NFL, gaining a broad set of skills in marketing, strategy, and business development.
Although the NFL is “sports” in essence, the parallels to the gaming industry are stark, particularly given Activision’s interest in developing esports. Indeed, Faries would eventually go on to become general manager for Call of Duty, the largest video game franchise in the world, and later, Blizzard Entertainment.
“My 12 years at the NFL offered me some of the skills I’d argue Activision-Blizzard found valuable at the time, back in 2017. Activision was really looking for sports and entertainment industry leaders to come in and help build a framework for esports,” Faries explains, although she did have some reservations about moving across from sports to gaming, and not because gaming was unfamiliar to her as a hobby.
Faries herself has been actively gaming since she was five years old, she tells me, a self-described “Nintendo kid,” growing up in an environment where gaming was simply commonplace.
The hyper-technological, fast-paced, community-oriented, globalized operation of Call of Duty forced Faries to really sit and consider the career move — with concerns she might be considered an “outsider” on top.
Ultimately, Faries did make the leap, and rose through the ranks of Activision-Blizzard to become one of its high flyers, described by Variety500 as one of 2022 and 2023’s top business leaders.
You want to retain the players who have been with you going on 20 years in some cases. They have a certain set of expectations.
Johanna Faries, President of Blizzard Entertainment
Johanna Faries took over from Mike Ybarra last year, following the final acquisition of Activision-Blizzard under Microsoft. I asked Johanna Faries about the challenges Blizzard and, indeed, other gaming companies face in today’s times.
As she described herself, the hyper-dynamic nature of the industry has seen many of the biggest players struggle to find their footing in modern times. Blizzard’s own games like Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft, and Diablo 4 have all had big challenges of their own to overcome in recent years too.
I asked how Johanna Faries and Blizzard are threading the needle between satisfying the existing legacy fanbase, while preparing for younger cohorts who potentially want a very different product.
“You want to retain the players who have been with you going on 20 years in some cases. They have a certain set of expectations. Taking World of Warcraft as an example, you can’t have every expansion being such a ‘zag’ that it feels totally unfamiliar to your core fanbase.”
“At the same time, there’s a constant conversation — which I’m really edified by frankly — about remaining core to what we are, while also broadening the aperture.”
Faries explains that World of Warcraft’s recent blitz to serve all types of players, with casual solo content, catch-up content, and super hardcore content underpins this effort.
She describes how WoW’s recent soloable dungeon content “Delves” are appealing to her as someone who often prefers single player games.
“There’s different demographics that only have so much time in their day. Creators have a certain expectation too, even before we get to commercialization of the content. It’s a never-ending chase to strike the right balance.”
“We’ll be spending the next several hours here at the office talking about exactly that, and I think it’s happening at a creative-led, player-first way. There are always more ways we can innovate that our players continue to want to come into these worlds.”
Johanna Faries’ answer here reminded me of a concern I’ve had for World of Warcraft recently. The game has turned a corner in recent years and has begun offering a far more compelling product than it has over a few previous expansions.
Ironically, I worry that it is becoming too good, or at least, rather, too expensive. The quality bar for World of Warcraft is becoming higher and higher, with players expecting more and more for a subscription price that has barely shifted in 20 years.
Overwatch 2 has seen similar pressures from competitors like Marvel’s Rivals, and Diablo 4 has seen increased competition from titles like Path of Exile 2. Faries used Blizzard’s recent relaunch in China in partnership with NetEase as an example of how the team is tackling these new challenges.
“A tangible example of this, and I’ll get back to quality shortly — but there was a quality bar that had to be met to relaunch our titles in China recently, bringing these titles back to China in a way that feels ‘world class,’ but also for players who have endured an ‘undulating’ past few years.”
Faries refers, of course, to NetEase and Blizzard unceremoniously parting ways under previous CEO Bobby Kotick, which saw World of Warcraft and other titles pulled from the region.
There isn’t a day that goes by where we’re not asking ourselves, is this up to our standards? Is this better than previous standards, even?
Johanna Faries, President of Blizzard Entertainment
Chinese gamers are a huge part of Blizzard’s active player base, so bringing the titles back to the region was a large undertaking for the team. Faries said Blizzard wanted to raise the bar for how Blizzard games are perceived at a global level.
“It has been tremendously cool to witness how agile each of these franchise teams at Blizzard have been, and to say it’s ‘not good enough’ to simply turn the servers back on,” Faries explains.
“There isn’t a day that goes by where we’re not asking ourselves, is this up to our standards? Is this better than previous standards, even? How does the next WoW expansion outdo this one? How can Overwatch reinvent itself in certain ways?”
“There’s a constant nudge for us for us to stay on the front foot with respect to quality, and do things that are perhaps unexpected to reinvigorate the conversation around the quality bar we want to meet.”
“Lastly, I’ll say it’s easy to say, and harder to do. But this is the calibre of the talent, the quality of the people of Blizzard — that they’re able to maintain a bar, raise a bar, or even reinvent a bar.”
Reinvigorating Blizzard development
If you go back over some of my articles from yesteryear, I wrote several angsty editorials about how Activision was unravelling Blizzard since its acquisition.
The essence of Blizzard, and the quality bar the company was previously known for, was coming apart under previous CEO Bobby Kotick, with ideological decisions being made at the expense of players.
Overwatch’s sequel, Overwatch 2, would end up being hardly a sequel at all, cancelling its planned PvE story content and falling back on PvP gameplay changes that haven’t always been popular.
Fast forward to 2025, and the game seems to be getting back on track, with the return of persistent rewards, a new gameplay-changing perks stacking system, and an all-new economy PvP mode called Stadium slated for a bit later.
The same has proven true for World of Warcraft, which had a sprint of very poorly-received expansions, before vastly changing its design philosophy, doubling down on catering for players of all shapes and sizes without compromising the core experience.
The recent expansion, The War Within, is arguably the best expansion WoW has had in years.
“One of the things I’ve really focused on is getting more, let’s say, honest, strategic, cross-functional conversations surfaced. It’s on me and the leaders to shape the vision, and decide what bets we’re going to take, but we need to make sure we’re creating space for the best and brightest developers in the world to just have a tough conversation.”
“Let’s get the right voices in the room and not feel like we’re being overly siloed in the wins or proverbial misses so we can cross-pollinate any learning, and disseminate that quickly and intentionally across multiple teams. But also, to keep a sense of safety to celebrate the tough strategic conversations, right?”
Faries explains a desire to flatten the hierarchy more so than Blizzard has previously known, as the team explores things that worked (or didn’t) more frankly than perhaps was previously possible.
Indeed, one sign I’ve taken personally that Blizzard has changed its thinking post-Kotick is with the introduction of player housing into World of Warcraft. It might seem like an odd example, but this is a feature people asked for for literally 20 years — and a feature Blizzard always had to explain away why they weren’t doing it.
We’re in this hyper-learning, hyper-agile moment, right in time to throw out some curve balls. Create player surprise, reinvigorate, and re-refresh.
Johanna Faries, President of Blizzard Entertainment
Now, they’re literally giving players what they asked for, even if it seems like a potentially risky bet.
“This is a nod to everybody showing up ready to continue raising the bar. To surprise ourselves, invigorate things, and unwind ourselves from what could be ‘limiting’ beliefs, right?”
“The whole rubric of ‘what got us here’ might not ‘get us there.’ Or, if a new entrant comes into the market place, we have to get into learning mode very quickly, or just have a good conversation about where to go next.”
Faries explains that by having frequent internal Town Hall-style events, they’ve been able to innovate on new features for World of Warcraft’s player housing from people who aren’t necessarily in the WoW team itself.
Faries recognizes that the “risky” unexpected moves like WoW’s player housing, or Overwatch 2’s new perks feature, have resonated and resulted in more positive conversations around the games.
She credits the teams at Blizzard for their ability to stay agile and remaining in “strong concert.”
“We just met as a whole company as recently as just yesterday, talking about some of our additional future bets too. We’re in this hyper-learning, hyper-agile moment, right in time to throw out some curve balls. Create player surprise, reinvigorate, and re-refresh — but not just for its own sake.”
As Johanna Faries referred to “future, unannounced bets,” I asked if any of those announcements included classic Blizzard franchises like StarCraft or Heroes of the Storm. Coyly, Faries replied “we have nothing to share today,” with a knowing smile.
Blizzard into the future
With Blizzard’s current games like Overwatch 2, Diablo 4, and World of Warcraft in a pretty positive place, it’s hard not to wonder what the future holds for Blizzard.
The company has flirted with transmedia properties before, with the (underrated) Warcraft movie for example. But competing mega franchises like League of Legends have seen a ton of success with the accompanying Netflix show Arcane.
Nintendo has also enjoyed strong outings with its Mario movie, and Cyberpunk 2077 was essentially revived by its award-winning Netflix anime. I asked if Blizzard is ready to set its sights beyond games again, given that the company enjoys that unique pedigree akin to Nintendo, where nostalgia for its franchises represents decades of good will.
“The short answer is, we’re looking at everything, and I mean that very intentionally — and I can’t share anything specific today — but we talked again as recently as yesterday, that we have a strong collective belief that we are Blizzard Entertainment, and not simply Blizzard Games or Blizzard Gaming.”
“Our universes, our iconic IP can vector off into many interesting dynamic directions. We have to be thoughtful, responsible stewards of those franchises, right? Not everything will fit, and execution absolutely matters. We do think about what we can do to show up for the entertainment industry, as broadly as we can describe, so Blizzard can continue to be a beacon of that sort of … magic making, fostering joy.”
We’re looking at everything (..) we have a strong collective belief that we are Blizzard Entertainment, and not simply Blizzard Games or Blizzard Gaming.
Johanna Faries, President of Blizzard Entertainment
“Blizzard’s core foundational level is making world class games, but some people will go to BlizzCon and have their life changed. Meet their life partner. Some people will have a reunion gathering and watch that old Warcraft movie. That’s part of what it means to stay in culture, and continue to shape it. So absolutely, that’s the lens we’re looking through here.”
I want to give a huge thank you to Johanna Faries for taking the time to sit with me for this glimpse into Blizzard’s future.
It’s World of Warcraft’s 20th year, Blizzard’s 30th year, and my own 10th year covering gaming here at Windows Central. I am absolutely one of the people Johanna Faries is talking about above with regards to Blizzard fostering joy beyond the games themselves, as are many of you potentially reading this as well.
Some of my best friends to this day are people I met in Blizzard universes, with many of my fondest gaming, and non-gaming memories finding themselves at least incidentally linked to games like World of Warcraft.
People often find joy through their favorite sports teams or outdoor hobbies, but for those who grew up playing Blizzard games there’s a special sense of community and belonging that these games potentially foster.
For my part, I found myself reassured that Johanna Faries emphatically seems to not only understand but also visibly appreciate that most crucial aspect of Blizzard during my call with her.
