In case you were wondering how Blizzard couldn't be circling the drain any further, they go and do this.
The only thing I can see in her favor is that she claims to be a Christian and doesn't appear to have a social media presence, but everything else weighs against her far too heavily to have anything but pessimism.
That actually sounds rather good. Is there anything other than the fact that she might be a diversity hire that counts against her - other than, you know, being picked by Blizzard.
She was the CoD GM on Activision and worked for the NFL (in what appears to the marketing departments). She was almost certainly picked by Microsoft.
She calls herself a big "fan of Diablo 4" rather than a Diablo fan, which is terrible, and she talks about her fondness for yoga and motherhood in her statement (the latter wouldn't be an issue for a normal woman, but for someone in charge of a vidya company, its exceptionally rare to have a based gamer mom on top of those things).
Many things about her feel "fake" if you read the statement. I don't buy what she's selling.
Even if she's somehow that 1 in 100 million type, it won't really change anything because there are far bigger issues at Blizzard than just the President position, like the board of directors, shareholders, and the fact that Blizzard has no talent, passion or soul anymore (and I mean that literally, pretty much everyone's fucking gone)
Edit: Also, she dresses like a man at least in one of the photos attached to the tweet.
Activision-Blizzard plopped her in there because the company is falling apart and "we got a woman president" makes for good puff pieces and if she fails to save the company they can just fire her easily.
Activision-Blizzard plopped her in there because they really think they can afford to add a diversity hire.
This woman is actually qualified to do the job. Unfortunately at this point the company is so fucked that it's highly unlikely just one person even in such a high position will be able to turn them around.
No pronouns in bio, which is quite a surprise. Equally surprising that there's a reference to a Bible verse. Psalms 27:13 "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living." Current Thing™️-ers generally seethe at any mention of scripture. The temple of ABK could use whips and table-flipping. I don't have high expectations, of course, but it's interesting.
Microsoft understands the landscape enough to know how people perceive what's happening in the industry (they just came off a tiff with Starfield).
She still fits their ESG paradigm by being an unidentifiable race (other than White), but has the mention of motherhood and Christianity in there to quell any dissent from those absolutely tired of Leftist sociopolitical grandstanding.
In their mind, it's a two-for-one deal, as everyone will be equally quelled and angered over some aspect of her (re)presentation, and they still get to keep their ESG bux, and continue to produce slop to brainwash people into becoming the "modern audience".
That's what put her in the seat, because that's what Blizzard has been chasing ever since DOTA1 left them. Her being a twofer diversity hire just sealed the deal.
Its literally pride for them at this point. They refuse to let it go and move onto any other of the current "popular" trends instead even though esports are mostly settled or dead.
There's money to be had there for sure - I've got a cousin who emcee's some of the games and makes good money at it. But they're other ones like Fortnite and PUBG. Overwatch and CallofDuty just haven't made the cut there. Although they threw billions at Overwatch.
The games that are esports hits are already settled and long standing in that regard. Nothing really new is coming out. The best you have is the newest iteration of certain Fighting games or maybe an FPS for a bit.
You aren't gonna muscle in on that turf intentionally. Blizzard has failed in every single genre to do so, at least when they were trying to make it happen (so SC1 doesn't count).
That's why most of the big companies moved onto GAAS and the like, because lootboxes and gacha whales are a lot easier to capture than esports.
That was troon privilege. I won't ever argue that Kotick wasn't sleazy, but that particular brand of sleazy didn't come about until disgusting ghouls started infiltrating Activision-Blizzard.
In case you were wondering how Blizzard couldn't be circling the drain any further, they go and do this.
The only thing I can see in her favor is that she claims to be a Christian and doesn't appear to have a social media presence, but everything else weighs against her far too heavily to have anything but pessimism.
That actually sounds rather good. Is there anything other than the fact that she might be a diversity hire that counts against her - other than, you know, being picked by Blizzard.
She was the CoD GM on Activision and worked for the NFL (in what appears to the marketing departments). She was almost certainly picked by Microsoft.
She calls herself a big "fan of Diablo 4" rather than a Diablo fan, which is terrible, and she talks about her fondness for yoga and motherhood in her statement (the latter wouldn't be an issue for a normal woman, but for someone in charge of a vidya company, its exceptionally rare to have a based gamer mom on top of those things).
Many things about her feel "fake" if you read the statement. I don't buy what she's selling.
Even if she's somehow that 1 in 100 million type, it won't really change anything because there are far bigger issues at Blizzard than just the President position, like the board of directors, shareholders, and the fact that Blizzard has no talent, passion or soul anymore (and I mean that literally, pretty much everyone's fucking gone)
Edit: Also, she dresses like a man at least in one of the photos attached to the tweet.
So three things are possible.
Activision-Blizzard plopped her in there because the company is falling apart and "we got a woman president" makes for good puff pieces and if she fails to save the company they can just fire her easily.
Activision-Blizzard plopped her in there because they really think they can afford to add a diversity hire.
This woman is actually qualified to do the job. Unfortunately at this point the company is so fucked that it's highly unlikely just one person even in such a high position will be able to turn them around.
I think 2 is most likely. She will be the face but little to no impute.
Minority Marissa Mayer
No pronouns in bio, which is quite a surprise. Equally surprising that there's a reference to a Bible verse. Psalms 27:13 "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living." Current Thing™️-ers generally seethe at any mention of scripture. The temple of ABK could use whips and table-flipping. I don't have high expectations, of course, but it's interesting.
Laodicean diversity hire.
Microsoft understands the landscape enough to know how people perceive what's happening in the industry (they just came off a tiff with Starfield).
She still fits their ESG paradigm by being an unidentifiable race (other than White), but has the mention of motherhood and Christianity in there to quell any dissent from those absolutely tired of Leftist sociopolitical grandstanding.
In their mind, it's a two-for-one deal, as everyone will be equally quelled and angered over some aspect of her (re)presentation, and they still get to keep their ESG bux, and continue to produce slop to brainwash people into becoming the "modern audience".
She got big for her work in the esports industry.
That's what put her in the seat, because that's what Blizzard has been chasing ever since DOTA1 left them. Her being a twofer diversity hire just sealed the deal.
Oh yeah - because that's been such a whopping success for Blizzard.
Its literally pride for them at this point. They refuse to let it go and move onto any other of the current "popular" trends instead even though esports are mostly settled or dead.
There's money to be had there for sure - I've got a cousin who emcee's some of the games and makes good money at it. But they're other ones like Fortnite and PUBG. Overwatch and CallofDuty just haven't made the cut there. Although they threw billions at Overwatch.
The games that are esports hits are already settled and long standing in that regard. Nothing really new is coming out. The best you have is the newest iteration of certain Fighting games or maybe an FPS for a bit.
You aren't gonna muscle in on that turf intentionally. Blizzard has failed in every single genre to do so, at least when they were trying to make it happen (so SC1 doesn't count).
That's why most of the big companies moved onto GAAS and the like, because lootboxes and gacha whales are a lot easier to capture than esports.
This is the publicly traded company equivalent of putting a 5 year old as emperor before a foreign power marches in.
So... Will she also be stealing breastmilk from the lunchroom fridge as her privilege as CEO, or was that just a Kotick privilege?
That was troon privilege. I won't ever argue that Kotick wasn't sleazy, but that particular brand of sleazy didn't come about until disgusting ghouls started infiltrating Activision-Blizzard.