IGN Interview
We’ve provided a brief summary below, but be sure to check out the complete interview for more information and additional context.
Warcraft Movies
With multiple major gaming IPs finding success in multimedia, Hight was asked if Blizzard would re-enter that arena with future Warcraft movies. Though he expressed interest in growing Warcraft through new media projects, he wanted to avoid Blizzard explicitly getting into the the filmmaking business.
“certainly be interesting…We make games and I think that games will always be our core, and so Warcraft will be centered around that. I don’t want to fall into the trap of ‘I will be a filmmaker now.’ I think leave that to the folks that really know what they’re doing. If we can find talent in other areas doing media that have that shared love and passion for Warcraft, absolutely. But I think I’ve seen, unfortunately, some of my colleagues get enamored with the idea of becoming filmmakers and leveraging the opportunity that they have in owning the IP or controlling the IP to be an entry into filmmaking. But there are so many professionals who have been doing this for so many years, there could be dozens if not a hundred films that can execute so much better. I wouldn’t have somebody that only made movies come in and try and build a game like Warcraft, right? So I think finding those partnerships is the right approach.”
Players have been clamoring for screen adaptations of the Arthas and Thrall storylines, but it looks like they may need to wait for Blizzard to find the right partnership before those dreams could become a reality.
Licensing Warcraft to Other Studios
Other gaming studios like Riot have licensed out their IP to indie studios to make more games. Would Blizzard ever license out Warcraft to other studios? Hight had a similar response that it’s something they’re interested in but it’s about finding the right partner with the right values.
“Certainly open to people who really get it and have a cool idea about how to express Warcraft and if we feel like aesthetically they’re going to be able to hit the bar…I think if we found the right partner, found the right situation, I think especially if they have a proficiency in a game genre that we really don’t, I think that’d be the ideal partner for us to work with and we’re open to that, but that’s relatively new. I’m open to it because I want to have Warcraft out there a little more than it is now, and I also don’t want to have us grow so fast that we’re no longer able to serve the audiences we have. But I think there’s some benefit in leveraging other companies that share our love for it, have a really cool idea, share our belief in quality and have the ability to execute on it. But now that’s probably a pretty small list, right?”
Focusing on World of Warcraft
While Hight is interested in expanding the Warcraft universe and is proud of the success of Warcraft Rumble and Hearthstone, his focus and home is World of Warcraft. As Dragonflight winds down and WoW enters the Worldsoul Saga with The War Within, Hight wants to avoid content lulls with a more consistent cadence of new activities between major patches, such as with the recently released Plunderstorm limited-time event.
Hight talked about future plans for many events like Plunderstorm; that is, events that are seasonal and the team can use whenever they need them. They aren’t opposed to firing up a Plunderstorm or another event whenever the players want something new.
“If they like it, that’ll inform what we do next: whether it evolves an existing system, whether it becomes part of one or both games or whether it continues as an event. We like the notion that there are events that are seasonal in a way that come in just like we do the seasons in WoW itself…What we’re trying to build is a repertoire of fun things for the live team…to be able to pull the arrows from the quiver and use them when we need to use them. If we get a point where we can see the players want a new event or engagement, we can fire up a Plunderstorm or we can fire up some other event. And we are planning a lot of different kinds of events like that.”
This seems to indicate that Plunderstorm can absolutely return in the future and the Pandamonium Timerunning of Patch 10.2.7 could also be a seasonal event. What would you like to see from a future Seasonal Event?
Season of Discovery
Hight’s embrace of the unconventional extends beyond Dragonflight with Classic’s Season of Discovery. While it’s proven to be a quite popular version of World of Warcraft, players are wary that the fun has an expiration date once the level cap reaches 60. IGN asked Hight if Season of Discovery’s success will endure beyond that.
He doesn’t fully confirm that Blizzard has more in the tank for Season of Discovery past level 60, but he does heavily imply Blizzard is poised to respond to its popularity.
“I think there’s going to be things that will repeat and then there’s things that will evolve,” he says. “I can’t tell you how that turned out because we’re still seeing how players are responding to it, what they’re telling us they like that may be one of those that we evolve and we do a new incarnation of it or maybe one that we repeat the cycle. What was fun about that is the Classic team itself has some really involved players. They love supporting and playing their own game, and so those ideas both for Hardcore Mode and for Season of Discovery came out of that developer team. We turned them loose. We were like, ‘Give us your pitches. Tell us the things that you’d like to do that you think we would like.’”
Sustaining the Next 20 Years of Warcraft
As a final followup question, IGN asked if World of Warcraft can sustain the franchise in the long-term. Hight says yes for another 20 years and beyond but to do so it’ll need to adapt. As an example, Blizzard has been more conscious of player’s time has implemented features like character boosting services, tutorials, and more to help players “get in, find the fun, and find their friends.”
Responding to the game’s community is key. For Hight, everything comes back to sustaining the existing community and having content for players to return to.
Returning players is one of our biggest segments…They may sit out an entire expansion, they might have been gone for five years, but they like to come back in and check it out.
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