Blizzard’s new President will be Johanna Faries, the former Call of Duty GM and Commissioner of the CDL. At first, this might seem like terrifying news to Blizzard fans, but not all CoD execs are like Bobby Kotich. And Johanna Faries in particular has received a ringing endorsement from a highly-respected voice within the community.
Blizzard has been battling intervention from Activision for years, and it’s widely known that this is a sensitive dynamic within the wider Activision-Blizzard organization. But Xbox is in charge now, and they don’t care if the kids are fighting. Hence, they’ve made the former GM of Call of Duty, Johnanna Faries, the new President of Blizzard.
However, before you start bemoaning the death of Blizzard (which has been on the decline for decades anyway), we want to draw your attention to a ringing endorsement Faries received. Unlike all the other corporate pandering we can expect after such an appointment, this actually came from outside the company, from a highly-respected figure in the CoD esports community.
Adam Apicella Endorses Johannes Faries: “Good Call Microsoft”
Adam Apicella was one of the founding employees at MLG and then later Esports Engine, and he’s widely praised as one of the pioneers of CoD esports. All you really need to know is that his opinion is respected is because he always understood the community better than others working “within the system”. It’s also worth pointing out that he’s not employed by Activision in any capacity anymore, and so we can’t just disregard this as an employee fawning over their boss.
Here’s what Apicella had to say:
Johanna Faries as the new president of Blizzard.
She is thoughtful, empathetic, and a master diplomat. She will do a great job there.
Good call Microsoft.
Of course, Johannes Faries will still need to prove that she hasn’t been put in her new position just to oversee Xbox gutting Blizzard. And that is still a very reasonable possibility (just look at what happened to Odyssey), but this endorsement should give us good cause to be hopeful. Only time will tell if we’re being naive.