WotC New WotC President Is World of Warcraft's John Hight

After WotC president Cynthia Williams resigned a couple of months ago, taking up the CEO role at Funko, we've been waiting to hear who her replacement will be.

WotC has now announced that John Hight--who previously managed the World of Warcraft franchise for Blizzard Entertainment--is taking over. Like Williams, Hight comes from a video gaming background.

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said "I admire John’s career focus on fostering community. He is a true embodiment of our mission to bring people together through play. John’s love of D&D and Magic: The Gathering, combined with his leadership in video games, will be crucial as we expand our digital offerings to deliver what our fans crave."

Hight worked at Blizzard for 12 years, on both World of Warcraft and Diablo. According to Business Wire, his role includes oversight of Hasbro's network of gaming studios and digital licensing agreements.

 

[Aldarc]

That community was very worried at the time he left, as he was in charge when a lot of great things happened for them--Mists of Pandora, Shadowlands, Legion, the revival of Classic. Yes, not great things happened on his watch: Battle for Azeroth, but he would have learned lessons from those. In hoow many industries in the world do we have executives in charge of overseeing teams that care about player engagement, storytelling, game mechanics, graphic design... Like a few other rational people here, I'm really confused as to where some of you expect WotC to find its executives if not from within the gaming industry.

Shadowlands? A great thing that happened to them?

Shadowlands is considered by the WoW community as a top contender for the dubious honor of "worst WoW expansion" to date. Since Metzen has returned, Blizzard has been trying to quietly sweep Shadowlands under the rug so that people forget about it and its lore, including some retcons in the incredibly recent Warcraft Chronicles Vol. 4 book.

 

[mamba]

No, but it is fairly promising thst this guy started as a programmer and game dev, moving on up from producer to executive. Means there will be some understanding of the development process.

it shows that the focus is on digital, but employee numbers alone tell us that already, so choosing a computer guy makes sense, games or otherwise.

I have nothing against the guy, know too little about him to have an opinion. I assume he is competent and just as good or bad as a bunch of potential alternatives.

All it does is confirm the digital focus of WotC

 

[Marandahir]

it shows that the focus is on digital, but employee numbers alone tell us that already, so choosing a computer guy makes sense, games or otherwise.

I have nothing against the guy, know too little about him to have an opinion. I assume he is competent and just as good or bad as a bunch of potential alternatives.

All it does is confirm the digital focus of WotC

And given that MtG Arena and D&D Beyond are both hugely popular apps for playing their respective games, that makes sense. It also makes sense in light of the Virtual Tabletop.

Remember that 4E was created because of the push for Digital Tools + Virtual Tabletop, that collapsed in on itself for multiple reasons (including personal tragedy at WotC). Now they have the Digital Tools properly implemented, and are making another run at the Virtual Tabletop.

In addition, MtG Arena is set to finally have a true-to-tabletop environment as of this holiday when the Pioneer Masters set releases, bridging the gap from the Explorer to Pioneer environments. That means that they can finally stop lagging behind tabletop in Arena. Expect it to be a top-tier interest of WotC.

 

[Parmandur]

Interesting, it looks like he was involved with most of the Atari era D&D games as a producer, including Temple of Elemental Evil, Demon Stone and Dragonshards on top of Neverwinter Noghts stuff, that was a pretty good era for D&D games:

 

[Henadic Theologian]

TBF, that's always been the golden goose for that crowd. Even Peter Adkison quit once he found out Hasbro foolishly sold off the video gaming rights without consulting him first and he was the one who bought TSR to save D&D.

I am not saying that makes me feel great for how he might treat the print product and dare not say it could be an improvement over the last couple of years in fear of jinxing it.

It would be almost impossible for him to do worse.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

TBF, that's always been the golden goose for that crowd. Even Peter Adkison quit once he found out Hasbro foolishly sold off the video gaming rights without consulting him first and he was the one who bought TSR to save D&D.

I am not saying that makes me feel great for how he might treat the print product and dare not say it could be an improvement over the last couple of years in fear of jinxing it.

Dude worked on the great NWN2, along with other D&D properties, does that really count as an outsider?

He also done video game writer in so he has some experience with being a writer.

Worked on World of War craft will is inspired by and in turn inspired D&D. Worked on Diablo 3 which was made into a D&D setting.

Also Worked on God of War 3.

This gives me hope.

 

[Azzy]

But does he have any actual D&D experience?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Shadowlands? A great thing that happened to them?

Shadowlands is considered by the WoW community as a top contender for the dubious honor of "worst WoW expansion" to date. Since Metzen has returned, Blizzard has been trying to quietly sweep Shadowlands under the rug so that people forget about it and its lore, including some retcons in the incredibly recent Warcraft Chronicles Vol. 4 book.

One dud among a bunch of better recieved stuff like WoW Classic.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Interesting, it looks like he was involved with most of the Atari era D&D games as a producer, including Temple of Elemental Evil, Demon Stone and Dragonshards on top of Neverwinter Noghts stuff, that was a pretty good era for D&D games:

View attachment 373270

The most thrilling title on there you did not underline is Shadow of the Colossus. God that game was ahead of its time.

 

[Aldarc]

One dud among a bunch of better recieved stuff like WoW Classic.

Three duds as far as WoW is concerned: Warlords of Draenor, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands. These are generally regarded as the three worst expansions out of the nine released so far.