Asmongold TV - Blizzard's New President Says She's A "Fan of Diablo 4" | Asmongold

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Blizzard's New President Says She's A "Fan of Diablo 4" Subscribe to Asmongold TV on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AsmonTV Disclaimer: This podcast is an independent project created by a viewer using content from the YouTube channel Asmongold TV. The purpose is to make his content more accessible to those who prefer audio formats, helping more people engage with the ideas presented in his videos. This podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially associated with Asmongold. All rights to the original content remain with Asmongold TV. If there are any concerns or requests regarding this podcast, please reach out. ----- Keywords: gaming reactions, twitch streamer, streamer reactions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh boy. In this video, we have a new Blizzard president who mentions Diablo 4. I die to the weirdest bug in a hardcore run that I have ever seen in an announcement of an upcoming podcast and potentially Diablo 4 season 3 saved. All that more, let's get going. Some pretty interesting news about Blizzard and its future going forward has just been announced today. Now, if you remember in one of my previous videos on this channel, we ended up breaking down this. Blizzard layoffs, President Leaves, and New Game Cancer, in which we discussed.

There were 1,900 employees under the Microsoft umbrella. Some of those did include Blizzard that ended up getting laid off during that week. They're not the only company that was doing layoffs. Riot saw layoffs, even Twitch saw layoffs. In fact, I myself, I lost my Twitch manager to give you an idea to the layoffs as well. Even some of my sponsors were having layoffs also. So there was a significant amount within the last month. month or two of layoffs and blizzard was not unique in this scenario. But one of the people

that is fairly notable, they ended up leaving during this time, although it was not clear whether or not this was a layoff or not. You know how things go when you're a president or CEO. You voluntarily leave all of the time, regardless of if it's voluntary or not. Mike Ybarra. Yeah, I think that he was probably forced out because of some sort of misalignment. I just feel like that's what makes sense, right? Like, did he just random? we left? Like, I don't see that. Ended up actually leaving, which he was the previous president, and he says he is having already spent 20 years of Microsoft Blizzard with the acquisition of ActiveVisor

Blizzard. Behind us, it's time for me once again to become Blizzard's biggest fan from the outside, which left a vacancy in the president position in Blizzard. Seems to be filled as of today. And what's interesting is Blizzard actually makes a statement here, and this is the president, themselves, we'll get into who this is, saying that big Diablo 4 fan over here. So you do actually see a statement directly referencing Diablo 4. Okay, so you're... That's of all the things, man. Probably wondering who is this person, what is their history, and what does this mean going

forward? So I did some basic digging. I'm going to break down it for you now. This is Johanna Ferris. It works for Activision Prior. Now works for Blizzard, Harvard University graduate. As you go down here, you're going to notice multiple awards actually for sports. And that's is because prior to working for Activision, she worked for the NFL for 12 years, which is quite interesting. So it went from sports from the NFL to Call of Duty under the Activision side of things because she moved to the head of e-sports. So they kind of hired from the NFL, that's smart, bring someone in to manage their e-sports side of things. And this is polled here from a game informer article. Now, if we go here to a LA Business Journal article, you're going to see

one of her focuses here was Ferries led the formation and management of global city-based Call of Duty leagues which included 12 professional teams in major cities across four countries. Does that even work? I feel like that's the Overwatch approach and I always thought that was stupid. Like, did that even work? Like, I've never even heard of that at all. It failed? Yeah, I mean.

They took somebody from the sports side of things to make leagues within the esports under call of duty, sort of makes sense. And obviously, they feel this went well for them because then she moved on over to eventually working as the Call of Duty franchise manager. If we scroll back over here to the game informer side of thing. So she went NFL to e-sports, you know, helping out the figuring out how the leagues go, and then moving from there to the overall franchise manager of Call of Duty. And then we see her move on over to the Blizzard president side of things now.

Now, they made an announcement here. This is on the official Blizzard website introducing Johan Ferries as the new president of Blizzard Entertainment. And as we scroll down here, this is the internal. email that she has publicized as well for everyone to read. Now, I went ahead and read through this, and I'm just going to give you the TLDR, since this is a lot of corporate speak, this paragraph says it was an honor to join, and it's unfortunate the layoffs happened. This one is thanking the prior person for introducing her and basically saying she knows there's going to be a range of emotions and reactions to this. This paragraph's pretty interesting, and we are actually going

to read this one, because it says Activision, Blizzard and King are decidedly different companies with distinct games, coaches, and communities. It is important to note the Call of Duties' way of waking up in the morning to deliver for players can often differ from the stunning games in Blizzard's realm, each with different gameplay experiences, communities that surround them, and requisite models of success. I mean, that's good that she says that. I completely fucking agree. I mean, you can't run while like Call of Duty.

You can't run over. Maybe you can run Overwatch like Call of Duty. I don't know. But like, yeah, this is good that she says this. Corporate speak, yeah, I mean, but like, again, just saying this doesn't really mean a whole lot, right? I've discussed this with Blizzard's leadership team, and I'm walking into the row with sensitivity to those dynamics and deep respect for Blizzard as we begin to explore taking our universes to even higher heights. Now, I guess there's multiple ways you could take this. The cynical side of it is you could take it as she's saying that, well, call a do-a-dois way of printing money is different than Blizzard.

way of printing money and saddle up, boys, because we're going to teach you how to actually make some cash. I mean, really, I feel like, I think that's a pretty good chance. Yeah, I mean, now that I hear it, I mean, fuck, guys. Maybe. It could also be the exact opposite of that, which is, we understand Blizzard started as making games for gamers, and we are going to be aware of that dynamic and try to get us back to our core roots of that while taking things to higher heights.

It really depends upon if you're a optimist or a pessimist on this one. I don't know. I think that really like her taking over Blizzard, like I actually don't have any real strong opinion about it. Like I don't think that she's going to ruin the company. I don't think she's going to save the company. Like I don't think that we have anything to go off of. I mean, fuck.

How can you possibly yes? Oh, we'll have to see what happens. But definitely there is an addressing. here of the fact that Blizzard games are basically developed different than Activision games. And also like, I mean, how can even if things go badly, how can we even say any of it is really her fault directly? Because like, they're now owned by Microsoft. So like, wouldn't it be Microsoft's fault? And she's just doing what they tell her to do. So, like, it's impossible to have any idea, like, what actual impact somebody like this is going

to have. So this statement reads to me. Maybe it reads differently to you. The next one here is basically saying your games are awesome. I'm optimistic. We're not going to do anything that's disrespectful to your games, etc. Some lines here about meeting all of the employees and getting feedback. And then we have some lines about personal life here, just what she enjoys doing, her family, you know, introduction, trying to get a personal touch into the message here. And then the last line, I remain inspired by Blizzard's iconic legacy,

which I think is actually a good point here because it kind of brings it back to some of the O-G-ness. of Blizzard. It does actually have an iconic legacy, so it's cool to see it mentioned here. It's sad, you know, like what's happened over like the past years because like Blizzard used to be like that was like the place, right? Like that was it.

It's not just like saddle up, partner, let's get to the milking of the cash. And the transformative role gaming has played in my life and the lives of others. Can I wait to get going to listen to learn to empower to collaborate with all of you on both in bright future together today. Heather, we may any legendary days ahead. So basically a lot of corporate speak here. There's only one really major paragraph in here

for me that is fairly interesting, which is the one where she basically mentions Activision and Calla Dutty is different than Blizzard games. That's the only one in here that's not just like pretty standard. Nothing to be upset about here. Roe standard introduction. Cool to see a shout out for Diablo four in here. So don't know what that means for the franchise. I'm going to assume barely anything, I'll be honest. I heard a lot of people that worked that Diablo got fired. And really, I mean, who the fuck is surprised about that? The game sucks. So, yeah. End of the game. That's cool. Dumb up. Overall, I don't think there's a lot to, like, freak out about. There's nothing super positive to be super excited about either. It's just a

change of CEO. What really matters is the people actually in the trenches developing the games, and the layoffs didn't really affect them too much, though. I did hear, lost some artists, which is a bummer, considering the fact that, in my opinion, the artists are some of the best people on the team. But speaking... The art is okay. I mean, like, I don't think it's, like,

particularly incredible or amazing, but it's fine. About Diabah, before, stay of the game and its future. It seems like ever since... It's certainly not the top five. It's like... If, like, you want some's good, some's whatever. Yeah, I mean, like, I...

Like, it's... Well, like, who does... Who's the guy that designed the bosses? Like, where is he? What happened to that guy? Because, like, that's what I'm interested about. I got to figure out, like, where did that guy go? The patch, people are actually quite liking the new season

and even the, since you know, companion here is 1V1 in Killing Durio. So I haven't played the new patch or anything yet. I might take a peek at it, but I'm curious for the people that are playing. Does it legitimately feel a lot better for you? Because I'm seeing significant, fun feedback. people are saying that it's definitely a lot better than it was. And I'm curious, can one patch actually make that much of a difference? Should I log in and test it or am I getting baited here?

So leave a comment, let me know exactly what you think about that. In other news, I did a live stream out in the middle of nowhere in Alaska during a snowstorm and tested out to the new backpack equipment. You can see me over there struggling with the electric fat bikes, etc. We're going to have a full cut of this and post it as a video. so hit the subscribe and bell button to be notified when that one comes out because this ended up being kind of a hilarious journey.

However, it was a W on the backpack side of things. That new streamer backpack I got, I am extremely impressed. Yeah, what about the Wendy's? Both video, audio quality, 500 miles that way? I'm talking, I have a modem with me that is just cover this show

and everything's just working great. So shout out to unlimited IRA with their backpacks. Now I can sponsor it. I paid full price for that bad boy. okay and I pay full price every month. I'm actually impressed with that bit of hardware. Now to wrap it up with something funny, watch me rage. I was doing

a hardcore power world run and I died to the stupidest bug you're ever going to see and we ended up saying this shit don't count. I literally died in a loading screen, okay? So check this out. That's unfortunate. Oh, he's got a bacon. That's quite a bit of XP.

Wait, what? Oh, did it just glitch? Wait, what? I teleported. Apparently there's a bug where sometimes while you're traveling, it just randomly will kill you when you're loathing on the black screen. Sort of like, remember when Quinn dived in the bubble or he died in the lovro? Remember exactly that. Loathing screen for Diablo 4, like the star of the season?

Yeah. I was like, what just happened here? Yeah. But I absolutely lost my mind raging for the last hour after that happened. I was like, what is going on here? You do not understand this bug in the slightest. Yeah. All right.

And in future news, tomorrow at two people. PM, PST, we will be doing a live stream podcast with Zizarin and Gassi TV you can find on the Twitch channel, which will be in the big time as well as the description. That's the plan for tomorrow. So I'll see you all on the live stream tomorrow. Thank for watching the video. Love you all. And I'll see you on the next one.

I think that it is not a surprise that people are mad about like the Blizzard. Basically like Blizzard is in a position where like anything that they do, I'll link you guys a video. Make sure to give it a like. Anything that they do is going to get shit on by a lot of people because people just don't like Blizzard anymore. I think that's really what it is. Big Cisdrian POE interview, by the way. Yeah, I might look at that. I said I was going to watch his last Epoch video as well.

So, yeah, my God, you told on us yesterday with Blizzard GDPs? Yeah, I guess so, man. Gigi revealed instant buyout trading on POE 2. No, I might look at that in a bit. But, yeah, people are just like tired of Blizzard. I think that like really what happened was that like Blizzard went like really, really hard on trying to TechTone's message to China.

No, I haven't seen that. Give me one second. I'll, uh, I might look at that at some point. But, uh, a blizzard went really hard on like the whole social justice angle and shit like that. And they really, really tried to push that. And I think that it immediately fucking backfired whenever they had the sexual harassment. investment lawsuit because like they were trying to get like the like SJW type people and like you know

the woke type people and then like as soon as that lawsuit happened well it's like now you've alienated those people and you've also alienated the just like average you know dude bro gamers so like you come back and like you don't have either groups of those people that like you at all and I think that's kind of what happened with Blizzard yeah the neck beard gamers. Exactly. I was already dying before that. Yeah, I think so. But, like, it's also, like, having a lot of bad games is one thing, but having people

hate you is another thing. And I think that both of those are bad. Now, having bad games is the real reason why it's a problem. But, like, people complaining about it is always secondary, but it does matter, of course. Yeah, the diversity scale, you guys know about that. And so, yeah, a lot of those things were problematic. Absolutely.