LogIn"I think we should have listened more to the player base."
Blizzard
World of Warcraft is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In an interview with PC Gamer’s Heather Newman, Holly Longdale, Vice President & Executive Producer of the World of Warcraft franchise, reflected on the biggest thing that the company should do better, from the perspective of both a long-time player and a team leader:
"I think I'll talk about this with the lens of [experiencing] a large part of the journey as a player, and a recent journey as a very humble and lucky leader on this team," she said. "I think we should have listened more to the player base."
Blizzard
WoW has offered a few ways to communicate with the players. For example, they launched the Community Council back in 2021, which works as a new channel “for communication between players and WoW developers.” They also have an official forum, which is kind of outdated nowadays, as social media works as a more convenient and immediate channel for players to have their voices heard. Speaking of social media, Longdale also talked about how its role in communication evolved over the years:
"We didn't have the same depth of social media. We had forums, and that was sort of the center point of all feedback, which wasn't really reflective," she said. "So it's kind of two pieces that have been a bit of an evolution, which is listening more and observing on the other side."
Blizzard
It’s always a tricky task to achieve a balance between players’ requests and making the game fun and challenging, and it could be a more difficult challenge for the WoW developers, considering how big the franchise and the player base have been. Longdale’s reflection could mean that we can expect some changes in the future made by Blizzard.
The 10th expansion of WoW, The War Within, was launched on August 22 on early access and will be officially online for all in three days. You can read PC gamer’s interview here and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.