7/13/2023 0 Comments David kim diablo iv twitterWhile tensions had been building for years before the final negotiations last year, ranging from NetEase's investment in Western studios Activision wasn't happy with (former Activision-owned studio Bungie being one), in the end the fate of Chinese players' Blizzard accounts may have come down to a misunderstanding. The break in Activision Blizzard's partnership with NetEase in China which happened in January this year cost many Chinese players the ability to play Blizzard games, and today the New York Times may have some insight as to how the relationship between the two gaming giants might have gone wrong. This ambitious title will serve as the launch for a compelling live service, with regular seasons and story-driven expansions planned to drive engagements for many years to come.īlizzard monthly active users dropped by 40% (from 45 million in Q4 2022 to 27 million in Q1 2023). Public testing of the game in March saw very high engagement and positive feedback, and strong pre-sales. Warcraft: Arclight Rumble continues to progress well through regional testing.ĭiablo 4 will launch on PC and console on June 6. Segment operating income was broadly stable year-over-year, reflecting development and marketing costs, including launch investments ahead of the Q2 Diablo 4 release.įollowing the November release of Dragonflight, the WoW team is delivering more content faster than ever before, and subscriber retention in the West is higher than at the equivalent stage of recent Modern expansions.ĭiablo Immortal contributed to Blizzard's Q12 net bookings growth with the game experiencing stable trends across engagement, retention, and player investments. Microsoft plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $95 per share in an all-cash transaction, which has been approved by the board of directors of both Activision Blizzard and Microsoft and by Activision Blizzard's stockholders.īlizzard segment revenue increases 62% year-over-year in Q1, with each of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo contributing to growth. In-game net bookings were $1.29 billion (up from $1.01 billion for Q1 2022).Īctivision Blizzard generated $577 million in operating cash flow for the quarter (down from $642 for Q1 2022). The Principal Game Designer job title itself means working on the core systems, and if we had to hazard a guess, we'd say classes and their balancing, whether via gear or other systems, might be one of Kim's focuses.Īctivision Blizzard announced their financial results for Q1 2023 and we have the highlights.įor the quarter ended March 31, 2023, Activision Blizzard's net bookings were $1.86 billion (up from $1.48 billion for Q1 2022). On the WoW side of things, some players have been complaining about the game having moved towards Diablo systems in the past, with World Quests and especially the RNG nature of loot, so they might not be too happy with this particular move, but Kim has been very good at balance, coming from a very heavy StarCraft background. As spotted by Rhykker, his replacement on the D4 team seems to be Joe Piepiora, who was promoted from within the D4 team. It seems likely that Kim will stay in WoW for a while at least, and it's unclear if he'll be returning to Diablo, which doesn't seem like a good thing for the 4th installment, but as it's still a long way away, it might not be that big of an issue. On the D4 side of things, we're not quite sure what this means, as it seems unlikely the job was "done" and so Kim could move on, and it's a lot more likely he was needed in WoW due to Shadowlands crunch (as he started the job back in September), since it was all hands on deck to get the expansion out the door. Kim has been moving around a lot, with his longest stint coming from StarCraft 2, where he started at Blizzard back in 2007, jumping in to Heroes of the Storm, back to SC2 and then Diablo 4 most recently. It seems David Kim is the Jack of all trades in Blizzard, as he's once again moved to a new franchise within the company! The Diablo 4 Lead Systems Designer, who was very front and center at the BlizzCon D4 announcement, has moved to the position of Principal Game Designer for World of Warcraft:
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