Blizzard's Co-Leader Jen Oneal Steps Down After Just 3 Months - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 November 2021 / 1,465 Views
Blizzard Entertainment in an earnings call with investors announced co-leader Jen Oneal is stepping down after just three months.
Oneal, the former Vicarious Visions boss, became co-leader for Blizzard along with former Xbox executive Mike Ybarra in August after J. Allen Brack left the company. She is leaving the company to focus on bringing more diversity to the video games industry.
"I am doing this not because I am without hope for Blizzard, quite the opposite — I’m inspired by the passion of everyone here, working towards meaningful, lasting change with their whole hearts,” Oneal said in her goodbye letter to employees.
"This energy has inspired me to step out and explore how I can do more to have games and diversity intersect, and hopefully make a broader industry impact that will benefit Blizzard (and other studios) as well. While I am not totally sure what form that will take, I am excited to embark on a new journey to find out."
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in a statement with GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi said, "I had a lot of confidence, and still do, in Jen’s ability to lead. I think she really wants to go and transform the industry.
"Her mission in life is making great games and transforming the industry so that gaming, as more women enter the workforce, is more inviting and welcoming to women. It will be a great opportunity for us to partner with her as she leads the charge."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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She left because she ignored the problems beforehand, then tried to muck around months later and decides to throw up her hands and leave the company, what a joke of a person.
Safe to say this is a bad sign, but from the outside we'll probably never know exactly what the problem is.
Maybe they just put her in that position cuz they needed a female, but weren't actually letting her do the job. Or, maybe the culture is just too fucked at Blizzard, and she didn't want her name attached to the next round of bad news.
This is pretty funny. They fired all the competent people over undefined accusations, brought in a woman to lead the company and she ran away in 3 months.
"I had a lot of confidence, and still do, in Jen’s ability to lead. I think she really wants to go and transform the industry."
She's literally doing the opposite of leading the company forward. Corporate nonsense everywhere at Blizzard, no wonder they cannot function. Japanese value loyalty for a reason. All these 3 month leaders self-congratulate themselves while actually accomplishing nothing but disruption.
All the best of Blizzard work at Frost Giant Studios now, among other new studios. On their website they list 9/9 developers as male, and they have one female leader overseeing business operations. There isn't any problem... they are getting together to hopefully make the first new good RTS game in over a decade. Free of Kotick at last.
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