This news comes in the wake of BlizzCon 2022 being cancelled and the entire event being put on indefinite hold. It is clear that the on-going sexual harassment lawsuit is taking its toll on Blizzard Entertainment, as the company is bleeding talent rapidly.
Just recently, Jen Oneal and Amy Dunham left the company. Their departures came of their own volition though many suspect they are related to the on-going lawsuit, which led to the company losing several high-profile developers, many named as harassers in the investigation. The delays of the two games was revealed during an earnings call with investors. Previously there were no publicly posted release details for these games, but the way the delay announcement was worded implied that the company planned to release both games in Fiscal 2022. Now, the games are no longer planned for the next year and will only launch later. No specific reasons have been given, just vague corporate-speak about giving the games more time to complete production and grow and to delight audiences and blah, blah, blah, but it is almost certain that some development hiccups were caused by so many leadership positions being suddenly vacated and hastily filled, if at all. It’s really impossible at this point to separate any business decision made by Activision-Blizzard from the on-going lawsuit, which has left its mark on basically all of the company’s dealings. That said, even though Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 need more time to bake - or more time to be further removed from the storm clouds of this controversy - things aren’t going badly for the company. Diablo 2: Resurrected is a major success and contributed to revenue growth, and we’re still ahead of the year’s major shooter release - Call of Duty: Vanguard is coming soon, and it is showing no sign of being negatively affected at all. In any case, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 are still a long way away.
