World of Warcraft executive producer John Hight believes in the power of video games to help unite people and ease the divisions in the world amid a time of great unrest. He also stressed that Blizzard has a responsibility to make WoW the best possible social network it can be to help people stay in touch and communicate amidst the global pandemic.
Speaking to GameSpot at BlizzConline, the Blizzard veteran said he believes video games can be a great force for good during this challenging time.
“Aside from the pandemic, all the other stuff that’s going on in the world and all the divisiveness … I really hope that things like games can get us to realize, ‘Hey we have a lot in common,'” Hight said. “That the stuff we’re getting all spun up about is just that–it’s all kind of in our heads. If you remove the physical barriers and we’re all just in this world doing things together, I think we start to realize the commonalities [we share].”
Video games overall are seeing an uptick in players amid the COVID-19 pandemic as people stay home to stay healthy and safe. WoW is one of the games people are turning to, and Hight remarked that he feels a responsibility to help make WoW the best possible social experience that it can be so people can have a good time and stay in touch with friends when they can’t or might not want to travel.
“We have a big responsibility right now. If you can’t even get out and see your family or go cross country to see a friend … part of your normal life is interaction with other people,” he said. “WoW provides you with a way–games in general provide you with a way–to at least interact. To be able chat to with each other, to be able to to play together.”
GameSpot will have much more from our interview with the Blizzard developers soon, so keep checking back for more.
Next up for WoW Classic is the Burning Crusade expansion, which launches later this year on PC. For more on what we know so far, check out GameSpot’s breakdown of all the key Burning Crusade details.
You can also check out some of the top BlizzConline stories below, as well as our roundup of all the big BlizzConline news:
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