Wizards of the Coast Hires New President
John Hight, formerly of Blizzard Entertainment, is the new president of Wizards of the Coast.
Hasbro has hired video game industry veteran John Hight as the new president of Wizards of the Coast. Today, Hasbro announced that Hight had taken over its most profitable subsidiary, which publishes both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Hight comes from Blizzard Entertainment, where he served as the senior vice president and general manager of the Warcraft franchise. Hight replaces Cynthia Williams, who left Wizards of the Coast to join Funko as its CEO. Per a press release announcing the hire, Hight is both a Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering player.
As the head of the Warcraft franchise, Hight led the development efforts of several World of Warcraft expansions, as well as the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls expansion and the release of Diablo III on console. However, he notably is the second president of Wizards of the Coast to be recruited from the video game industry instead of from a tabletop gaming background. While Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons are two juggernauts in the tabletop gaming space, Wizards has looked to expand both franchises using a digital game model, with the subsidiary beefing up its internal game studios and partnering with external studios in the hopes of replicating Baldur's Gate 3's success on a more frequent basis.
While Hight and Williams share a video game background, Hight notably has more experience in game development than his predecessor, who primarily oversaw sales and expansion efforts at Xbox as opposed to actually driving product lines. That could present some comfort to fans of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, especially as Hight seems to have a generally good reputation among Warcraft fans.
Additionally, Hasbro also announced that they had re-hired Holly Barbacovi as their new "Chief People Officer." Barabcovi was previously the head of Wizards' Human Resources department from 2016-2020 before departing for Bungie.
