Celebrating 9 Contributions to Our Games
At Activision Blizzard, we take pride in our ability to create epic entertainment that connects and engages our global community of players. Behind these beloved games and experiences are passionate creatives, engineers, analysts, and developers who operate at the top of their craft. As we continue to celebrate Women’s History Month, we asked some of these talented individuals to share their proudest moments bringing our games to life.
Katie Sabin, Senior Artist, Modeler, Raven Software, Wisconsin, USA
I'd say that I'm most proud of the work I did on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. I had the opportunity to create several key hero assets (one of which was Wood's pickup truck, the Bannerocks) and really take my art to the next level. I also got to talk about it during the game reveal, which was a great experience. A lot of loving touches went into creating a vehicle that had just as much character as its owner.
Jayne Johnston, Senior VFX Artist, Blizzard Entertainment, California, USA
I'm currently helping make VFX for Diablo IV. I'm really proud of some of the previous titles I worked on including Nova Covert Ops and Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer expansion. Not only did I get to explore some new techniques and make cool content, I had the pleasure of working alongside some of the best people in the game industry.
Sydney Terris, Associate UX Designer, Raven Software, Wisconsin, USA
On Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, I drove the initiative to have more than two genders represented in game for our Personnel Profile. I am extremely proud of the entire team for launching a wildly successful Call of Duty campaign that featured four gender options including three entirely independent sets of pronouns to go with each option! This has led me to my current work on a dev-ops focused pipeline supporting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in our in-game content both at Raven Software and across the Call of Duty studios. I absolutely treasure our initiative and am deeply humbled by all the work we have already accomplished to further augment Diversity and Accessibility in our games!
Molly Whittaker, Associate Software Engineer, Vicarious Visions, New York, USA
I’m most proud of the work I’ve been doing on Diablo II: Resurrected, as a part of the UI team at Vicarious Visions. It’s amazing that my first game in the industry involves working on such an iconic piece of gaming history and to watch the game come to life, especially knowing that the features I’ve worked on will be seen and used by players from all over the world. Before my career in gaming, I worked in a robotics lab at Carnegie Mellon University, where I tested wheels for the Perseverance Mars Rover, which is pretty cool and something I love to geek out about.
Marie-Eve Tremblay, Lead Designer, Beenox, Quebec, Canada
Each of the games I've worked on are like my babies, they are all special in some ways. Call of Duty has really provided me with a new perspective given the collaboration with different studios, especially with Black Ops 4, where I got to travel and meet amazing humans. Right now, I'm on the Call of Duty esport team and we get to make the future of sports, and it’s an exciting place to be.
Ritu Bhushan, Associate Director - Central Insights and Analytics, King, New York, USA
I'm proud of the impact my team has had in conducting research and identifying insights for the development of the Candy Crush All Stars event. It's been great to work on this end-to-end with both the product and marketing teams....starting with learning that our players have an unmet need for competition, to testing various propositions to see what they would find most appealing, to refining the concept and finally, testing the various creative options.
Careena Kingdom, Lead Animator Diablo IV, Blizzard, California, USA
Something I've worked on in the past that I'm really proud of would have to be equal parts Brightwing and Murky for Heroes of the Storm. Creating their animation sets felt monumental for me as I was given a great deal of creative freedom. Figuring out how they move and behave was a joy because their legacy wasn't as defined as it was for other characters such as Tracer or Kerrigan. With Brightwing and Murky the sky was the limit!
Nour Polloni, Co-Studio Head, Beenox, Quebec, Canada
Right now, I'm focused on driving our studio expansion with Thomas Wilson (Beenox co-studio head), as well as supporting our teams to grow to their full potential and bring the best out of themselves. I'm really proud of all the projects we've accomplished as a team at Beenox throughout the years, and really looking forward to continuing to grow our contribution in creating amazing and immersive experiences for our players.
Lina McAneney, Head of Pet Rescue Saga, King, Malmö, Sweden
I work on Pet Rescue Saga, a fun clicker game that's all about saving cute pets! Lately we've been working on really bringing the world of the rescued pets to life for the player, reshaping what Pet Rescue is and can be. I'm really proud of the innovation level and excited to see player reactions.