Delighting and Connecting

By Ellen Marks

That kid was John Hight, who is now creating fantasy worlds for a global audience as senior vice president and general manager of the World of Warcraft gaming franchise.

The franchise, which has been a major critical and commercial success since its release in 2004, allows huge numbers of people to play against each other at the same time in online role-playing games. A 1985 University of New Mexico graduate, Hight oversees game development and operations of the franchise, which is owned by Blizzard Entertainment.

Previously, he worked for Sony Computer Entertainment America and Atari, Inc. All told, he has worked on 56 games and interactive products.

If you have a favorite feature or place in World of Warcraft, you can probably thank Hight for having had a hand in developing it.

“Over 260 million people on our planet have, at one time or another, played a Warcraft game,” says Hight, 63, of San Clemente, Calif. “Our mission statement is to build a fantasy universe that delights and connects everyone everywhere. We want you to come here, escape, be who you want to be.”

Hight, who won a Distinguished Alumni Award from UNM’s School of Engineering last year, showed a kind of genius for programming early on. He was an undergraduate at UNM when he agreed to help his older brother, George, modify an early version of a computerized general ledger system for George’s Albuquerque accounting practice. George Hight said his brother’s work involved moving a basic business operating system to personal computers, which was “really way ahead of its time for 1983.”

The brothers and several others spun off those innovations and started a company that subsequently sold for a healthy profit. In fact, the younger Hight was able to buy a house in Taylor Ranch, becoming a homeowner before he turned 21.

“It took a very powerful intellect to be able to work at the core level of computers to move the operating system,” says brother George, who lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. “He’s brilliant.”

At the same time, John Hight says he started “tinkering and writing little (computer) games on the side. And I kind of dug it.”
His initial career dream of marine biology (he still keeps a 200-gallon saltwater aquarium in his office) morphed into computer science, with an interest in fine arts. He says he wanted to start learning about “things that were more entertainment-oriented,” feeding his growing interest in computer graphics and gaming.

“It took a very powerful intellect to be able to work at the core level of computers to move the operating system.”

The New Mexico native, whose first job was at Clark’s Pet Emporium in Albuquerque, decided to combine his skills in programming and storytelling and produce what are now called massively multiplayer online games.

After getting his degree in computer science at UNM, Hight went on to earn a Master’s in Business from the University of Southern California.

Although he has gone far afield to market Blizzard’s games around the world, he and his family return three or four times a year to a 150-year- old casita they own in Santa Fe.

“It’s a home away from home,” he says. “I wear my boots and cowboy hat. I don’t do that here (in California) at all.”

New Mexico Roots

The Hight family has a long history in Gallup, where the future gaming guru grew up.

Hight’s grandfather was a mayor of Gallup, and his father was a city councilor and mayor pro-tem. One
great-uncle served as police chief; the other headed the fire department.

The younger Hight started taking college classes at UNM’s Gallup campus when he was a junior in high school.

In elementary school, Hight spent a lot of time playing with classmates from the Navajo Nation, who were often bused in and sometimes lived in off- reservation dormitories during the week. Hight and his family lived directly across the street from Red Rock Elementary.

John Hight melds computer science with storytelling. (Photo: Blizzard Entertainment)

Those childhood experiences were in his mind when he created Hecubah, the main antagonist in the game Nox, who is queen of a tribe called the Necromancers. (The character is named after a caiman Hight’s brother kept until he had to donate it to a zoo.)

According to the plot line, Hecubah was left behind as a child, but she learns about her heritage and the great war waged years before between humans and her people, the Necromancers.

“WoW was a game that actually brought thousands of people together in a single server,” Hight says.

“She can resurrect the dead, but rather than have her just be this evil thing, I wanted us to understand what her culture is all about,” Hight says. He would like players to understand that she’s “really just protecting her people.”

“Through the course of the game, as you’re attacking her, as you’re fending off her and her minions, you’re beginning to realize that it’s cultural identity that’s important and… you are basically making assumptions about what’s best for the world. You’re trying to take her out and, what you’re really committing is, to some extent, genocide.”

In fact, Hight says, much of the entertainment industry is wrestling with “how to come to grips with this — here in America: Who are we and how are we excluding some and including others? What is our cultural identity?”

Not Just a Game

Blizzard’s latest addition to its product line is Warcraft Rumble, which is for a younger audience, Hight says.

While it’s like other role-playing games in that it can last for hours, it also can be polished off in a three- minute session — “perfect for waiting for the bus or for Uber,” Hight says. “This generation does not want to wait for anything. They want it now.”
The company releases games periodically to keep things fresh and to make sure the brand remains relevant, Hight says. World of Warcraft, known to gamers as WoW, is nearly two decades old, launching “before Facebook (when) people were just beginning to create their own webpage.”

In other words, eons ago, technologically speaking.

“WoW was a game that actually brought thousands of people together in a single server,” Hight says. “You could run around as an avatar. You might be a dwarf, I might be an elf… and we could interact with each other. More important, we were part of the online experience. So it wasn’t just a game, it was a manifestation of us being online.”

The game has attracted a second generation of fans who grew up playing with their parents. And one of its more famous is an 80-year-old woman, known as “WoW grandma.”

“She has a big following of people,” Hight says. “She streams her playing. She’s flown out here, and I’ve met her.”

Hight also has inspired fans among his many colleagues over the years. Holly Longdale, WoW executive producer and vice president, says Hight is exceedingly modest, so “the depth and breadth of his experience and expertise in this field is not widely recognized.”

He has developed “games that are pivotal in how we make games now. He’s like a delightful nerd. He’s everything we need.”