Conan O’Brien At SXSW Blizzard Video Game Chat: “I Want To Be In The Next ‘Diablo'”

deadline.com:

For those who didn’t know, 15 years ago late-night TV host Conan O’Brien got into gaming. He says he plays with Bill Hader.

As such, he took the stage at SXSW on Tuesday with Blizzard Entertainment president Johanna Faries. While Faries didn’t lay out any grand plans for Blizzard in terms of its games timeline, both acknowledged the passionate fanbase of gamers, how they should be listened to, and also how entertainment companies are now treating the video game industry seriously. “What I found fascinating to me is that when I started in show business a long time ago, it was trying to get as many people as possible in superficial way,” said O’Brien. “Now it’s not about me trying to get 50 million people, but people who are really paying attention to what I’m doing.

It’s less horizontal and vertical,” the recent Oscar host said. When it comes to connecting with his video game legion of fans, O’Brien remarked, “It feels like I’m drilling down into a special community.” O’Brien spoke about the time he visited South Korea when he was in his 50s. “There’s screaming kids.

And it was because we found out later on, a lot of it was through the gaming videos. You think more than ever, we need this connectivity.