Can Blizzard Build Another World of Warcraft?

By  |  Monday, August 9, 2010 at 9:52 am

As the most subscribed-to massive multiplayer online game in the world, World of Warcraft is a tough act for any game developer to follow, let alone the company that created it.

But in a recent earnings call, Activision-Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick revealed that Blizzard is indeed working on something new. He didn’t reveal much about the game, but said it will be an entirely new intellectual property, which means no Starcraft, Diablo or Warcraft branding. That’d be the easy way out.

Launching an MMORPG is a dangerous endeavor. Unlike traditional retail games, which are released, purchased and forgotten, MMOs must live on for five or 10 years, supported by servers on the publisher’s dime. Many MMOs with grand ambitions have failed miserably, their servers shut down, stranding whatever community they had. If a subscription-based MMO succeeds, the payoff is a steady stream of revenue from players who are thoroughly invested in their virtual characters, but it’s a risky business considering the costs beyond development alone.

For Activision-Blizzard, the stakes aren’t so high. The publisher can dig into its deep pockets for huge investments in development and servers, and Blizzard’s strong following almost guarantees a big player base from day one. According to a 2006 report by DFC Intelligence, those were two main reasons why WoW became dominant in the first place, and they’d hold true for whatever Blizzard develops next.

That’s not to say the game itself won’t matter. As DFC noted in its report, World of Warcraft’s popularity could also be attributed to its way of letting players go solo on missions if they wanted and drawing in deathmatch fans for player-vs.-player battles, and of course, to the “elusive ‘fun’ factor.” In other words, Activision-Blizzard has the resources to make another smash hit like World of Warcraft, but above all it needs to be an awesome game.

 
5 Comments


Read more: , ,

5 Comments For This Post

  1. NOM Says:

    They have a massive user base that invests countless hours into this game. There's no reason they woud want to put something out that detracts from this existing ecosystem, therefore it's likely something that attracts the demographics that aren't already playing WoW OR a game that isn't an MMORPG.

  2. Nancy Says:

    Though it is a good thing for players, they'll have new different games to play in the future. For me, I'm the loyal fan of world of warcraft. Due to lack of experience, through buy wow gold from wow-gold-team.com constantly, now I'm in a high level, really so good.

  3. barakuda900 Says:

    Очень благодарю вас за столь полезную для себя информацию. – сегодня случайно узнал что тут http://www.bet-winner.ru что Емельяненко проиграл, ну это к слову….

  4. Paul Says:

    Why would blizzard bring a new mmorpg on the market that will compete world of warcraft? They have over 11 players playing wow what else can they achieve? People paying for both games? I dont know about other players but i wont pay subscriptions for 2 mmorpgs at the same time.

    regards paul @ ultimate wow guide review

  5. @Ylixia Says:

    They've only just announced the IP. It's going to be years before we get to see anything. Plenty of time left for WoW to slowly die a natural death.