World of Starcraft still a possibility
July 5, 2008
The Blizzard World Wide Invitational 2008 is over and as we all know Diablo 3 was announced. Although, slightly disappointing for those of us who had hoped to hear an announcement about the secret MMO project on which Blizzards “Team 3” has been working for a while now. But there were indeed tiny bits of information. You only had to listen carefully:
- Rob Pardo, Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard: He confirms in an interview at the WWI in Paris, that Diablo 3 isn’t the secret MMO: “..Diablo 3 isn’t an MMO,” Pardo says, “So we have another development team.” (Editor’s Note: that should be Team 3)
- Paul Sams, Blizzard’s Chief Operating Officer: Confirmed in an interview with Gamasutra that no new IPs are coming soon. “Are we ever going to release a new [franchise]?” Sams says, “I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don’t know when that day will be quite yet.”
So let’s recap the current situation with Blizzards major franchises keeping in mind that no new Blizzard IP is to be expected anytime soon:
- World of Warcraft: the game is still doing well and Blizzard has projected the lifespan for WoW to be approximately 10 years. That would put a sequel quite far away.
- Diablo: The non MMO successor has just been announced. But even IF Blizzard had a Diablo MMO in the works it would probably cannibalize on the WoW subscriber base due to the relatively similar background.
- Starcraft: Starcraft 2 has been announced on last year’s WWI and similar to Diablo 3, the title has strong multiplayer capabilities but is definitely not an MMO. The difference is that unlike with a Diablo MMO, a Starcraft MMO would not interfere with the WoW subscribers but instead would open a MMO market for Blizzard without any real competition except maybe for Anarchy Online.
More Rumors pointing to Starcraft Online
January 29, 2008
Netease CEO Ding Lei didn’t confirm the market saying, adding that the company is observing many online games and has not signed any formal license contract.
On an industry meeting earlier this month, Ding disclosed that Netease will strive to provide more game products by being licensed foreign games and co-developing games with foreign partners.
Blizzard’s next-gen MMO(s) might appear on consoles
November 21, 2007
Blizzard’s latest MMO job opening (this time for a physics programmer) requires would-be applicants to have “programming experience on both console and PC titles.” This suggests that Blizzard is either making an MMO that will be released for both the PC and one or more consoles.
[Story]
Tags: Blizzard, Consoles, GameProject Hydra
September 11, 2007
According to the folks at the Inquirer Blizzard’s “Team 3″ is working on a top secret project called Hydra. [Source]
Tags: Blizzard, Project Hydra, World of StarcraftWorld of Starcraft not in the works
August 4, 2007
Blizzard’s Chris Metzen confirmed that the company is currently not developing World of StarCraft. So while “Team 3″ is most likely working on an MMO (given the recent next-gen MMO related Job openings at Blizzard) it is based on a different IP. [Full story]
Tags: Blizzard, World of StarcraftBlizzard Establishes Third Development Team
July 13, 2007
Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard revealed that the company has a third team hard at work on a new title, separate from World of Warcraft and StarCraft II. [Source]
Tags: Blizzard, Project Hydra, World of Starcraft“Hell, its about time!”
May 18, 2007
Considering the amount of WOS related rumors over the past weeks, we all had hoped for the big World of Starcraft announcement in Seoul, South Korea but it wasn’t meant to be - this time, at least. The big annoucement was Starcraft 2 - the RTS.
Tags: Blizzard, StarcraftWorld of Starcraft information leaked
May 5, 2007
There are reports about leaked insider information stating that a Starcraft MMO is indeed in the works at Blizzard. Contrary to the popular belief that Blizzard is more likely working on a sequel to the Starcraft RTS. Pretty vague if you ask me. [Source]
Tags: Blizzard, World of StarcraftBlizzard working on next-gen MMO
April 27, 2007
Blizzard added three new positions on their job openings page yesterday for a “next-gen MMO”. If this means World of Starcraft? Who knows, but on the other hand what else could it be expect for an entirely new IP? Doing a Diablo MMO would not make much sense from a business point of view because such game would likely canibalize players from World of Warcraft given the setting of the Diablo Universe which also builds on many of the core elements as WoW [Full story]
“It’s not going to be another WoW”
January 22, 2007
Blizzard’s Vice President of Development Itzik Ben Bassat says “When we announce our next MMORPG, it’s not going to be another WoW.” [Full story]
Tags: Blizzard, Game, World of Warcraft
