Blizzard "wouldn't bet against" BioWare

But Sams warns of pitfalls for Old Republic.

Blizzard executive Paul Sams has said that he expects BioWare have a good chance of finding MMO success with the recently-announced Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"They have as good a chance as anybody. I wouldn't bet against them, that's for sure," Sams said, speaking to Eurogamer on the eve of the launch of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

"They are an excellent company and they're utilising a well-known franchise as the backbone for that game. I think the combination of those two things bodes well for them, just because not everybody can say [that]," he added.

But Sams warns that a strong licence and a good development team are just the beginning when it comes to making a successful MMO.

"Running this type of game, building this type of game, maintaining this type of game is exceptionally difficult," he said.

"And so while we know they have some excellent developers and some excellent leaders, time will tell as to how they can react, and how they can prepare themselves to do all the other things... There are a lot more back-office things to running a game like this than you can ever imagine."

In particular, he pointed out that the level of success that World of Warcraft has - and that The Old Republic is tipped to reach - brings some problems of its own.

"It's a bit more tricky than it might seem, and I think that that is also why we haven't seen any other games that really have blown up from a huge subscribership perspective," he said. "Because how you react when it scales is very challenging, to say the least."

He also admitted that Blizzard hadn't done everything right itself.

"We've gotten a lot of bumps and bruises along the way - we're not perfect, we're far from it, right? We've had to learn a lot of things the hard way," Sams said.

"So it's a hard road, and it's also a very expensive road. [BioWare] have the benefit now of being with EA as relates to money, and EA has a pocketbook that is fat," he pointed out.

Sams said the Blizzard team was looking forward to tonight's launch of Wrath of the Lich King. "We're exceptionally excited about the content. We genuinely believe it's the best content we've created for World of Warcraft thus far," he said.

Blizzard recently claimed 11 million subscribers for WOW - some time after reaching the 10 million mark. We asked if this meant the game's growth was finally slowing down; Sams, normally one of Blizzard's most bullish spokesmen, came over uncharacteristically restrained and humble.

"We do anticipate that the number of subscribers will probably go up a bit, just because of the number of people returning to check it out," he said.

"Before we launched, there was nobody in the company that thought we were going to get anywhere near this," he added. "Each day that we continue to grow blows our minds."

Look out for more launch coverage and a review of Wrath of the Lich King in the coming days. And see you at HMV on Oxford Street for tonight's midnight launch.

Comments (10) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    Someone being mature and not taking the chance to slag off a possible competitor? I'm impressed. But if thinks I'll be impressed enough to re-sub to WoW... he's probably right.
  • iokthemonkey #2 3 years ago

    Yeah, but funny how he waits until the launch of Lich King to comment... I wonder why that could be...?
  • butler` #3 3 years ago

    Yeah DFawkes, certainly a breath of fresh air after a certain Mark Jacobs. :p
  • Feanor #4 3 years ago

    Game exec in reasonable comments shocker.
  • ChaK #5 3 years ago

    better that than EA craps talk.

    oh, and where will be WOW when SW will be released...
    Edited by 1 at 12/11/08 @ 18:35
  • stevetuck #6 3 years ago

    im thinking WoW: Wrath of the Burning Crusade a month after this game launch
  • wellzy4eva #7 3 years ago

    I'm guessing that if there is a remote chance of a successful Star wars based game, they know there will be tons of interest (Why there isn't a Star Trek MMO yet I have no idea)

    But I think the mutual respect is that Bioware have always been more focussed on story based text heavy depth, which isn't WOW's forte, so they probably don't see them as rivals any more than A racing simulator would feel pressured by a Arcade racer.

    But personally, I don't think bioware can pull it off, I see Matrix Online like failure coming.

    Oh and people dreaming of Planescape Torment/Baldur's gate 2 depth...remember that for freedom's sake the storyline cannot be as linear.
    Edited by 1 at 12/11/08 @ 23:23
  • iokthemonkey #8 3 years ago

    Why there isn't a Star Trek MMO yet I have no idea)

    ----

    NCSoft are working on one but if you think about it, creating a game based on any franchise that revolves around that kind of teamwork thing is a lot harder than you'd imagine. It's not like every week on Star Trek they met up with a few people and went exploring or fought the Gnargons. Rather, they were an established team of characters who interacted in the same way.

    What I mean is how many people would agree to be the Communications Officer? Would you log-in to play a game where the Captain told you what to do?

    It seems NCSoft are trying to overcome this by making every player a Captain and having an AI crew, with "Away Teams" forming when players all get together from different ships. But it's like the Stargate SG1 game - the universe is too rigid to work well in an MMO where everybody wants to be "the hero."
  • Silvervein #9 3 years ago

    Star wars galaxies, before it was sent to hell, was a game about making a character living in a star wars world, not a hero of the universe. It was one of the charms, that vanished when sony decided to shoehorn everyone into one of 'iconic' hero professions.
    What I'm saying is that game with right background can be a lot of fun without making a hero out of everyone.
    And more specifically, I wouldn't mind at all playing a comm officer. Captain chair for everyone sounds like a strange idea to me. Something like jedi character for everyone in star wars galaxies. It destroyed swg...I wonder how will they pull it off with star trek.
  • iokthemonkey #10 3 years ago

    Oh I agree - SWG WAS great (pre "update";) but what they didn't do was make it so you played as, say, a Stormtrooper. Instead they gave you freedom WITHIN the SW universe. Trek is going to be hard to pull-off due to the regimented nature of the Federation, though. Ditto with SG1. If the game is too regimented or based too much on command structures, it limits the player's options too much.