It could cost a billion to take on WOW

By Oli Welsh Published 28 February, 2008

Even then it's risky, says Activision boss.

Speaking at an investor meeting, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said that he thinks it would take an investment of half a billion to a billion dollars to take on World of Warcraft - and even then, success isn't guaranteed.

"We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it," he said.

If you can't beat them, join them - hence the recent merger of Activision and WOW owners Vivendi, creating Activision Blizzard.

"When we first started looking at it, it appeared to us like a game in an insurmountable product category... EA, Microsoft, Sony and scores of venture capital investments had been put to work unsuccessfully in trying to develop massively multiplayer games as a product opportunity," Kotick said.

"When you... Look at all the money that's already gone to these businesses that have failed, there didn't seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category."

Kotick also paid tribute to the talent at WOW developers Blizzard. "They have a model that is very well-developed, they have a very keen understanding of their audiences, and they're just scratching the surface of opportunity in a lot of areas... These guys are among the best in the world of game development."

Kotick was speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 Conference on Tuesday this week.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Dizzy #1 4 years ago

    (sadly) probably very true. The only game that has a chance is Warhammer IMHO.

  • Aretak #2 4 years ago

    "Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 Conference"

    I bet that's a fun day out.

  • skillian #3 4 years ago

    It's stupid, it didn't cost Blizzard a billion to make WoW, so there's no reason another company couldn't replicate that success. You just need to get the product right.

    Kotick also paid tribute to the talent at WOW developers Blizzard. "They have a model that is very well-developed, they have a very keen understanding of their audiences, and they're just scratching the surface of opportunity in a lot of areas... These guys are among the best in the world of game development."

    That quote tells you a lot more about what it would take to make a game that can take on World of Warcraft.

  • Xerx3s #4 4 years ago

    Don't care. As long as the next Diablo game isn't an mmo and gets released this year.

  • rudedudejude #5 4 years ago

    True, though they need to work on the 40 levels as they are boring as hell - though I thinks thats now been improved.

    Very good game though, shame the gfx arn't awesome but the styling makes up for that.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #6 4 years ago

    What tickles me is that everyone's thinking that one game has to/wants to to beat WoW, when irronically in terms of MMOs WoW is a niche, a HUGE niche but still a niche, it's a console style game (ie 'you' play the sole hero of the world, what you do effects no one else) it works fair enough, but theres plenty of other styles of MMO out there that are still doing well and making turnover, hell even the first MMOs are still active and turning over a fair bit.

    Thing is you don't need millions of subs for a MMO, 200k was about avg until WoW and 500k was a great sucess, now possile the avg could be 500k but either way thats still quite good to run a MMO. That said everyone's assuming Warhammer has a chane of 'beating' WoW but again Mythic are quite happy to be the #2 MMO, they even said quite often they're not planning to take on the gorrilar that is WoW, theres no point.

    Point being dev groups are realising finally that theres still a lot of the market left to use and theres no need to 'take on WoW', so things are reverting back to the 200k-500k benchmark in subs (maybe a little higher for some) but either way WoW can stay 'the top MMO' but by no means does it mean everyone else can't turn a profit elsewhere.

  • Hamflank #7 4 years ago

    'It's stupid, it didn't cost Blizzard a billion to make WoW, so there's no reason another company couldn't replicate that success. You just need to get the product right. '

    @skillian

    Don't forget that WoW has been in continuous development since release. The game is much more than it was at the day of release. Hard to play catch-up with a game that has been in development for seven or eight years by one of the world's best developers.

  • skillian #8 4 years ago

    @Kremlik: That's the difference between devs and publishers though. It's something of a generalisation, but devs generally want to make a great game. Of course they want to be successful and make money, but publishers will forever be looking at competitors and be saying, "Well, we should be making more".

    It's an age-old clash between artists and business people that exists in every area of the arts - cinema, books, music or theatre.

    @ Hamflank: Well that's true, but it hasn't cost Blizzard a billion dollars to get where they are. It's cost a huge amount of effort, talent and great ideas, and those aren't things you can just assume will come with a large chequebook. I am sure the next huge MMO will be borne of a great idea and a moment of inspiration, and I'm sure it won't cost anything like a billion dollars to cross that divide that currently exists between WoW and the rest.
    Edited by skillian at 28/02/08 @ 11:15

  • spekkeh #9 4 years ago

    Still a dang shame that they're not doing the 40k rendition of Warhammer, could've been a real counterpart to WoW.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #10 4 years ago

    @spekkeh

    THQ are beta expected 2012 (Relic aren't involed tho, the Squad command guys are.. i think)

  • penhalion #11 4 years ago

    Here's a bloody obvious suggestion. Don't take on WOW! The PC games market is made up of over a hundred million users. WOW caters for only a small percentage of them. Why not try creating a different kind of MMORPG. Change the themes (there isn't a good galaxy hopping space MMORPG out anywhere for instance).

    You know er gain your own audience instead of trying to steal someone elses. Sometimes working in this industry I dispair. I see perfectly intelligent people seemingly unable to think for themselves. It's litterally "Hey they have the fantasy games market...I want the fantasy games market...how do I steal it from them!" instead of thinking "Hey they have fantasy sewn up...but, I think space is still open so why don't I make the best space based rpg ever" No wonder there's all this talk of a dying pc market.

  • The-Bodybuilder #12 4 years ago

    APB is the only MMO I care about.

  • Res #13 4 years ago

    You don't need to make an MMO as successful as WoW to make a decent profit, as long as you have a steady amount of subscriptions and don't open too many servers (after all each WoW server only holds about 10-15k). If you did SoE would be screwed by now.

  • Dizzy #14 4 years ago

    >APB is the only MMO I care about.

    Yeah that sounds great... technically not reallly MMO though. But yeah.. maybe these hybrid forms will be a breakthrough.

    I am seriously hyped for Champions Online... but that is not 8 million WoW like material.

    "Hey they have fantasy sewn up...but, I think space is still open so why don't I make the best space based rpg ever" No wonder there's all this talk of a dying pc market. "

    Yes and no. RPGs have always been mostly Fantasy. Yes there are zillions of other genres but Fantasy has always dominated P&P RPGs, so in a way it is logical that people associate MMORPGs with a fantasy setting. Picking something else already limits you potential public. I would love a CoC MMORPG with focus on Quest solving... but I can only dream.
    Edited by Dizzy at 28/02/08 @ 11:39

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #15 4 years ago

    @skill I'd agreed with you on that in some cases it's the suits that try for the big bucks and in others it can be the devs, but thankfully both sides are realising that theres other parts of the market other then the 'WoW market', thankfully also one of those 'suits' is EA working with a dev group that have also releised it (Mythic), hence why I bleave Warhammer is going to be a fairly desent game, it doesn't have to be 'successfully like WoW', but it'll make turnover for sure.

    @Pen Theres a lot of new MMOs comming out now that are attempting to address the 'flaws' in the MMO market from both SCifi and Fantasy types these next few years could be good years if no one bottles out and defaluts to 'complete clone mode'

  • TitusCrow #16 4 years ago

    @dizzy - i assume you mean call of cuthulu by CoC i to think this is a v ast untaped market the lore could be so deep and it could corner a whole segment of the market to its self real quests which cant always be solved by go here kill 20 of this and come back to here..

    though of course you have the problem then of creating a version of our world in its entirety and many other problems - i for one have no idea how somone would do this successfully but there are many guys out there who have endless creativity and ideas and im sure it could be done. i guess the only thing is investing a 5 year dev cycle and 100million on something with no set history of success in the field.

  • anomagnus #17 4 years ago

    Total BS, i hate this type of rubbish being put forward by the WoW cheerleaders.

    Quite simply, i don't trust a word of what that man said. WoW seriously needs a competitor and soon. If they become the ONLY MMORPG player, then that whole genre will very quickly stagnate and die.

    I am praying that Warhammer proves to be significant competition. Maybe not in terms of numbers, but certianly in terms of ideas.

    You don't need 500 million, you just need a good idea, and well executed, and some patience.

  • RichGL #18 4 years ago

    Lord of the Rings has over 200,000 subscribers. I don't think they see themselves as failing either.

    I don't play it mind, I would but my laptop had smoke coming out of it.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #19 4 years ago

    what Irc said is true however a lot of MMOs now are comming from fairly soild IPs, LOTRO is doing well, Warhammer has 25 years behind it, snd both Conan and Stargate have a lot behind it, the only exspetion was Star Teck where the company tried to juggle both it's own game and STO in the end it just folded, but again saying that total is 'required' isn't true imo.

  • Benno #20 4 years ago

    lord of the rings online had a chance, thats a franchise which would really have turned the tables

    sadly it just didn't deliver (although was quite good)

  • erp #21 4 years ago

    Um, he would say that wouldn't he?