Blizzard hasn't given up getting WOW running on iPhone
"The world is evolving towards that little handheld device."
World of Warcraft, the actual game, may yet be adapted and made playable on iPhone, a determined Blizzard told Eurogamer.
All that's available currently is a World of Warcraft Mobile Armory app, which lets you view character sheets, use the Auction House and manage guilds.
Senior WOW producer John Lagrave, speaking to Eurogamer at Blizzard HQ last week, outlined the challenges involved.
"It's hard! This is hard!" Lagrave said, taking out something - an iPhone - from his pocket.
"Here's your platform, you've got to put an interface, what do you do? So yes we have [looked into mobile] and we always are. Maybe we'll stumble on the great way to put WOW on the phone - maybe we won't, but we're certainly looking into it.
"We won't do it until we think it's decent. But it's interesting and the world is evolving towards that little handheld device - I'd have fun on it, that's absolutely the case. It would be foolish for any game developer to not be looking at that and we're not - we don't think - we're foolish!
"Maybe we'll stumble on the great way to put WOW on the phone - maybe we won't, but we're certainly looking into it."
John Lagrave, senior producer, World of Warcraft
"So we certainly look at that, but we just haven't solved it. What we've done with WOW on mobile devices is very simplistic: view the armoury, you check your auctions - not just on mobile but also on web.
"When we have an epiphany, everyone will know," he added. "But for now, no epiphany!"
Lagrave couldn't confirm recent rumours that the pet battle system planned for upcoming expansion Mists of Pandaria was designed to support mobile play. But he did offer some thoughts on transferring this and other areas of the game to mobile devices.
"Certainly you look at systems," he explained.
"You can look at fishing and say, 'Is fishing tailored to being on a table or on a mobile?' That would be awesome, right? You're sitting at the airport and think 'I'll just go fishing'. We certainly look at pet battles too, but right now we're focused on PC - that's our bread-and-butter, PC and Mac."
Eurogamer recently went hands-on with Mists of Pandaria, the fourth expansion for World of Warcraft. Our in-depth look at the game was published this morning.