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Blizzard Rooting for Star Wars MMO Success

by Kenneth Hubble, posted on 18 March 2011 / 2,920 Views

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment has wished their soon to be MMO rivals, EA and LucasArts, good luck with its forthcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Blizzard are banking on the BioWare-developed SW:TOR to breathe new life into the MMO genre, benefiting everyone.

The company’s co-founder and Executive Vice President, Frank Pearce, tells MCV in an interview that, "This is a game that has an opportunity to grow the MMO market if done right and therefore is very important to the industry as a whole, not just EA."

Pearce also draws on the similarities between WoW and SW:TOR, citing WoW's success down to, "building a universe around an already established franchise that was near and dear to the hearts of gamers”. He believes this is something that will stand BioWare's MMO in good stead.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime was also on hand to state that, “It’s certainly a strong franchise and BioWare’s a great developer. We’ve talked about this internally and from our perspective we hope they make an enjoyable game because they’re going to bring in a lot of new players to the MMO genre, and those players’ idea of whether or not they like this type of game is going to be determined by that experience.”

Star Wars: The Old Republic is expected for release in September. Visit MCV for more details of the interview.


9 Comments

whacker41
whacker41 (on 19 March 2011)

The fact that they're able to root for the competition just goes to show how secure they feel with their position as ruler of the MMO market, and that they don't really see any of the competition as a threat to their position. well, i guess they're kind of correct at the moment. Anyway, i do hope that the old republic proves to be successful , even if i doubt that it will expand the market as they say.

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Tyrannical
Tyrannical (on 19 March 2011)

I'm hoping for a great big money drain of a flop. I wanted a single player KOTOR, not some more MMO garbage.

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ssj12
ssj12 (on 19 March 2011)

@Chev - I'm reviewing Rift, its very different then WoW in lots of ways.

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Chevinator123
Chevinator123 (on 19 March 2011)

@ssj12 there rooting for SWTOR and not RIFT cause rift isnt anything new and its not verry appealing to people who have never played an MMO rift is more for the MMO people who wana try somthing different SWTOR has a chance of pulling new MMO players into the genre cause of the star wars name and the quests are alot like mass effect missions

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ssj12
ssj12 (on 18 March 2011)

Then why are they not rooting for Rift? Its better then WoW and has some awesome features and gameplay.

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Aagahim
Aagahim (on 18 March 2011)

I want someone to make a wow killer, world of warcraft is now old, and if people dont move on to another game, the genre will never evolve.

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Xelestial
Xelestial (on 18 March 2011)

Lol, I hope we all get what we want Blizzard. Thanks for being introducing me to MMOs :)

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Hephaestos
Hephaestos (on 18 March 2011)

in short: "please give us a good reason to move forward from WoW, Activision won't let us drop the cash cow and we're fed up from coding orcs and zergs for the past 5 years, we want to create a new universe :-("

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Games4Fun
Games4Fun (on 18 March 2011)

Thats cool. Hopefully they can get some real competition out of it and it helps push all their employees to be that much better.

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