Tobold's Blog
Friday, June 16, 2006
 
World of Starcraft

Lots of action in the past couple of day on speculations about Blizzard making more MMOs from their other franchises, like World of Starcraft. The speculations were kicked off by a PowerPoint presentation from Vivendi, who owns Blizzard. Then Blizzard says on their forums that Vivendi has been misunderstood, and nothing is being worked on. Finally Blizzard asks the fansites to take down copies of the PowerPoint presentation, citing copyright violations. Latest development is a comment by SirBruce cited on Cesspit, who points out that the PowerPoint presentation is on file with the SEC, and thus available for everyone. SirBruce isn't the most popular guy in the MMO world, as he is a bit of a stickler, but he is great at finding information and defending the facts. I like him.

So, hopefully in his sense, here are some facts: The Vivendi presentation lists in a table on slide 8 crossing "product development per game" and "Blizzard" a cost of "over 50 million Euro" (about $65 million at todays rate). This has been interpreted as having been the cost of WoW, although I'm not quite sure whether this isn't the projected future cost of a similar MMO, based on a slightly lower cost for making WoW in the 25 to 50 million Euro range. Why do I think that it could be a projection for the future? Because it says under development time on the same table "2 to 4 years", which looks a lot more like a projection to me than a report of past performance.

Slide 12 lists 6.5 million customers, of which 4 million are "East". Slide 14 lists the different business models in the different countries, which shows how much less the "East" customers pay: $3.72 for 60 hours in mainland China, $9.00 for the same in Taiwan.

Slide 14 talks about the lifecycle of a MMO, saying "all other major MMORPG's are thriving 5 years after launch". And obviously at least Vivendi knows how: "Compelling new content is key". I couldn't agree more, although I have my differences with Blizzard's lead developers what exactly "compelling new content" is. (Hint: Naxxramas isn't). The slide after confirms the release date for the Burning Crusade expansion to be Q4 2006.

Slide 17 is interesting, as it talks about WoW marketing strategies. One future option: "PC and equipment OEMs". Wanna buy a PC with World of Warcraft pre-installed? At currently 6 GB footprint on the hard drive that isn't such a bad idea.

But the slide that caused all the uproar is slide 19. A simple table which has the three core franchises of Blizzard, Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft crossed with MMO, PC, and console games. And basically everything which isn't marked as existing, is marked as potential, including a Diablo or Starcraft MMO. Quote:"We are investing right now in developing new executions across multiple franchises ... Put investments in place for numerous future Blizzard products ... Due to long development cycles, for competitive reasons, we do not disclose releases far ahead of street date."

My interpretation of that is that we *will* see World of Starcraft, but it hasn't even been started yet, and with a projected 2-4 year development cycle we won't see anything before 2010. Which is fine. There is no "clash" or "power struggle" between Vivendi and Blizzard. Vivendi just lists possibilities for the long term investment future, and Blizzard said that no other MMO is currently being worked on. While a Diablo MMO is also listed under "potential", I think it is less likely, as it would be exactly the same genre as WoW. Starcraft is a safer bet. I think everybody is confident that Blizzard could make a better SciFi MMO than Star Wars Galaxies. But we also know that they can't do it fast. So I'll go on record with a prediction that somewhere in the period between 2010 and 2015 we will see a MMO developed by Blizzard based on the Starcraft franchise. And frankly, that isn't really exciting news, but more a statement of the obvious. So you can all calm down now, people.
Comments:
Two things come to mind, and have in the past as well. (I don't claim to know much about Blizzard or its franchises, so please don't think I'm trying to put these forward as knowledgable speculations.)

1. Would an expansion for WoW using the world, rules, and content of Diablo be possible?

2. Could the Starcraft: Ghost project have been transformed into an MMO effort?

I don't really agree, though, that Diablo and Warcraft are the same genre. Not to nitpick subsets of fantasy, but consider that Diablo II is utterly terrifying if you play it right, one of the bloodiest games ever made, centered very much on darkness and physical depth. It is about diverse character customization, difficult & tempting choices, timing, and irreversible change, and its endgame is about permanent, inevitable death. It is deeply Christian in the darkest possible way, and it is shocking. In some sense I think you can't get farther from WoW within accepted MMORPG subject matter except with very hard science fiction.
 
http://pc.ign.com/articles/712/712554p1.html

-Wargik
 
http://pc.ign.com/articles/712/712554p1.html

-Wargik
 
Sorry about the double posts...

*swing mouse furiously out of the windows"

-Wargik
 
While I don't agree that Diablo and Warcraft fall under the same genre heading, I do agree that a Diablo MMORPG might be too similar to WoW. I'm thinking in terms of equipment and overall style (e.g. fantasy with knights, fantasy with dragons, sci fi with aliens, etc.). Besides, Starcraft could be used to create a very compelling MMORPG. I'd love to see one based on it, and I suspect other gamers would be equally happy to pony up the cash.

I think a lot of the excitement stems from the fact that Blizzard fans are dying for any good news about the Diablo or Starcraft franchises. *ANY* good news. Tell me that Blizzard is developing Diablo 3 for release in 2016 and I'll jump and dance for joy. Seriously!
 
Starcraft should be... AN MMOFPS!
 
MMOFPS are CRAP
 
starcraft 2 is just around a corner and still, no news of world of starcraft (or whatever is it's equivalent title).

im kinda glad that they wont make one . because if they did that first before doing another diablo project, a lot of diablo fans would feel offended.
 
FYI, we have launched a Wiki Knowledge Base that will be continuously enriched with information about Blizzard's upcoming next-generation MMO. Everyone is welcome to visit the World of Starcraft Wiki.
 
I want a starcraft mmorpg!gimmi, gimmi, gimmi!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111
 
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