Former EA exec: Kotick's WoW remark meant to scare competition
Buttler tells the site that Kotick is just defending the merger and believes WoW is just the beginning of the "connected era." Buttler goes on to use some fancy buzzwords but dismisses the idea that nobody can take on WoW no matter what the investment. He even says if developers disagree with Kotick that they should call his company. Trion is currently starting up and allegedly has products "well under way," but currently has no announcements.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
aaron_k7 @ Feb 29th 2008 6:41PM
I'd like to see EA duke it out with Activision-Blizzard...a little competition, eh?
Hack @ Feb 29th 2008 6:53PM
What kind of arrogant BS is this!!? Blizzard did it with less than $100M, so why can't he do it? Is he not talented enough? That remark makes me seriously question the value of ActiBliz. I was under the impression that WOW had reached its "maturity" stage and would start a decline soon.
http://www.cordiant.com/Images/product_life_cycle_small.gif
Analysts/Investors should be looking for strategy statements regarding how he plans to prolong WOW, as opposed to how difficult it would be to replace it.
Nick the Hero of Canton @ Feb 29th 2008 7:00PM
I demand the sum... OF... 1 MILLION DOLLARS
Don't you think we should ask for *more* than a million dollars? A million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year!
Really? That's a lot of money.
Spiza @ Feb 29th 2008 8:01PM
Army of Darkness FTW!
Dread-not-naught @ Feb 29th 2008 10:20PM
Sadly he's right. No amount of budget will replace WoW. It's just too big and as long as people are paying to play, they are going to play the best, which is WoW. Every MMORPG that has tried to compete with it has been crushed. Even Everquest 2 (with Everquest being the original king) has died. The only MMORPG that will stand a chance is WoW 2.
Jansperus @ Mar 1st 2008 2:22AM
But, by that logic, wouldn't EQ2 have been the only possible successor to EQ1 since EQ1 was the undisputed king of MMORPGs at one time?
Zsavior @ Mar 1st 2008 3:15AM
@ Jansperus You get hearted by using complete logic to take apart that statement. Wow can be beaten especially now I think the quote was best from Pirates of Silicon Valley. Blizz can be beaten because "They are successful, and success does things to people it makes them think they are unbeatable." That comment he made was a comment of pure ego, and hubris.
The way Blizz works now people don't stay at wow because it is the best they stay because, there is nothing better out there. Watch out for EA, WOW hasn't been put out to pasture because companies are full of old developer unwilling to bend, if anybody read the post here during GDC on the topic of MMOs it shed alot of lot.
The two most successful mmo people there were Rob Pardo, and Min Kim from Nexon and WOW. Jack Emmert's City of Heroes has beyond fall off and he was the most rigid when it came to not changing. Min Kim and Pardo constantly spoke of changing their product to make it fit, Emmert couldn't comprehend this. On the other hand Emmert also had no idea how to make a game to go up against WOW, but still insisted on FEE subscriptions.
This is the type of person trying to create new MMORPGs, stuck in his way of thinking and old developing of course he can't beat WOW. People who played city of heroes complained of that exact problem also the world was closed and boring. While your powers and abilities were good there was no growth in the game. If you get somebody who can't change to try and create another MMO it will fail, plain and simple.
drlilo.beastcake @ Mar 2nd 2008 8:24AM
To be honest, I do beleive that if you invest $1 billion dollars into some over-blown WoW contender, it probably will fail... What a successful MMO needs is just the opposite... They need to be accessible to as broad a range as possible. Do you think WoW's 10 million subscribers all have rigs that can run it at max graphics? Something Lighter on the 'epic' AAA extravaganza value is what is required here.