Blizzard willing to work with Bungie on MMO development

During a GDC Online panel about Halo narrative, Bungie creative director Joe Staten alluded to a hypothetical MMO from the developer when he said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you? Wow. That would be great." In a BlizzCon interview with Edge Online, Blizzard's EVP of game design, Rob Pardo, commented on the prospect of working with the new Activision partner on such an MMO. After noting that Blizzard remains focused on its own titles, he spoke welcomely of the idea, also in purely hypothetical terms.

"Activision is in the family and Bungie is doing stuff for Activision," Pardo said. "If they called us up and wanted some advice or wanted to have a conversation, absolutely, but I do that with a lot of my game developer friends throughout the industry."

Asked if Blizzard would provide customer service for a Bungie MMO, he said, "I really have no idea -- that's a lot of speculation. It's possible, I guess." Pardo added that he would be thrilled to see a Bungie MMO "as a gamer." He said that before WoW, Blizzard had no MMO experience -- "so clearly if we can do it, I'm sure a company like Bungie or Valve or Nintendo, or any of those top tier developers, are more than capable of doing it."

[Pictured: Microsoft's canceled "Halo MMO"]