BLIZZCON 09: Juicy Rumor Edition

Scribbled on September 2nd, 2009 by Jonathon Howard
Filed in Interviews, MMO, Rumor Mill, Shows and Events, Strategy

Wired Magazine’s Tracy John was lucky enough to sit down with Blizzart Entertainment’s chief operating officer Paul Sams at this year’s BlizzCon and was lucky enough to pick the man’s brain on the future of World of Warcraft, Blizzard’s secret new MMO, the Starcraft 2 delay, and some other things. You can click over now and read the whole thing, but you’ll find the juicest bits right here:

Sams commits to supporting WoW for the foreseeable future, stating that with the numbers of subscribers they have investing their money and time into their game, Blizzard has an equal responsibility to invest just as much into it.
Sams refused to comment on the business model for the new MMO, or its setting all he said was “that we’re intending to create a game experience that is unlike anything that has ever been done before. Something that I think takes things far beyond what anyone has imagined and certainly anything anyone has executed.” Every developer and publisher says the same thing, but, unlike others, Blizzard has consistently delivered on that promise too often to just disregard this comment as hyperbole.

He digresses for awhile into microtransactions, and appropriate business models for different parts of the globe… Bu, quickly reassures that Blizzard is not considering using them right now.
Battle.net gets a mention as well, how its being revamped, socialized, and integrated better with their games… He also mentions e-sports with ladders and tournaments. The subtext seems to be Battle.net will be free to play on, but additional services (like tournaments, e-sports, ladders, etc.) will come at an additional cost to the gamer.
Regarding the delay of Starcraft 2 Sams isn’t worried about competing with all the other games eing released at the same time. And, why should he be? Starcraft 2 is a guaranteed best seller.
Blizzard gamers are amazingly loyal to the company and thankfully, as Sams points out, Blizzard is loyal to them as well, regardless of what shareholders want… (though he might be participating in a little hyberbole there…

Well that’s the good stuff. Sams meandered a lot getting it out. Nothing you didn’t already know but a couple of nice nuggets of information to hold you over to the next press release or event.

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