Believe it or not, the creator of the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, is wishing success upon Electronic Arts/Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, which hopes to take on Blizzard and its flagship MMORPG.
Frank Pearce, Blizzard’s executive VP and co-founder, felt that SWTOR could help expand the MMO market. A larger market is a larger pool of customers from which EA — or Blizzard — could draw. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime complimented the strength of the Star Wars brand and that of BioWare as a developer. As a result, he said, the game would end up with more people exploring MMOGs, and if SWTOR was their first experience, it would be a positive experience that would reflect well on the entire genre.
No company, especially one as competitive as Blizzard, wants to give that much credit to a strong rival in the business. It could be argued this is the official, positive spin that grudgingly acknowledges that this game may be a force to be reckoned with. It’s not long before SWTOR will be released, either. The game is scheduled for launch in the second quarter of this year.
[Source: The Escapist]
