MTV interviews Blizzard execs
At the Worldwide Invitational, MTV interviewed two Blizzard executives: Paul Sams, Chief Operating Officer, and Frank Pearce, Executive Vice President of Product Development. It's an interesting read -- if not the best interview I've ever read -- which includes more info on Diablo 3, mobile apps, and thoughts about MMOs in general. The duo leaves the door open for Blizzard to create an MMO that might "cannibalize" the WoW player base, although for some reason they are not convinced that Diablo 3 will impact that base. (I, for one, disagree. The huge response we got to the Diablo news on WoW Insider tells us that there is a huge amount of crossover between the franchises.) They also don't believe that there's much overlap between Starcraft and WoW. Frank stressed that, regardless of what the marketing research might say, "those aren't necessarily the data points that we use for decision-making when it comes to the games that we want to make."
Read on to see what Blizzard says about time between game releases and new MMOs.
Will there be less time between Blizzard's game releases? Paul and Frank seemed to waffle on this one. Although they said it would be "a little bit less time," they repeatedly stressed that their number one priority is making a good game, not meeting arbitrary deadlines. When asked about mobile applications for WoW -- like checking your Auction House items -- the guys refused to discuss it. The way they answered the question leads me to believe that they are looking at things like armory access for mobile access, but I doubt they are working on a full-blown MMO for the mobile platform.
Paul and Frank stressed that Blizzard wants to be the company to make the best MMO of all time, rather than leaving that to a competing company and if that means taking players from WoW at some point, so be it. However, Paul added, "if we were ever to do such a thing" -- which to me translates to: "Not likely, dude." And will Blizzard move away from their established intellectual properties to create something brand new? That's "a ways down the road," according to Frank.
