Frank Pearce labels WoW's success as "exhausting"
GamesIndustry.biz recently had an opportunity to chat with Frank Pearce, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, about World of Warcraft and their other properties. At the Games Convention in Leipzig, Pearce was asked if he found WoW's performance since launch interesting to watch. He doesn't quite say no, but he doesn't say yes, either. "I don't know if I'd describe it as 'interesting' as much as exhausting," he says. He goes on to detail just how much the company has grown, up to 3000 employees worldwide, with 130 people on the WoW development team trying to sate our 'voracious appetite for content.' World of Warcraft is almost directly responsible for that growth.
Pearce talks a bit about Blizzard's other franchises and projects, specifically Starcraft II and Battle.net, suggesting a brave new world where World of Warcraft players could crack out a quick 15-20 minute multiplayer round in Starcraft II while waiting for their WoW raid. That sounds like an awesome time to me, but perhaps that's a little too much Blizzard in one evening for most folks. Then again, maybe not!
After a brief exchange about how Blizzard Entertainment manages to build so much hype about new games and releases, Pearce is questioned on Blizzard adding any new IPs to their stable, to which he responds with yet more of the Blizzard jig. Pearce states that it would be a lot of work, but the deciding factor is what the development teams want to do. That's something that I find really interesting. After Diablo III, could the Diablo team decide they wanted to do Magical Unicorns in Space and get away with it?
I definitely recommend reading the full interview, especially if you're interested in what Blizzard does as a company beyond World of Warcraft. It gives a nice little glimpse into how Blizzard operates as a company nowadays.
[ Thanks, Centipede! ]
