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Blizzard registers "Overwatch" trademark?
We've heard from various recent news sources that Blizzard has registered a new trademark. Of course, we recognize the scepticism, following last years incidents with The Dark Below and the associated silliness, but let's take a cautious look at this one. The trademark is "Overwatch", a term usually used to denote small, supporting military units. Blizzard hired Left 4 Dead developer Michael Booth last year, and it seems like he is directing a small project, with a similar team size to Hearthstone, that isn't Titan. There have been various job listings for positions with this new project, some of which talk about multiplayer experiences and maps. Now this might all be nonsense, but perhaps it points to a new military-styled game coming out of Irvine. There has long been speculation that Blizzard's next franchise would be a shooter, but with Titan ostensibly on the shelf for now, could this new small team production be that game? We're understandably cautious in our presentation of this information, but it's certainly interesting.
Blizzard says Titan unlikely to be subscription-based
No, Blizzard still hasn't made an official announcement about what we can expect from their upcoming Titan project -- which we've heard little about since its development was reset back in May. We still don't know much, but in an investor call today Mike Morhaime did say that Titan was "unlikely to be a subscription-based MMORPG." Of course, that still leaves plenty of room to speculate about what Titan actually will be. Will it be a free-to-play MMO or has Titan become something new entirely? With no official release date, only time will tell what Blizzard has in mind.
Has Blizzard left an opening for the next generation of WoW killers?
As Blizzard has faltered with its recent loss of WoW subscribers and the reset of its yet to be announced next MMO, other developers, hungry to make inroads in the MMO market, have looked on this as an opportunity. So, after countless games have tried to claim the title, are we really about to see a WoW killer come to market? Stephan Frost, Game Design Producer at NCsoft's Carbine Studios, thinks that it gives his game Wildstar a better chance to succeed. "We're coming out at a time when WoW is losing subscribers and we can fill the void for people who want an MMO that's deep, hardcore but also accessible to people." In the meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive has taken the opposing angle, saying that no one -- not even Blizzard -- can succeed because the North American market is a poor one for MMOs. Analysts agree that Blizzard's delay can only be an opportunity for others, though with WoW's current patch frenzy, it's clear that Blizzard isn't planning on relinquishing its title as top MMO any time soon. So is scifi MMO Wildstar going to be the next big thing? Or will Take-Two's Asian-market MMOs be a smashing success? Only time will tell.
MMOs don't work in the US says Take-Two Interactive
At the Cowen and Company Technology, Media and Telecom Conference this week, Take-Two Interactive's chairman Strauss Zelnick told crowds that MMOs just don't work in North America. "How many MMOs have been successful in the US?" Strauss mused. "Two: World of Warcraft and EverQuest." This is why Take-Two is focusing on Asian markets for its own massively multiplayer games and why, Zelnick suggested (without mentioning anyone by name), Blizzard had to reboot development of their own Project Titan. However, while WoW's numbers have had a much-ballyhooed decline, its current 8.3 million subscribers is nothing to sneeze at. But does America's poor track record with MMOs mean Titan is doomed before it's even managed to get a release date? Zelnick and Take-Two seem fairly certain MMOs don't have a future, but we intend to wait and see.
The Soapbox: Defining the WoW-killer
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. I haven't written much about World of Warcraft. There are many reasons for this. For one, Massively rarely pays WoW more than the bare minimum lip service (due to the game's being fairly exclusive to our WoW Insider sister site). For another, I don't look at Blizzard's behemoth all that fondly, and the sum total of my time in Azeroth amounts to about 20 hours spread over six weeks. As it does for everyone else who makes a living off of MMORPGs, though, WoW looms over my shoulder like a billowing dust cloud after a titanic explosion, reaching relentlessly for the heavens and effectively blotting out the sun. There's really no way to measure how influential this one game has been on not just MMORPGs but gaming in general. There are the population numbers, of course, and even though WoW has been shedding subs in bushels of late, it could continue to do so for the better part of a year and still dwarf the second largest subscription title by a considerable margin. That kind of success cannot be planned, nor do I believe that it will be replicated. WoW was a happy accident for Blizzard, a perfect storm of polish and timing the likes of which the MMO industry will not see again.
Rumor: Senior Titan designer laid off by Blizzard
The recent spate of MMO industry layoffs isn't discriminating in terms of company size if the latest rumors are true. We've just been informed that one of Blizzard's golden boys has been served his walking papers, joining hundreds of devs from the likes of NCsoft, GamersFirst, GameForge, and CCP in recent weeks. John Staats, the senior level designer on Blizzard's secretive Titan project, has been let go, according to our tipster. Staats has been with the company for over a decade and is responsible for some of World of Warcraft's most celebrated content including all the raid dungeons, Blackrock Mountain and Booty Bay, and numerous other instanced dungeons. Staats was also described by Jeff Kaplan as the "hero of the WoW dev team." [Thanks to Steve for the tip!]
Blizzard speaks (briefly) about new MMO plans
"To break the mold, sometimes you have to start over," says Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Apparently the monolithic development firm's next MMO won't be a World of Warcraft sequel, and In fact, the company expects the two titles to co-exist for a number of years. "We're really trying to leverage all the lessons we learned through the years. Some of which we were able to address in World of Warcraft and others that maybe because of the design decisions we've made, you just can't address. So we're kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that's completely new and fresh," Morhaime said yesterday while speaking at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas. Specific details were nowhere to be found of course, but Morhaime did hint at the social aspects that Blizzard sees as defining characteristics for the future of gaming.
Analysts speculate on leaked Blizzard release schedule
Last week's leak of a series of internal documents detailing Blizzard's upcoming products has taken a turn away from tabloid headlines with reports of a full investigation underway at the gaming behemoth's China offices. The leak, brought to light by MMOGameSite.com, may be linked to the recent resignation of Ye Weilun, Blizzard China's general manager. Among other things, the leaked documents indicated that Blizzard could be releasing Diablo 3 and something Starcraft 2-related (dubbed "Phoenix") in 2011. The 5-year roadmap also shows two new World of Warcraft expansions and Blizzard's long-rumored WoW followup, an MMO code-named Titan. While much of the information surrounding the leak should be taken with a grain of salt (Blizzard has yet to officially confirm any information relating to the story), several analysts and industry reporters have speculated that the scenario seems entirely plausible.
