david-kosak
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Blizzard asks console MMO questions
Blizzard may be monopolizing today's headlines on account of the juggernaut that is Cataclysm, but the MMORPG giant is also making news on a smaller scale (and on a different platform). In an interview with CVG, Blizzard's Greg Street and David Kosak drop a few hints regarding the company's stance towards console MMOs as well as the challenges inherent in developing for the platform. "I think the control scheme is a part of it, the traditional MMO has always had a lot of typing and is dependent on the mouse and keyboard paradigm," Street says. He goes on to mention that conventional wisdom used to dictate that FPS titles couldn't work on consoles either, and Halo summarily proved a lot of folks wrong in that regard. Along the same lines, Kosak addresses the differences in design from a PC monitor to a television. "On PC you're sitting right in front of a screen, you can have a lot of dense information displayed and very complex control schemes. If you're playing on a couch from a distance with a controller, it requires very different design," he says. Check out more of Blizzard's console questions at CVG.
The OC Register on the BlizzCon debacle
WoW Insider's own Mike Schramm recently talked with Tamara Chuang from the Orange County Register about the trials and tribulations of the recent BlizzCon ticket sales for an article she wrote concerning the debacle. Mike is in some good company, with executive editor of GameSpy.com David Kosak also contributing to the analysis of Blizzard's failure. Yesterday, Mike wrote an in-depth account of the problems we all faced obtaining tickets to the event.The OC Register article makes a good point noting that some major events, such as the World Series, have had ticketing problems in the past. However, it is also pointed out that other sites such as NBCOlympics.com still stay up even under the pressure of lots of traffic.With Mike Morhaime's apology late last night, and his offering up 3,000 additional tickets via a lottery, it will be interesting to see what this does to appease the fans in the long run. It is good to see that this issue is getting some wider coverage outside of the game and fan sites. While bad press isn't exactly good, it usually leads to things being better the next time around.
