mike-morhaime
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AGDC: How to rule the World (of Warcraft)
I'm attending the Austin Game Developers Conference this week, and today's big event is a keynote by Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. Titled How to Rule the World (of Warcraft): Ten Lessons, I doubt it covers guild management, PvP tactics, or farming for gold -- but I'm certainly interested in Morhaime's thoughts on the operation and administration of the Warcraft universe. Keep reading for a play-by-play of the keynote!9:25 AM CST: The ballroom is filling up, and everyone is waiting for the show to get started.9:36 AM CST: The ballroom is working its way towards full, all of us waiting on the man of the hour to show.
Interview with Mike Morhaime
The San Jose Mercury news managed to snag an interview with Blizzard Entertainment's president, Mike Morhaime. This doesn't contain lots of news about the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion, like the recent interviews with Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton, but does provide a broader-picture view of what's happening back at Blizzard entertainment. How has money and success impacted the company? Well, it's a bit much to summarize, so go check it out yourself.
And the award for 46th most important business personality goes to... Mike Morhaime!
CNN Money has named Mike Morhaime, the CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, as the 46th most important person in a list of 50 personalities that represent Business 2.0. We'll leave out our annoyances with the list as a whole (c'mon, naming "consumer as creator" as #1? Cop out!) so instead we'll use Mike's naming as an opportunity to analyze the importance of Blizzard's crowning achievement, World of Warcraft, to the World of Business.The totality of CNN's tribute to Mike is dedicated to the wild popularity of WoW. The article claims that WoW is more than "just another video game", citing the uniqueness of the game's popularity (6.5 million users and climbing), profitability (WoW brought in $700 million last year) and peripherals (a thriving out-of-game market for virtual goods worth around $200 million) as factors that make Mike a uniquely influential business leader.Big business' attraction to World of Warcraft's is no doubt due to the game's domination of MMO marketshare -- when you own 50% of a subscription based market you're bound to draw the attention of the suits -- so we wouldn't be surprised if WoW isn't the company's last MMO, despite earlier denials by a Blizzard staffer. Still, we feel sorry for Mike. On one side he's got the money crazy suits asking for more, MORE MMOs, and on the other he's got millions of StarCraft, Diablo and WarCraft fans screaming for sequels to their beloved franchise. He deserves an award just for being able to maintain that smug smile!
