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EA Mythic: $1 Billion Not Needed to Compete with WoW
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Warhammer Online lead designer estimates the real amount to be around $100 million
Earlier this year, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said investing $500 million to a billion in a product wouldn't be enough to compete in the same space as World of Warcraft. Naturally, Mythic VP and Warhammer Online lead designer Mark Jacobs disagrees. Speaking to MTV, he claims Kotick set the bar so high to scare off competition and make themselves seem invincible. So how much does it really take to compete with the juggernaut? Jacobs believes the amount is much smaller, saying:
Realistically, if you're going into this space for the first time, and you want to compete with 'WoW' and you want to compete with us -- because we're going into that same space -- you've got to make sure that you have at least 100 million dollars. Jacobs notes the 100 million isn't necessarily just to cover development costs, but to recover if the company messes up. "A lot of start-ups fail because they run out of money. It's not because they don't work hard; it's like 'Oops, it took an extra year or two; now what do we do?'" he further explains.
While Jacobs will only admit to EA spending "south of $100 million on "Warhammer Online," he says they will need at least half a million subscribers to be successful.
Link: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169679
Great interview! Mark Jacobs sounds like a great CEO.
Comments
Sadly, the more it costs to "compete", the more likely well see more Orcs and Elves in the future.
So sad, but true..
Believe you and me, I think alot of people are sick to death with this type of mmorpg format, but its the only one that is selling still.
There are 3 other mmo's on horizon.. Stargate Worlds, Star Trek Online and KotOR Online. Maybe, just maybe one of these 3 titles will stay mainstream instead of having orcs, dwarfs and elves.
Yeah but at this rate well see Orcs flying the Enterprise, Dwarves with lightsabers and Elves moving through stargates.
I believe Mythic can defintely compete with Warcraft. I know so many people who are burned out on playing WoW that the innitial subs for Warhammer will be through the roof. It also won't be like Funcom's flop because the innital subs will only increase, maybe dip a little when WOTLK comes out, but rise again steadily a few months later. Great job as always Mythic on being honest and realitic with your community.
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'Cry Havoc, and Let Loose the Dogs of WARRRRR!!!'
Science Fiction in MMORPG's?
I remember Tabula Rasa:
In one of its first quests: a nice space captain in uniform asked me to collect extracts for a new medical cure.
You had to kill 6 .... boars. Giving a whole other meaning to "pigs in space".
Every company there have tired somthing new with there mmo's have fallen so far. Take a look on these mmo's!.
- Age of Conan
- Auto Assualt
- Fury
- Hellgate: London
- Tabula Rasa
All of these have fallen within a year. Then you can ask why?.
there is only 1 space based MMO that can top WAR.. and maybe kick WoW between its legs and thats
warhammer 40k ^_^ if they made a mmo/fps/rpg based off warhammer 40k HOLY HELL it would rock.. ^_^ though hard to balance if they added half the powerhouse units haha
still 1mill is hard for a company to make back if it messes up too early
only games that dont flop sooo bad at F2P games cause they make money off item malls but even that is never enough ill be depressed if come release WAR some how messes up and flops cause all the hype and the fact i played the T.T of it for many years
and have wished for it to come out after the first warhammer online was canned
Incomplete games. Every single one of them.
Orc and elves are really not the problem, but the gameplay of the game who have orcs and elves. Why would the textures of an NPC and PC really matter much, how would changing textures change games? Would WoW be differant if all the charaters looked like alliens?
Well luckily a 40k MMO is in development right now by THQ I think. I'm really anxious to see what their plans are for that game. I love the Warhammer 40k universe, maybe even more so than the fantasy. But yea it will be interesting to see what they can make of that IP.
500 mil to compete with WoW is complete BS. Heck if AoC wasn't managed by retarded monkies it probably would have competed well with WoW and it was like what 50 mil? Even though it was hyped up to pure craziness it still sold 700k boxes.
If they had done the content and had real QA in AoC (even with its, IMO, serious design flaws) which 50 mil could easily have done under better management. They could have sold 1 mil boxes.
500 mil is seriously complete BS. MJ is probably pretty close. Plus people have been really tired of WoW for 2 years. You could probably compete very well with WoW for 50 mil with good mangement and a bit of luck.
But none of those games failed because they were a High Fantasy (Orcs, Elves, etc) alternative, those games failed or are failing because they were incomplete and rushed out at launch. If AoC would have been polished and had it's endgame ready to go, it should have been a big success with the number of boxes they sold. Which is why heads will probably roll there after their next quarter numbers come in.
It's like the reason SWG never caught on and became the huge blockbuster it was supposed to be, was because its launch was forced out and the game was barely playable for about 9 months. A large majority of people who purchased the game cancelled long before the 30 day trial was over. It was pretty amazing that they got back up 250k subs after that botched launch (this is before the NGE forced most of them away), it makes you think how well that game would have done if it had a polished launch and had good word of mouth and reviews.
So sad, but true..
Believe you and me, I think alot of people are sick to death with this type of mmorpg format, but its the only one that is selling still.
There are 3 other mmo's on horizon.. Stargate Worlds, Star Trek Online and KotOR Online. Maybe, just maybe one of these 3 titles will stay mainstream instead of having orcs, dwarfs and elves.
At some point MMORPGs may evolve to cater to the jaded crowd that's "sick to death with this type of mmorpg format".
However, you have to realize that every year young adults become old enough to get a credit card, adn they are first time players of MMORPGs, and it's all new to them.
This will last forever, unless people stop having babies.
What would you speculate about LOTRO?
LOTRO has as far as I seen got good to very good reception both in reviews and on forums. Ok that there are people that whine about LOTRO. I would say that LOTRO is that geek, nice and all, every mother in laws dream. That gets the shortest draw from girls.
It is a welldone game but still it is not competing with WoW.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
So sad, but true..
Believe you and me, I think alot of people are sick to death with this type of mmorpg format, but its the only one that is selling still.
There are 3 other mmo's on horizon.. Stargate Worlds, Star Trek Online and KotOR Online. Maybe, just maybe one of these 3 titles will stay mainstream instead of having orcs, dwarfs and elves.
At some point MMORPGs may evolve to cater to the jaded crowd that's "sick to death with this type of mmorpg format".
However, you have to realize that every year young adults become old enough to get a credit card, adn they are first time players of MMORPGs, and it's all new to them.
This will last forever, unless people stop having babies.
Don't forget those people that calls out failure if a game doesn't make Blizzard go bankrupcy.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
People are not really ready to think outside of the box. Main reference and easiest way to understand a game is to put it in a D&D form.
Also many MMO use the Rock Paper Scissor system "a la" Warrior-mage-thief.
Even in futuristic games they tend to use this system. So history repeat itself.
I'd worry about any game that needs 500K subcribers to stay aflot in todays MMO market. The fact that they think they will be competing with Blizzard is silly. No one competes with Blizzard, they are too well established. As a company you're better off staying away from MMO's about Orc's and Goblins while WoW is around. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard. The only thing these "Blizzard Competers" do for the gaming community is force WoW to become better. I'd hate the be Mythic right now where Blizzard goes to bury them for no other reason then to say "I told you so"!
Blizzard raises the bar and Mythic tries to lower it. That's all this is. I think what blizz is saying is if you want to compete with us to win you need our kind of budget. Mythic is responding with lower standards saying "well you could at least get in the same ball game with 100m". Just being in the same game really isn't competing though
Blizzard is just trying to scare the competition away, because they know their game is slowly teetering away.
Blizzard raises the bar and Mythic tries to lower it. That's all this is. I think what blizz is saying is if you want to compete with us to win you need our kind of budget. Mythic is responding with lower standards saying "well you could at least get in the same ball game with 100m". Just being in the same game really isn't competing though
Wrong.
The Blair Witch Project had a 35.000 $ budget and earned 140 million $ at US cinemas.
This is an extreme example, but its not uncommon to see much lower budget movies beat much higher budget movies.
Big budget is not everything.
WoW had 400 people working on it for 4 years, Warhammer had 250 people for 3.5 years, and Warhammer got lots more content than wow did at release.
It's not just about budget its about vision too. If you just keep producing the same tired old content with bigger bosses and and extra +32 on a sword ...well....dull. This formula isn't cost effective (unless you are at the top) either. You need to put systems and tools in place to support player controled potics ecomies etc. and have the players generate there own 'content'. War is going in that direction in a limited way.
Anyone that spends that kinda money on making a game is an idiot.
if you spent 100million making a game and then made 200million....you wouldn't think that anymore. This is a horrible statement . Everything is relative. If you spend 100mil and made 50mil...yes it would be bad. But if you invested 100mil and made money off it...then it was money well spent
Blizzard raises the bar and Mythic tries to lower it. That's all this is. I think what blizz is saying is if you want to compete with us to win you need our kind of budget. Mythic is responding with lower standards saying "well you could at least get in the same ball game with 100m". Just being in the same game really isn't competing though
Wrong.
The Blair Witch Project had a 35.000 $ budget and earned 140 million $ at US cinemas.
This is an extreme example, but its not uncommon to see much lower budget movies beat much higher budget movies.
Big budget is not everything.
WoW had 400 people working on it for 4 years, Warhammer had 250 people for 3.5 years, and Warhammer got lots more content than wow did at release.
Just want to chime in because even though you make a good point, there is a flaw as well. BWP profited $140 million (we'll just ignore the costs) but it still isn't as successful as the super big budget movies like say The Dark Knight that just broke $500 million. Even taking away the production costs, TDK made a bigger profit. Significantly bigger.
And that's what we're talking about. No one is saying you can't be profitable but if you want to compete with WoW, then you have to see where the bar it set. WoW is the Titantic and TDK of MMOs. You won't beat it with a low budget, no matter how good the hype. At the same time a large budget doesn't guarantee success. We're not talking about other MMOs. Jacobs used WoW specifically as a comparison. 500K subs is great but it doesn't compare to 11 million. Blair Witch was great but no one compares it to the Titanic in terms of success because they are in totally completely different leagues.
That being said, I still think the only MMO that can beat WoW is WoW. It has to self destruct.
Oh, you're an authority on the cost of MMO's are you?
Remind us of your previous titles made, and costs involved..