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Rift: Serious WoW Competitor & Unafraid of SWTOR
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
According to a new interview with IndustryGamers.com, Trion's Lars Buttler, Rift has been the "most competition that WoW has ever had".
The statement came during an interview about yesterday's announcement of the Red Door gaming portal that Trion is getting ready to launch.
Further, Buttler doesn't see the December launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic as a serious threat to Rift's place in the MMO space:
"So I expect many people will try it and even people who haven’t tried Rift will try Star Wars and then we’ll see where they end up in the long run. I’m actually extremely excited about what’s happening in our space. When we started five years ago, there was only WoW. Now there’s Rift as an absolute serious contender, with the most dynamic gameplay ever. Then there’s Star Wars, then there’s End of Nations coming. Then there’s Defiance coming, which was MMORPG’s MMO of E3, ahead of Star Wars. So we’re not afraid at all. We actually look forward to it with great excitement. It makes our point."
Read the interview out takes here or the full Lars Buttler interview.
Thanks as always to Piasek for the tip!
Comments
Read this.
Waiting for the Trion PR machine to reap the benefits of this planned statement.
The only thing I know for sure is Blizzard will not respond in any way to this.. they don't think RIFT is any serious competition. I think Blizzard would be more worried by SWTOR than RIFT.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I want some of what Lars Buttler has been smoking.
Blizzard has lost over 1 million subscribers over the last year. That's a HUGE hit to profits, and activision is surely paying attention. Blizzard is smart enough to know that 20 MMO's that each take 200k subscribers from them is as much of a threat, if not more, than a single MMO taking 4 million subscribers.
The guy is right.
They have nothing to fear from TOR. in fact their current marketing strategy will work just fine with the "Wow: Scifi version".
However what they should fear is when eventually stuff like TSW or guild wars II gets released. There's quite a lot of hype on those two and the same marketing strategy won't work.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
I wouldnt think that blizzard is worried about anything. They have news games releasing. WoW has had it's peak and has no where to go but down in subs, in the western markets at least. It's coming up on 7yrs old and it's time for some new games in our market.
I'm sure the suits at Activision/Blizzard realize this and are'nt "worried" about it at all. WoW will bring in profits for years to come.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I grew tired of Rift within weeks.... stories where definately not its strongest point...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I don't think a B2P game that IIRC Anet said you have to buy an X pac every 6 months is going to hurt anything we know next to nothing about TSW.
I really don't see what RIFT has to be afraid of when it comes to those two games. I like BF3 but I will still play Halo Reach.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
I got tired of Rift after a short while. I lasted much longer on WoW.
Would be interesting to see some actual metrics as far as player population and retention now that the game has been out for a while. Easy to claim you are WoW's biggest competitor but a little strange they offered no real statistics to back that up. I do not know anyone personally that still plays Rift, but of course this does not mean anything in terms of overall player numbers.
They have a few more games coming out soon, and I always worry some about a company that splits itself between multiple games at the same time. Hopefully we will not see Trion go the way of SOE with lots of games under their belt, but most of them running on some sort of life support.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
Blizzard/Activision will never have to "worry" about anything...
Even if WoW were to cease to exist all of a sudden they'd still be swimming in golden pools of money.
That being said, I just hope the folks over at Blizzard/Activision aren't blaming TOR/RIFT or anyone else for WoW beginning to decline.
It's their fault for pulling all the talent off of WoW and sticking it on Diablo 3 and Starcraft II and Titan.
The "B" team has really screwed the pooch - Vanilla and BC were totally different games then WOTLK and Cata.
Trion is delusional.
They will never be able to compete with the likes of Bioware/EA and Blizzard/Activision.
That's like Grenada competing with China.
The funny thing is that just a couple hours ago, whilst I was level grinding in Rift, I got into a random conversation with people in General chat. Mostly about how excited we were for SW:TOR and GW2, especially with regards to PvP. It really just punctuates the fact that a lot of people, within the Rift community, are using Rift as a time-waster until the big boys come out.
All that aside, Blizzard won't respond like I said.
They have nothing to gain from a reply and only Trion would benefit. It's like President Obama responding to Rush Limbaugh. No matter what he said, Rush would gain the advantage because he got placed on the President's level.
When you are the top dog, you should just ignore any statements from people beneath you as you see it. It looks like you're trying to cover or hide things by retorting to loose comments.
Again, Blizzard is more worried about SWTOR than RIFT imo. It's built along the same premise (casual first) unlike RIFT and it's grind. Also WoW is very immersive as a game lorewise as is TOR. RIFT's lore is uncompelling and rather bland by comparision.
Rift will do okay (think it will hit FTP during Fall 2012 imo) but to think it will somehow achieve the status WoW built is insane and braggadocio.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I have not heard anything about Defiance since like 6 months ago or more? Why is that even a point in his interview? As a matter of fact when I read games that people are listing as ones they are waiting for, or the next gen mmo or the ones that will kill WoW Defiance hasn't even come up?
I will agree Rift has its place in the MMO industry for now... But anyone one of the major titles coming out SW:TOR or GW2 could realistically change the mmo scene anyone to think otherwise is nieve, its like those years when the US basketball team wrote off all those other teams in the Olympics because they were the best no matter what... Well lets just say there were several Olympics where the USA put up sub-par results. Any game has a chance to be a contendor especially the ones with money to do so EA/Bioware SW:TOR and a company with a pretty succesful track record Arenanet/GW2.
Thats just my opinion. Again, Defiance what? Slated for 2012 and being pushed out before SW:TOR seems like TRION is a little worried and about to release a possibly unpolished game which could be a mark on TRION's track record after releasing a decently polished game in rifts (one of the qualities that allowed its initial success).
It's true that Blizzard lost over 1 millions subs over the last year. But it's not because of RIFT, it's because Cataclysm weren't as good as people think it would be.
I'm still pretty sure blizzard make more money than RIFT ONLY with their "Cash shop", selling mount and plushies. And they will make more then SW:TOR too.
BlizzCon is coming, and a new expension too. If they do it good this time, maybe WoW will kill even more other games.
Defiance won't hurt SW:TOR neither.
I have tried really hard to get into Rift a few times in just cannot hold me more than a few days and i'm just one of the few. I doubt any MMO fears Rift and I can see it going F2P in a year.
Shame really as the MMO market needs more AAA titles.
Trion is not a public company so they can sit back and claim "success" all day long. They can say their subs are "trending up" without ever having to say by how many. Trion can claim to leave 60 servers as 'trial servers' without having to explain to stockholders why they aren't closed if they are almost empty.
The day I believe Trion is actually doing what it says numberwise and how "sound" it is financially, is the day they actually release detail numbers like most companies in the business do.
Since they chose not to (and I've actually played RIFT for six months) I'm going to go off of what I saw in-game and what a few people I'm still in contact with from guilds tell me: the game's lower levels are dead with lots of guilds losing people daily or not bothering to log-in anymore.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Funny I believe the same thing, the next WoW expansion is probably going to be the "make it or break it" point for the game's future considering everything happening in 2011/2012.
I'd almost love to see WoW announce F2P in 2012! at Blizzcon along with new expansion and just give a big F U to the entire MMORPG genre.
I dont believe WoW will kill any games in the future with any expansions. It's just too old now, too many people have been there done that.
I'm not knocking it in anyway. It will still bring in millions of $ for years to come. A lot of people have moved on and won't return for any extended length of time. Maybe for a month or two, to check out an expansion or to see what's changed for old times sake.
The only population growth I can forsee for WoW would be in new market's where MMO's are something new and where the $ per subscriber is alot less.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I'd almost love to see WoW announce F2P in 2012! at Blizzcon along with new expansion and just give a big F U to the entire MMORPG genre.
That would be interesting but wouldn't Blizzard fans be wanting a F2P version of the next big MMO Blizzard will probably announce in the next year? Once an company starts rolling out F2P (especially with such a successful game) won't its customers expect that to become their typical business model? Myabe its a good thing maybe its not... Just bringing up convo bored at work.
If swtor is trash like I am hearing, Rift will be around a long time. Gw2 really isnt competion for rift wow or swtor as it does not have a subscription and has no end game. Most people I know will be playing gw2 with at least 1 other subscription based game.
"Its better to look ugly and win than pretty and lose"
Honestly, Blizzard could take WoW to F2P and then charge 15$ a month for Titan and people would not complain one bit. Hell, they are going to legalize RMT in Diablo 3 and that game will sell millions and probably win half of this industries accolades and awards...
Literally every single person I play RIfts with, including me, is leaving when SWTOR comes out. Every. One.
That is a guild with about 25 people in it, and that, I expect, is not uncommon.
The problem is, Rift doesnt offer anything WoW and SWTOR don't offer. There is a real small world, with a lack of depth (my opinion, but shared by quite a few). Don't get me wrong, I like the game and I play it. But I am playing it to kill time until SWTOR, then GW2 come out. Odds are at that point, I will never look back.
I suspect I am not the only one.
I think they have a couple of hundred thousand subs. Problem with Rift is it just isn't next gen mmo so it doesn't blow away WoW, and consequently I doubt that the suits that run Blizzard are worrying. Actually I think GW2 will kill off Rifts player base and make it go free 2 play model, it is next gen and a fantasy MMORPG.
I stopped playing 2 months ago, I agree, the world seems very small and railed. I felt I didn't have many options for play, when I logged my max level guy in. I mean the game is good for what it is, but I am biased and like more sandbox in my games as a bias...So I am probably going to play swtor, but I am very skeptical that it may not do it for me...I am more excited about GW2 and thw WvWvW....I hope I am pleasantly suprised by swtor though, I always hope a game is great...I am a player, I want something to play that I really like (haven't had that since I left Vanguard, due to lack of development).
Funny I believe the same thing, the next WoW expansion is probably going to be the "make it or break it" point for the game's future considering everything happening in 2011/2012.
I'd almost love to see WoW announce F2P in 2012! at Blizzcon along with new expansion and just give a big F U to the entire MMORPG genre.
That would be interesting but wouldn't Blizzard fans be wanting a F2P version of the next big MMO Blizzard will probably announce in the next year? Once an company starts rolling out F2P (especially with such a successful game) won't its customers expect that to become their typical business model? Myabe its a good thing maybe its not... Just bringing up convo bored at work.
Honestly, Blizzard could take WoW to F2P and then charge 15$ a month for Titan and people would not complain one bit. Hell, they are going to legalize RMT in Diablo 3 and that game will sell millions and probably win half of this industries accolades and awards...
Good point on the RMT with Diablo I forgot about that. Yea you could be right.
Side note. Any company who underestimates their competitor small or large, Trion, Blizzard or Bioware etc alike will eventually get burned. I'm sure they see every game as some type of threat and to state other wise is just trying to put up a front.