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Posts with tag paul-sams

MTV interviews Blizzard execs

At the Worldwide Invitational, MTV interviewed two Blizzard executives: Paul Sams, Chief Operating Officer, and Frank Pearce, Executive Vice President of Product Development. It's an interesting read -- if not the best interview I've ever read -- which includes more info on Diablo 3, mobile apps, and thoughts about MMOs in general. The duo leaves the door open for Blizzard to create an MMO that might "cannibalize" the WoW player base, although for some reason they are not convinced that Diablo 3 will impact that base. (I, for one, disagree. The huge response we got to the Diablo news on WoW Insider tells us that there is a huge amount of crossover between the franchises.) They also don't believe that there's much overlap between Starcraft and WoW. Frank stressed that, regardless of what the marketing research might say, "those aren't necessarily the data points that we use for decision-making when it comes to the games that we want to make."

Read on to see what Blizzard says about time between game releases and new MMOs.

Continue reading MTV interviews Blizzard execs

World of Starcraft could still be the next-gen MMO

Arena Junkies picked up an interesting tidbit by comparing two different interviews. Rob Pardo, Blizzard's EVP of Game Design, gave an interview to Onlinewelten in which he talks about the next-gen MMO. That interview isn't exactly news on its own. We knew since Diablo III was announced at the WWI that it probably isn't the new MMO, and Pardo confirms that in the interview. "..Diablo 3 isn't an MMO," Pardo says, "So we have another development team."

But what is that new MMO being developed? Some speculate it could be an entirely new property. Well, Paul Sams, Blizzard's Chief Operating Officer, has an interview with Gamasutra that indicates no new IPs are coming soon. "Are we ever going to release a new [franchise]?" Sams says, "I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don't know when that day will be quite yet."

Okay, so Blizzard's still working on a MMO, but there's no new IP on the horizon. So, what's the next-gen MMO going to be? World of Warcraft 2? World of Starcraft? And if Diablo 3 isn't considered an MMO, then is there a possibility of a World of Diablo? For me, this just means that my hopes of Tauren Marines aren't yet dead.

Sams: Microsoft could do more for PC gaming

Blizzard's COO Paul Sams spoke with Gamasutra the other day, and he called out Microsoft, of all companies, for not supporting innovation in PC gaming. He says that Microsoft's loyalties are split with their console business, and that if they put as much work into developing gaming on the PC as they did on the Xbox 360, everyone would benefit.

An interesting idea, to be sure. It's not like Blizzard necessarily needs help from Microsoft to promote and develop their games -- if anything, it's Microsoft that could probably take a lesson from Blizzard on how to release software. But it's true that console innovations like achievement points and Xbox Live social networking accounts aren't really finding a solid place in the PC gaming world, and it could be that Blizzard wants to see those types of things on the platform.

Blizzard has always had a rocky relationship with consoles anyway, and the recent announcement of a non-console Diablo 3 definitely shows they're interested in the PC (including Mac) platform only. Can't really blame them for wanting a little more love from an OS developer like Microsoft.

[via BigDownload]


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