Blizzard Not Thinking About World of Warcraft 2
By Ron on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 4:52 PM PST In Blizzard, Computer, Game Companies, Game Platforms, Games, World of Warcraft
If you’re hoping for a sequel to the most popular MMORPG of all time, you may have quite a wait on your hands. In an interview with Videogamer.com, Frank Pearce, executive vice-president of product development for Blizzard Entertainment, said, “We haven’t even started to think about a sequel.”
As you may remember, we told you earlier this week that World of Warcraft had hit 9.3 million subscribers, a subscription base never before seen in the MMO world. Pearce goes on to say, “We haven’t even started to think about a sequel. The team still has a huge wishlist of exciting features to add on top of what’s already been implemented since launch. Not to mention, we’re all still playing the game pretty heavily ourselves, and there’s a lot more content that we want to see as players.”
As far as the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Pearce wouldn’t commit to a release date, or even speculate on one. “As we’ve shown with The Burning Crusade, there’s a massive amount of content required for what we consider a Blizzard-quality MMO expansion, and that can take some time to create. The bottom line is that we will never ship a product before it’s ready.”
When asked about upcoming MMO’s like Warhammer Online and Tabula Rasa, Pearce said that the folks at Blizzard were, “just as eager to play these games as anyone else.”
I’m not surprised to hear that Blizzard isn’t going to be expending any energies on WoW 2 yet. They’ve got a ton of momentum with World of Warcraft right now, and their playerbase is still expanding. I’d expect more expansions before we ever see a WoW 2.
If you haven’t tried out World of Warcraft yet, grab the new WoW Battlechest that has both the original game and the Burning Crusade expansion, and give it a whirl. Most guys are rolling Blood Elf females these days; mostly because they’re hot (Thanks, Rocks!)
Via Videogamer.com
How can Blizzard make a World of Warcraft 2, they already made the Warcraft universe. How can they expand it?
I would prefer that they would expand on the Warcraft universe in Warcraft 5 (since WoW is supposedly number 4, well thats what I heard anyway). I want to know what happened to the world after Arthas took the Frozen Throne in a storyline, not quests.
Constructive criticism:
It disappoints me that Blizzard has exhausted its ambition to own the world of video gaming with World of Warcraft. I admit it is the best of all time, but if Blizzard becomes complacent with themselves they won’t champion a world class game for long.
Think about it Blizzard. You come out with WarIII. Its awesome because you get to build stuff destroy stuff and sport a hero you strengthened. Next WoW comes out where you put the gamer in the action. Awesome. Now the next step. Allow the gamer to be part of the action and still control an awesome force of units. Combine the two things that have proven success thus far. Of course I’m sure I don’t have to remind not to forgot to continue the elaborate history forged in WarIII.
I suggest Blizzard hire some young people soon to begin to push a new frontier and stay ahead of the game.
Heck hire me. I’m 19, I’ve run my own business twice already and I love video games. While your game developers have exhausted their creativity, I am still young and full of spunk. It’s the cycle of life.
hire.me.blizzard@gmail.com
And why haven’t they made WoW for the PSP yet?
Me and my CSE buddy almost did it but we got banned
I would be playing WoW now but the only thing stopping me from buying it is the monthly fees. There is a 99% chance that their subsciber numbers would shoot up at least 50% if there was no fee.
@LightAce: Here’s the thing. Blizzard wouldn’t have 9.3 million subscribers if there was no fee. The mount of content that is added to WoW on a regular basis is pretty astonishing, really. The game is constantly being expanded, tweaked, and refined. If you’re a fan of online MMORPG’s, and you haven’t played WoW yet, you are missing out on the best experience the genre has to offer right now.
There’s no such thing as a free MMO. Every MMO in existence supports itself with either monthly fees or microtransactions. Guild Wars is the notable exception, except it’s not an MMO in the traditional sense of the word. It’s an MMO in town, where you can interface with the community, but you’ll never see another player who’s not in your party outside of town, since it’s all instanced to keep the cost of servers to the absolute minimum.
In this genre, you definitely get what you pay for, at least in terms of the MMO experience. I’m not saying Guild Wars is bad, because I enjoyed it and other NCSoft titles. It’s just not an MMO in the way that WoW or LoTRO is.
Haha why would anyone expect a sequel from blizzard that fast? Besides, its way more profitable to maintain subscribers by adding new content then to develop a new game for 50$.
wat bout guild wars 2. its going to expand a lot more and become a lot more like wow. but with better graphics :P. however its still going to retain its no monthly fee policy. that thing about subsciptions keeping servers up is complete crap. theyre just trying to milk ur money and theyre getting away with it.
Im Glad that they arent making a WoW 2. as the world of warcraft is just started to expand greatly and more players subscribe that its amazing. i totally agree it is the best MMORPG on the market but eventually they will make a WoW2 / Warcraft5. Plus if blizzard had no monthly fee’s. why would they make WoW, thay must have/still be putting loads of money into it for the expansions and everything. its amazing. in all my game stores near my house its number one on pc games and number 2 is TBC (the burning crusade).
You Must Try It. If you Havnt Already
I have to admit I have finally been sucked in to WOW. But there is one thing that I have to say. I will not be staying beyond 3/4 months as I do not believe the game is in anyway worth £8.99 per month(£107.88 per year + £9.99). Game is enjoyable that is why I am being sucked in but no game is worth this much money.
With 9.3million subscribers that means they have a monthly income of around £83 million that is over £1billion each year. I know it doesn’t cost them that much to run the servers. I have a web server that costs me £2.50 per month which has 600Gb of space and 6000Gb of bandwidth to use each month, enough for atleast a couple hundred WOW accounts. If they got a 100 staff on an average of £40,000 per year that is £4million a year in wages lets tripple that to include insurance’s and benefits that makes staff cost £12million per year.
I said my server could handle a couple hundred WOW accounts but lets just say that it is only enough for 10 users. Total cost for servers each month is 2.325million or 27.9million per year. Office space about £1million a year including utilities do I need to go on because right now Blizzard are now only making £974.4million each year in profit. And I haven’t included income from game sales This is not full and comprehensive financial break down but these are some of the biggest costs. Game development costs are sucked up in staff wages so that is already included.
Income (Monthly fees)
Users=9,300,000 * 8.99 = £83,607,000 * 12months = £1,003,284,000
Outgoings
Wages=£999,999.99 * 12months = £12,000,000
Servers=(£2.50 per 10 users) * 930,000 =£2,325,000 * 12months £27,900,000
Building Costs £1,000,000
Total £40,900,000
Profit £970,384,000
Even if they dropped the monthly costs down to £3 per month they would be making £301.9million proffit and they would be able to sustain this income for longer. Now tell me this game is worth £8.99 per month + £9.99 to purchase + £9.99 per expansion pack.
@ Tiiatcha: I know its just a rough estimation on how you worked that out, but you obviously dont play wow, or you do and just missed out a whole load of expenses. They have staff all around the world which im pretty sure would come to a hell of a lot more than 100 staff, working 24/7, they work on every single realm every wednesday patches are released frequently etc etc, oh and maybe the biggest factor is that those 9.3 million subscribers are only people who have an account, this is not the amount of active accounts who are paying each month for the game.
I say that world of warcraft is good value for money, and i also think that if blizzard put down the monthly cost to £3 they would lose money.