James Lee 10:14 (BST)
24/10/2008

EA and LucasArts are aiming to take on World of Warcraft with BioWare's newly announced MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Speaking to Videogaming247, EA Games' president, Frank Gibeau, spoke of the company's ambition to use the Star Wars IP to build up a user base to overtake that of Blizzard's.

"We have very high expectations for this," Gibeau explained. "Just look at the base of Star Wars fans, plus what BioWare can do. Trust me: we want to win. EA's reputation is for wanting to win."

"This is going to be a powerful category and there's lots of ways to compete in this category. [Blizzard] created a much larger opportunity for everybody else, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way."

LucasArts' Tom Nichols agreed, adding: "When World of Warcraft came out, everybody thought, 'No, the market is only this big, because that's as big as EverQuest was.' Blizzard showed that it could be much larger."

"Our goal is to show that by bringing storytelling to the genre that we can attract an even wider audience. Plus, we have the benefit of this huge brand, which has done very, very well for nearly 30 years."

When asked specifically if the game would be bigger than World of Warcraft, Nichols said: "I think this game has that potential."