Mythic: Blizzard is in for a "lengthy battle"
"It's a marathon, not a sprint," says CEO Mark Jacobs, citing content updates set to arrive for Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has only just begun to compete with World of Warcraft, says Mark Jacobs, Mythic's CEO, who commented "It's a marathon, not a sprint."
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Jacobs took issue with comments made by Paul Sams, Blizzard's COO, that over half of the subscribers who left World of Warcraft for Warhammer Online had returned, which Mythic's CEO interpreted to as an accusation Warhammer users were leaving the MMO.
"One thing about MMOs is that people play multiple games," asserted Jacobs. "That's one of the reasons I was very surprised by Paul's comments. He knows that people may play WoW and they'll play WAR and maybe even a third game at the same time."
He added: "Any comment along the lines of 'well if they're in my game they're not playing in another game,' flies in the face of all research that's been done among MMO players… The idea that you only play one is really kind of silly."
When asked if he was confident Warhammer Online could hold onto its subscribers when World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, comes out, Jacobs assuredly claimed that Mythic are well prepared to fight back with its own content updates.
"We've known that Blizzard is preparing to launch in November. We just announced some of the things that will be going in our first major patch… that's one of the ways we're going to respond."
"This is the beginning of a rather lengthy battle with the guys at Blizzard," Jacobs explained. "We’re in this space to be successful and, when you have a competitor that is as successful and important to the games industry as WoW has been, you don't go into this space unless you're willing to spend money and spend time and really compete against them."
Jacobs further declared: "It's a marathon, not a sprint. We've got a lot of stuff going in, not only this fall but then there's spring and then after that."
WAR slaps WoW in the face when it comes to RvR/PvP but lacks the polish of WOW.
(Just incase - these are my personal opinions and not that of the company I work for!)
Edited 1 times. Last edit by George Williams on 17th October 2008 8:27pm
However I find that people are happy to ignore glitches and problems if they are really into the game. A lot of people love WAR for the universe and play style. The main reason the people I know play WAR is that it is new compared to WoW which is 3 years old.
From personal experience, I find people don't play multiple MMOs at one time. They may switch every few months or so, but everyone I know sticks to one. There isn't time for any more.