With World of Warcraft still the most popular MMO in the world with nearly 12 million subscribers, you'd think that Blizzard would be cautious not to split its market with another title in the genre. Still, Blizzard is working on some sort of secretive MMO title and Blizzard chief operating officer Paul Sams isn't too worried about cannibalizing their own sales.
“I think the (new MMO) is going to be significantly differentiated enough,” said Sams to Wired. “Such that, you’re not going to feel like they’re one and the same resulting in that you have to pick or choose."
"So maybe they’ll split a little over time, or maybe they’ll decide they don’t want to play WoW anymore, and they’ll go and play this other thing," he added. "That’s a high-class problem to have. As long as those folks are hanging out with us, which I believe they will be because we’re going to keep providing the best experience you can have. So, while there could be other games out there, if the bad thing that happens to us is that they leave WoW and go to this other thing of Blizzard’s, then we’ll work through that pain."
When asked about the possibility of a free-to-play model being incorporated into World of Warcraft, Sams said he doesn't see it happening anytime soon, though he didn't close the door on the idea entirely. "The fact is when you talk about the number of people, sheer people cost, which is always the most expensive line item in your budget, it’s hard to imagine that we would go free," said Sams. "I can’t tell you that that would never happen but I can’t see that in our foreseeable future. But I think overtime, it would be crazy to say that there wouldn’t be a possibility that the business model changes at some point in the lifecycle but I don’t see that anytime soon. The reason I’m answering it that way is because I want to take the position of 'never say never,' but it’s hard to imagine."
Rumors have been swirling for a while now that Blizzard's next MMO will be some sort of "Universe of StarCraft" which will be more action-based than World of Warcraft and take place after the events of StarCraft II. Blizzard has managed to keep a lid on details surrounding their next MMO, and who knows, maybe it'll even be a new IP.
