Electronic Arts is not only gunning for the shooter category, but the publisher is also taking on its closest rival in the MMO space. EA CEO John Riccitiello has already made it quite clear that he believes BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO will take a "big chunk" away from World of Warcraft. Now EA Games boss Frank Gibeau explained to IndustryGamers why Old Republic can successfully challenge WoW's dominance.
One of Gibeau's arguments is that WoW simply is old hat at this point and that the appeal of Star Wars is nigh universal. "It’s a big bet for my label and for EA. You couldn’t think of a better combination of elements. The Star Wars IP, which is the largest IP in the world in terms of audience size - it’s very high - and the BioWare quality and their development, putting the two together in a massive multiplayer way. It’s on a first statement to customers, off the charts in kind of appeal. World of Warcraft is the big competitor out there, but they launched six years ago, and they’ve built a tremendous service. I’ve spent a lot of time playing that game; I love it. I love Blizzard products, but they’re not the entire market. There is an opportunity to come in with a new IP," he said.
Gibeau fully acknowledges that EA took "lessons" from WoW, but he also notes that the BioWare story and the lure of the Star Wars universe will be a big draw for many.
"It’s a sci-fi IP, it’s Jedis and Sith, you own your starship, you go to planets, you have the Force; it’s very different than orcs and humans and night elves and the rest. On the first level, the IPs are highly different, the gameplay highly differentiated, and the stories highly differentiated. There are things that they do that are spectacular, and that we’ve taken lessons from. They will feel familiar to players. You’re going to come into a Star Wars environment in a Star Wars IP, a Star Wars adventure. You’re going to be coming into a BioWare story. It’s the first time an MMO has actually had a story," he continued.
Perhaps the biggest differentiator, Gibeau said, is that WoW seems to be more about rote quests while BioWare's title really aims to connect you to characters in the world.
"When I play World of Warcraft, you go and get your quests, and you go and do your quests, but it feels more like doing a shopping list at times," Gibeau explained. "[Our game] is more about talking to characters, learning what’s going on, investing in it, getting emotionally attached to it. You can still go in accessible ways and grind out quests if you want, but at the same time there’s a higher-level story that’s carrying you through The Old Republic. It operates across multiple classes from Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitors, bounty hunters, spies, troopers, to Jedis… it’s a really fantastic world.
"On multiple levels we’re highly differentiated and different from World of Warcraft. We’re not being slavish or imitating them at all. We’re doing our own thing. We’re doing our own unique way. BioWare and Blizzard have been around for almost the same period of time. They’ve built incredible audiences. They have their own unique cultures, and they do things very differently. They’re both very successful RPG developers."
Gibeau also added that the MMO approach really fits into EA's larger strategy of becoming an online services company and focusing on digital and the relationship with the player. "One of the things that we’re doing at EA, specifically in my division, is we’re trying to become a fully digital, fully online organization. We will use retail to distribute product, but frankly we want to connect with people in an online way, because that’s the way they’re playing games. An MMO bet is a logical thing to do for us. Yes, it’s late, and it’s expensive, but these are tough games, and you’ve got to get them right. You don’t want to ship the game prematurely. It has to be BioWare quality; it will be," he stated.
He concluded, "Alongside the MMO bet, we’re also doing big bets in free-to-play, we’re also building our HD console games, and we’re also looking into the mobile smartphones and tablets. When you look at the intellectual properties like Dead Space and Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Need For Speed, you’re seeing those IP universes getting built across all these different devices. It’s starting to feel more interconnected than ever. You as a user will be able to experience these across multiple platforms in unique ways."
Read more from our Gibeau interview in the following stories:
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18 Comments
March 15, 2011
This will be my first MMO. I'm a big Bioware fan the never disappoint.
March 15, 2011
I'm in your boat Jonathan. I've never really been an MMO guy, but BioWare's games are fantastic.
March 15, 2011
I love Bioware, they never dissapoint... Oh wait... DA2 lolz.
March 15, 2011
So this is what? the 99 billionth product with the star wars tag on it? Give me a break. EA is banking on this MMO being popular because it says "STAR WARS" not because it will be quality.
They are taking a company that specializes in action type games and trying to make an MMO, it isn't going to work unless they hired on a team that specializes in MMOs, which we can bet they didn't.
Sad thing is that this game will sell like mad to all the Star Wars fanboys and then die off do to lack of content, lore, updates, patches and general support. EA has never tackled trying to support a game like this and will most likely fail at it. The fact that they are using Star Wars is even more laughable because 75%+ of their customer base will be Star Wars fanboys who will criticize every aspect of the game from a lore perspective, not be satisfied, then go back to w/e game they were playing previously.
EA should stick to what it's good at, not try to expand to something out of it's current range.
March 16, 2011
i agree with phoulmouth, this does not seem like it will be that great of a game. i am a big MMO player, and it seems to me like they are banking this entire project on the popularity of star wars and the fact that they hired a crapton of voice actors for the game.
March 16, 2011
They are banking on BioWare, not just the SW license. BioWare is full of incredibly talented people. Does that mean the game will automatically be a success? No, but it sure helps.
March 16, 2011
Plus, lets not forget that BioWare is a big enough company in it's own right that they can have the dedicated staff to properly service, update, and add to this game for years to come. As far as the lore content, I would hope that the BioWare guys and gals picked apart the brains of the people at LucasArts to get it spot on.
I'm not an MMO guy (RPG's are one of the only two genre's I actually play, but MMO's just aren't it), but I can see where the attraction to this MMO would be. I can also see where it will fail mightily if they get it wrong.
March 16, 2011
Lore and Story only take you so far. Plus what happens if the game doesn't reach the 1/2 million subscribers mark. EA is hoping Star Wars and BioWare will be enough, but it has screwed over developers before. Look at Mythic and Warhammer online.
March 16, 2011
Getting tired of the "first MMO with a story" bit. Asheron's Cal 1 and 2 had great stories, especially during AC1's "shard defense" event and AC2's angry spirits event (less known, but in order to save the towns, you had to give an angry spirit something from their lore background to make them stop spawning a ton of adds). And that's just dev driven story lines. On the pvp realms, you could tell stories about what the PLAYERS did. Look at EVE or Darkfall. You have Sagas that cover the who what when why of wars that span MONTHS of play.
TOR isn't going to be the first game with a story. It's just the first one where the devs are trying hard to make it highly personal, which makes me wonder: should MMOs primary focus be on individual experiences instead of group experiences?
March 16, 2011
This is going to be a very different sort of MMO by the looks of it. The "shopping list" complaint is valid, but the thing is that those sorts of quests are easy to make and any MMO has to have A LOT of content to work. That's part of the reason why WoW maintains so many subscribers - the success of TOR remains to be seen.
March 16, 2011
Everyone seems to love Bioware. I personally think DragonAge was a total flop. It was hands down the most boring single player RPG I have ever played. Sure, it had awesome graphics and effects, but graphics and effects don't make a game. But I digress.
Fact is that running support on an MMORPG is above and beyond anything that Bioware or EA have ever attempted to do. This isn't going to be DA where you can drop a patch once every few months and keep people happy, lol.
As far as the shopping list thing goes, that's just stupidity. Without the shopping list style questing how are you going to have people level up while actually learning their characters abilities for certain situations? Walking around exploring lore isn't going to teach you to play, neither is delivering messages or w/e. I find it funny that they specifically call out WoW for this when in all actuality EVERY MMO on the market right now runs the exact same way.
I would love to see the player skill base in a game that doesn't make you kill stuff to level to max level. Haha.
March 16, 2011
Don't mistake an observation for adoration, Phoulmouth. I can't stand BioWare, and being a huge Elder Scrolls fan I also think that Dragon Age was a major miscarriage for an RPG.
I'm simpliy commenting that they SHOULD have enough staff to adequately support the new Star Wars MMO. But they'll most likely get it off to a great start and either; A) Forget about it, thus neglect it, or B) The extra content they come out with after the original release content will be horrible.
I personally think that BioWare and EA are going eviscerate their new MMO before it ever has a chance to really get a good fan base behind it.
March 16, 2011
I'm a Star Wars and Bioware fan as well. And I would get this too....if it were on console. And thats not going to happen.
March 16, 2011
The 1 2 P, I really hope that was a joke. MMOs + Consoles will never happen. Aside from the part where you would have to have a subscription to the service provided by Microsoft (in terms of an Xbox 360), there is no way someone could macro or micro successfully with a controller.
March 17, 2011
@Phoulmouth
"EA is banking on this MMO being popular because it says STAR WARS not because it will be quality." Yes maybe EA are, but not BioWare.
First can I just say that I have never really played any BioWare games longer than 10-15mins. I have played KOTOR for about 10mins at the most but didn't give it a chance and yesterday I played DA2 for roughly the same amount of time until my PC crashed on me. So I am not a BioWare fanboy or whatever.
Now you say that SWTOR isn't going to work because they didn't hire a company that specializes in MMOs. Did Blizzard specialize in MMOs when they started making WoW? I don't think so, they did their research and hit the nail on the head.
This is now 2011 and I think just about everybody and their dog know all the pros and cons of MMOs these days, so a company like BioWare who are well known for their RPG/Story should have no problems with this project.
Next you mention that Star Wars fanboys will criticize every aspect of the game from a lore perspective and not be satisfied. Was this the case with both KOTOR games? As far as I know these games are held in high regard with both Star Wars/BioWare "fanboys".
I currently follow SWTOR and will try it out. I don't know if it will turn out to be good but BioWare needs more credit forget about EA.
March 17, 2011
Blakie
While Blizzard did not "specialize" they did have a HUGE online gaming following with there Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Diablo 2 games. They had a full understanding and appreciation of the insane amount of support that would be needed for WoW, something which both EA and Bio-Ware lack at this point.
Lets also remember that when WoW came out there was very few companies that could claim to "specialize" in MMO's at all. The most prominent or which would be SOE. Lets face a fact. Blizzard owned SOE in the face when they dropped WoW into the MMO market. Nothing has been able to compete with WoW since.
Yes, Star Wars fanboys will criticize every single inconsistency in the game lore in comparison to the lore set forth bye Lucas Arts. No matter how much time Bio-Ware puts into just this single (and most important) aspect of this game they will not get it right. Take WoW for example, they made all the lore for WoW in Warcraft yet still managed to get things wrong. This one aspect is the most important for Bio-Ware to get right because there is no fanboy in the world that can compete with the fanaticism of a StarWars fanboy. None. Screwing up the SW lore in a SW game would lose them ~1/4 of there target audience initially, then more if they don't fix it.
As far as KOTOR goes, that really has no basis on the conversation about SWTOR. It is just another RPG with a designated beginning and a designated end. An MMO does not have either. This is another thing Bio-Ware needs to fully appreciate. MMOs don't "end". There is no ending credits, it is an ongoing thing that evolves and changes, something none of their games does. Unless of course you want to talk about the DA DLC junk they charge for that adds another 30 minutes of game time to the game.
Speaking of DLC.....
Bio-Ware loves their DLC don't they? I wonder how exactly SWTOR will handle content patches. I envision them charging for it like EQ does instead of giving it out for free like WoW does. We shall see.
March 19, 2011
Well, let's hope they learned *something* from the flop that was Galaxies.
March 19, 2011
@Lance
Wasn't that the conventional wisdom about FPS for quite some time?
Have ya played CoD?
Q.E.D