October 20th, 2008

Blizzard Armory - Get Ready For Battle!

What if I would find myself inside the Blizzard armory... should I choose a hammer? No, maybe an axe! Or... should I go straight to my office and think about the next-gen MMORPG that's going to crush the competition? Obviously, when talking about "the Blizzard armory," I think about the conference room where all important things happen... if such a room exists, of course! Anyway, today we have two giants involved in the story - Blizzard, our most beloved game maker, and Mythic, another of our "beloved game makers" gang...

As you probably read a few days ago, Blizzard had some World of Warcraft problems, but got through pretty well, and it is worth being remembered that some WoW players moved to Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, then got back. After all, that's what all that story was about. Now, Mark Jacobs, Mythic's CEO, says "It's a marathon, not a sprint," so we should get ready for a long and interesting battle between the two big ones.

Regarding this issue, Jacobs said

"One thing about MMOs is that people play multiple games. 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."

Well, Blizzard's Paul Sams only said people have moved from WoW to Warhammer Online, and then got back to WoW, he didn't actually say people are leaving Mythic's MMO. Anyway, to say people are playing more than WoW and WAR at the same time, I think it's a bit exaggerated - I guess some of these players also have a real life, you know...

To close this story, I must get back to my idea - the guys at Blizzard need to check the Blizzard armory, that's a fact - Mark Jacobs says that "This is the beginning of a rather lengthy battle with the guys at Blizzard. 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," so they would better get ready in time!