LucasArts and EA have some rather lofty sights set for their upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. The two companies confirmed that they're gunning for user numbers that surpass those in World of Warcraft.
Tom Nichols, the head of the online division at LucasArts echoed the same.
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“We have very high expectations for this,” said EA Games president Frank Gibeau, speaking this week at LucasArts’ HQ in San Francisco.
“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.”
“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.”
Tom Nichols, the head of the online division at LucasArts echoed the same.
“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.
“I think this game has that potential, with a premiere developer behind it; with a clear differentiating feature being story and something that’s very compelling, and being a feature that’s true to BioWare’s expertise as well as the Star Wars brand; plus the power of the Star Wars brand, which is still doing very, very well 30 years after it started.
“The opportunity is there for us to do that.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently in development by BioWare. There is no release date set yet for the title.“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.
“I think this game has that potential, with a premiere developer behind it; with a clear differentiating feature being story and something that’s very compelling, and being a feature that’s true to BioWare’s expertise as well as the Star Wars brand; plus the power of the Star Wars brand, which is still doing very, very well 30 years after it started.
“The opportunity is there for us to do that.”
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