World of StarCraft: Part 1

I’m sure by now most of you have heard about Blizzard’s rumored StarCraft MMO project.  I’ve had a few days to digest the idea, and I want to talk a little bit about what I think.

I think it’s a great move by Blizzard to start working on their next MMO, and StarCraft is a perfect choice.  If they went ahead with a Diablo MMO, it would seem like a rehash of the tired (albeit cool) fantasy setting that we have in WoW.  StarCraft is in a different setting entirely.  This is obvious; it’s sci-fi and not fantasy.  I’ll get into specifics later, but the science fiction setting allows Blizzard to go in a different direction in everything from technology to setting.  It can open up whole new worlds. 

Something I’ve seen a lot of lately is, “Why would Blizzard make another MMO when WoW is already so successful, they’d be competing with themselves.”  The answer is simple: WoW is not going to be around forever.  Sure, the old girl still has a few years left in her, but eventually people will want to move onto other things.  Expansions can only keep people around for so long.  There will come a time when Blizzard (and Vivendi, Blizz’s parent company) will start to feel the loss of subscriptions and people leaving for other games.  Why let them move onto another company’s game when you know you could suck them into another Blizzard property?

It’s not as if Blizzard will announce World of StarCraft and release it a day later (or a month later, or a year later).  This is Blizzard we’re talking about.  They may be known for delivering outstanding products, but not without taking their sweet ass time.  I doubt WoS will appear on shelves until atleast 2010 or later, giving Blizzard plenty of time to release new content for WoW and keep people hooked (and paying) until WoS.  Blizzard may be company that produces great games and seems to really love what they do, but they are a company.  They need to make money.  This is a great way for them to do so.

And don’t worry about Blizzard neglecting WoW, there was news floating around recently about them hiring new people for a new MMO project (giving even more evidence to the WoS rumors).

I loved StarCraft.  Millions of people loved (and still love, look at Korea for cryin’ out loud) StarCraft.  It was the best selling PC game of the year when it was released, and it has a big following to this day.  Blizzard’s established consumer base is HUGE; think of all of the StarCraft fans who have never played WoW and all the WoW fans who have never played StarCraft (or WarCraft for that matter) who would die to play another Blizzard MMO.  Blizzard would be foolish to pass up such an opportunity.

That’s all I have to say about it for now, I need to get some work done.  Stay tuned for my next World of StarCraft post where I will get into what I think the game might be like (or what I think it should be like).