So, who hit the WTF switch today?
EA announced that they would be restructuring Mythic (Warhammer Online, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot) and BioWare (Star Warks: The Old Republic, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights, …) into a single RPG/MMO development power house. The implications here are pretty huge, though the move isn’t all that surprising given BioWare’s entrance into the MMO arena with SWTOR. EA is also announced they are canning Mark Jacobs, which comes as no surprise given the flack he’s gotten for WAR’s problems. My buddy Ryan pointed out that this means Garriot (UO), McQuiad (EQ) and Jacobs (DAoC) are now all gone. “The MMO gaming Gods are all gone,” as he so eloquently put it. That said, I’m very excited for what this move could mean for Warhammer Online and The Old Republic. BioWare could use the experience on SWTOR, and Mythic could use a fresh perspective on WAR.
Mythic has got to stop the subscription churn they’re seeing right now, and in my opinion the only way to accomplish this is major rebalancing of classes, a complete revamp of the ORVR system and a retail box expansion sooner rather than later. It’s been a few years, but the MMO genre is finally starting to heat up again with some exciting titles on the horizon. It’s going to be survival of the fittest come next year.
Likewise, Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media revealed that it has acquired legendary development studio id Software (Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, …) I can’t say I’m surprised here; id Software hasn’t been a big player in the industry for awhile now. For a long time their franchises took second stage creatively to their engine technology, and Epic took that crown away from them many moons ago.
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