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The Old Republic vs. World of Warcraft – Round 2

Another shot has been fired in this recently rekindled war of sorts.

Early on, BioWare made it clear that there’s room enough for everyone in the MMO space and they weren’t out to “kill” anyone. But recent comments from Electronic Arts executives have thrown a little bit of fuel on the competitive fire.

This time around, EA Games’ Frank Gibeau sends a volley toward the Blizzard behemoth.

IndustryGamers.com talked with Gibeau recently and has filed a report on the discussion:

“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.”

Further, Gibeau is quoted as saying:

“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.

Head on over to IndustryGamers.com for the full read!

 

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Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Due After July 1st, 2011

Arguably, the biggest news out of Boston about TOR in the past few days didn’t come out of PAX East.

If Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown’s satements at the Lazard Capital Markets Annual Technology & Media Conference in Boston today are accurate, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ won’t be hitting store shelves (electronic or otherwise) any time before July 1st, 2011.

The fine chaps over at Darth Hater have filed a report based on information learned today during a financial presentation:

Eric Brown: So we said it’s going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It’s also reasonable to infer that it’s not in our Q1 guidance.

This means that the soonest we could see TOR is on July 1st, the beginning of EA’s fiscal second quarter.

So what does this mean for fans who are chomping at the bit to play?

I think it’s important to remember 2011 is BioWare’s target for release. You’ve now got a solid 6 month window for the release. And I don’t think there’s any more time you need to spend thinking about it than that – it’s coming out this year.

The report also quotes EA’s Brown on aspects of Game Testing:

The next phase will be to expand the beta testing. Up until now it’s been kind of the EA friends and family kind of testing program. We need to expand the testing universe to make it more open scalability, back-end systems, etc. Figure out concurrency etc. Where there are choke points on different maps etc., tune it accordingly. We will be increasing the beta.

Head on over to DH for the full transcription of the call as it pertained to The Old Republic, or you can also head over and listen to the audio for yourself right here. (Registration required.)

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Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference: John Riccitiello Speaks

Today in San Francisco, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello is participated in a Q&A session at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.

Although the presentation was financial in nature, many of the TOR faithful tuned in to investor.ea.com to see if there might be even the smallest bit of information revealed, or maybe even a “slip-up,” which Riccitiello has been known to provide fans with in the past.

While there were no real “slip-ups” this time around, there was some chatter about an un-named release in May of this year. Some speculate it might be a social game, or Dragon Age Legends. The discussion surrounded competitor Zynga, so it probably doesn’t hold any significance to TOR.

Although, May the 4th be with you has a nice ring to it :)

Riccitiello reaffirmed that they can “make money” with 500,000 subscribers, whereas 1.5 million plus would be considered substantially profitable.

EA’s CEO also continued to praise World of Warcraft at the same time as he locked the crosshairs on Blizzard. “We can probably get a million without affecting them at all… after that it will probably be trading…”

Electronic Arts will post the full audio of these events at investor.ea.com, so stay tuned there if you’d like to hear what John Riccitiello said first-hand and see if we missed anything.

 

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EA and LucasArts enter into new publishing agreement for Star Wars: The Old Republic

Electronic Arts today posted a press release outlining their renewed and revised worldwide publishing agreement for Star Wars: The Old Republic:

With this new agreement, certain publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities previously designated to LucasArts will shift to EA, so that all publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities can be centralized for efficiency.

The article mentions the game will launch in 2011, though no more specific info was given.

It’s interesting in that some of the responsibilities are shifting to EA from LucasArts. What does it mean for the game? Probably nothing. Or maybe something. One wonders if the recent changes and downsizing at LucasArts may have influenced this decision.

Update: Here’s a statement from Ray Muzyka, who made the original announcement (via Joystiq: )

“There’s not going to be any obvious change for gamers,” Muzyka said of the immediate implications of the deal, adding that, “It makes things easier for us to have everything under one roof, and that will eventually benefit players.” How so? Customer service was one example given. As for the role LucasArts will have in the game’s development going forward, Muzyka told Joystiq that the company will still be “very involved” in ensuring that the final experience is 100 percent Star Wars in content and tone.

We’ll keep tabs on it, and keep you posted.

Click to view the entire press release here.

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