Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of Electronic Arts’ AAA titles coming in the next few months, and BioWare is confident that their MMO won’t cannibalize EA’s other, currently active MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
According to BioWare Mythic VP Eugene Evans, The Old Republic is not a threat to Warhammer Online, chiefly because each game appeals to a different segment of gamers.
“All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest,” said Evans.
Evans states that interest has been revitalized by the upcoming arena-based spin-off Wrath of Heroes expansion to Warhammer Online, and that subscriptions have been going up due to it. “Right now, we’re focused on Wrath of Heroes as our free-to-play offering in the Warhammer universe,” Evans explained. “We believe in the community of players who are playing Age of Reckoning. Yes, we could have attracted a lot of players to it (with free-to-play), but it’s unclear how long you’ll keep them. We wanted to support our game as it currently exists.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic will benefit from the lessons learned from Warhammer Online. “We also think this is a better approach. You know, how do you make it more accessible? How do you make it a fun experience out of the door?” Evans suggested. ”So we’re really starting almost from the ground-up but having the benefit of being able to draw on everything we’ve learned from producing Warhammer Online.”
