Activision Blizzard Officially Announced
Jul 14, 2008 Articles Recommend|201views
 Vivendi announced that the merger between Activision and Vivendi Games to form a new company under the name of Activision Blizzard has been finalized.
VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION COMPLETE TRANSACTION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
World’s Most Profitable Pure-Play Online and Console Game Publisher
Cash Tender Offer for Up to 146.5 Million of Activision Blizzard Shares at 27.50 per Share to Commence Within Five Business Days
Vivendi owns 52% on a Fully Diluted Basis/54% of Outstanding Shares of Activision Blizzard
July 10, 2008. Paris, France and Santa Monica, CA. Vivendi (Euronext Paris: VIV) and Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced the completion of the transaction announced on December 2, 2007 to create Activision Blizzard, as the world’s most profitable pure-play online and console game publisher. Activision Blizzard was formed by combining Activision, one of the world’s leading independent publishers of interactive entertainment, and Vivendi Games, Vivendi’s interactive entertainment business, which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s® World of Warcraft®, the world’s #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Activision Blizzard will continue to operate as a public company traded on Nasdaq under the ticker ATVI.
Jean Bernard Levy, CEO of Vivendi, said: “We have created the world leader in online and console games with this transaction and the combined strengths of the two businesses offer immense growth potential. I am also very confident that, with the new leadership team in place, the new entity is perfectly positioned to take advantage of these rapidly developing markets across the globe.”
Rene Penisson, Chairman of Activision Blizzard, added: “We are delighted that the merger has been completed. We are very excited about the opportunity for Activision Blizzard to create a broader entertainment software platform. We are leaders across North America and Europe and are creating a substantial footprint in the rapidly growing Asian market. We are determined to ‘think big’!”
“The completion of this transaction marks the beginning of an important new chapter in the history of interactive entertainment,” said Robert Kotick, President and Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard. “By combining leaders in mass-market entertainment and subscription-based online games, Activision Blizzard has leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry. With more than 10.7 million subscribers on World of Warcraft, and with tens of millions of people playing Guitar Hero, Activision Blizzard’s games are transcending the traditional stereotypes and are more popular as a form of entertainment than ever before. We look forward to building upon our brands to create value for our shareholders, customers and consumers.”
“From the beginning, our goal has been to make the best games in the world, and this transaction strengthens our ability to do just that,” said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment cofounder and Chief Executive Officer. “As part of Activision Blizzard we’ll have the reach and resources to share our games with an even wider audience while maintaining the same approach as always to providing high-quality entertainment and services to our players.”
In addition to World of Warcraft, the #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, the transaction brings together some of the world’s leading interactive entertainment franchises including Guitar Hero®, the #1 family entertainment and #1 music-based franchise; Call of Duty®, the #1 first-person action franchise; Tony Hawk, the #1 action sports franchise; Spider-Man, the #1 Super Hero franchise; Cabela’s, the #1 sports hunting franchise; and two of the top-ten kids movie-based franchises, Shrek and Madagascarâ„¢, for calendar year 2005 through 2007 according to the NPD Group, Chart Track and The GFK Group.
The transaction was approved by Activision’s stockholders at a special stockholder meeting on July 8, 2008 and closed on July 9, 2008.
How StarCraft Beat Chess
Jul 14, 2008 world of warcraft|377views
 The website of Eurogamer has released an interview resolving how starcraft beat chess.
The details are as below:
With Battle.net, Diablo and WOW behind them, it’s probably fair to suggest that PC gamers have spent more millions of hours on Blizzard’s games than any other company’s. Which is mental. With that in mind, we recently spent an hour chatting to three team leads on the original, now all working inside Blizzard on StarCraft II.
They are Frank Pearce, the executive vice-president in charge of product development (he oversees all the new games); Bob Fitch, the lead software engineer (he makes the engines and decides on game features); and Sam Didier, senior art director (he makes the world look o-so-pretty, and recently spoke to EG MMO about WOW). In line with their history of fantasy roleplay, if anyone fancies LARPing this, Frank Pearce’s voice suggests a paternally-growling Tauren, Bob Fitch is an tinkering Gnome alchemist, and Sam Didier is some sort of excitable Goblin with ten tonnes of hi-ex strapped to his endlessly-whirring noggin.
Eurogamer: Let me take you back to the original product, back to your childhood. It’s 1998, Warcraft and Warcraft II have been successes, there’s a lot riding on StarCraft and there’s problems in development. People are calling it Warcraft in Space, it had a slightly negative aspect at preview, and it took a lot longer than you thought it would do; how does it feel to look back on the pain you went through to birth this amazing product?
Sam Didier: [Sam immediately starts corpsing in the background, presumably at the image of himself giving birth.]
Frank Pearce: Back when the impression was orcs in space, it was mainly the visuals that saved it, so Sam should handle this.
Sam Didier: [Stifling giggles] When we first worked on SC, when we first showed it at CES, we didn’t have the look set.
Bob Fitch: And we were also trying to use the first engine for it.
Sam Didier: And we basically took how some of the old Warcraft stuff and, okay this is how the backgrounds were made, let’s draw over them and give them a space feel. We did that and it was very rushed and obviously not the coolest thing in the world.
So we went back and redid it, and that was the first game that we used 3D Studio in. For Warcraft II, we made some 3D models and drew over them. This was the first time we actually made them in 3D and went with that. We didn’t do a whole lot of touch-up in the art. We took all the basic ideas we wanted to do and started implementing them in 3D and that’s what gave SC its look. The earlier one was rushed just so we could have something to show at CES.
Bob Fitch: We were also using the Warcraft II engine at CES, which made it look like just Warcraft II and a half. After we got back, we rewrote the entire engine.
Frank Pearce: When the game came out, a lot of the fans lamented the fact that it was not true 3D because at the time, y’know, 3D games were starting out. Ten years later, it’s nice to know that our philosophy of focusing on gameplay was validated. No-one cares that it’s not 3D any more; all everyone says is that it’s a really fun game.
Eurogamer: A lot of the most beautiful games of history are 2D, like Planescape Torment; is it always a necessity for 3D in the modern day?
Frank Pearce: I would say it depends on the game. There’s lots of really compelling experiences that are just small web applications. It’s about the experience and the quality of the game.
Eurogamer: The original design of StarCraft was, you’ve admitted, a bodge-job. Yet when you redesigned you came up with three impressive new races. Where did the inspirations come from? Did you just pull them out of a hat, did you pull them out of (ahem) somewhere else?
: In Warcraft we took the classic mythological races and we put our own spin to it. We did the same with StarCraft. The Protoss are just a Blizzard spin on your typical grey alien. Super-intelligent, robots, lots of technology, big giant ships. We put our spin on it and turned them from little skinny grey guys into big, imposing grey guys. The basic units of these guys is the Zealot, he’s a powerful fighter, great a combat, but they also have the intelligent, spiritual vibe to them where they harken back to the old typical SF alien.
Frank Pearce
The Terrans are your classic marine guys but with our vibe on them. They were all convicts, hillbillies and biker types, not galactic noble warriors. Their armour is dirty and worn down, they have tattoos, smoke cigars and drink.
And the Zerg stemmed off the all-devouring alien menace and we put our spin on them too. Each of them has their classic SF mythology and with a dose of your Blizzard spin.
AoC: The 2nd Largest Subscription-based MMO
Jul 14, 2008 Age of Conan|360views
| Eidos and Funcom announce that more than 700,000 Age of Conan accounts have been created since the Hyborian Age MMORPG launched, leading them to claim AoC is the second largest subscription-based MMO. Of course, as you know, the top is still World of Warcraft.
Durham, USA. June 30, 2008. Eidos and Funcom are proud to announce that Age of Conan continues to dominate the PC sales charts in all markets where the game is available. Over the last few weeks it has remained the overall #1 PC game in most European markets, whilst also performing tremendously well on several all-format charts. In the US, Age of Conan impressively conquered the #1 PC spot for the first two weeks of available NPD data. Due to the amazing interest surrounding the game, more than 700.000 gamers have now signed up for an Age of Conan account. In the second month after release it is also clear that Age of Conan has taken the position as the undisputed #2 subscription MMO in the western world. When Age of Conan stormed into retail stores as what we believe to be the most pre-ordered original PC game in history, it instantly became the best selling PC game of May. The pace at which Age of Conan sold made it one of the fastest selling PC games of all times, and Funcom and Eidos are therefore very satisfied to see the positive sales trend continue. As all countries report sales differently, it is not possible to get a complete overview of the exact box sales at the time of writing, but Age of Conan remains the top selling PC game in most all released markets. This includes being the #1 overall PC game in June in the Nordic countries, Oceania, Germany, France and Spain, as well a top three contender in all other markets where the game is out. No substantial sales data for June is yet available from the US market, but Age of Conan was the #1 PC game in the latest official NPD update.
“That Age of Conan remains #1 in retail stores several weeks after release is of incredible importance to us, and proves that the game has a large potential beyond the early adopters,” said Morten Larssen, VP of Sales & Marketing in Funcom. “With more than 700.000 accounts created so far we have a fantastic platform to build from, and we will continue our marketing spend to further drive numbers in the months to come. It also means that Funcom can dedicate significant development resources on evolving the game even further, naturally giving us a great hope for the future of Age of Conan.” “We are incredibly pleased to see Age of Conan turning into an MMO phenomenon,” said Gaute Godager, Game Director on Age of Conan. “As an MMO company we know that a good start is just the beginning for a virtual world. All we care about now is to make Age of Conan into an even better game, and we have extensive plans to ensure that Age of Conan remains a top MMO alternative for many years to come.” |
WoW’s Attempt at Open-world PvP
Jul 14, 2008 world of warcraft|246views
I’ve known for some time that Blizzard would be trying their hand at finally introducing some real open-world PvP in WoW. The details of said attempt have only recently begun to come into focus.
* Lake Wintergrasp is WoW’s first non-battleground zone solely devoted to PvP action.
* According to a fixed, rolling schedule, one faction will defend the keep/mine, and the other faction will assault it. Both sides will fight over towers and siege workshops scattered around the zone.
* If the attacking force succeeds in capturing the keep/mine, that faction will defend it during the next rotation. If that attacking force fails to capture the final objective before the next rotation, that faction will be given more resources (unknown to what those might be for now) to balance out the fight, and give every faction a chance to hold Lake Wintergrasp.
* Lake Wintergrasp will feature a variety of new daily quests. These quests include (but are not limited to): quests where you have to ride a mount with an NPC, holding attackers at bay; flying aircraft quests; flying mount quests where you have to lower ropes to evacuate NPCs; in these quests, mounts can hold multiple players!
* Wintergrasp Marks of Honor will drop in the zone. These marks are necessary for honor gear acquired through the Honor system.
* When a faction controls Lake Wintergrasp, bosses in Northrend will drop Spirit shards like objects for that faction only. These objects will be necessary for buying certain PvP gear.
* When you control a tower, you will keep it for a certain amount of time before it becomes available for capture (like the Spirit Towers)
* Before capturing the keep, the walls must be destroyed by weapons.
A fixed schedule, forced swapping, grinding tokens to get gear… yep sounds like Blizzard PvP to me. They always find a way to turn their pvp into a sporting event or grind… Yet this is actually a step up for WoW PvP! To me that does not bode well for WoW’s ability to hold the attention of PvPers beyond the release of WAR.
Blizzard needs to do away with the idea that open-world PvP is nothing more than a larger battleground. Get rid of the grinding for tokens. Lose the e-sport happy meal mentality and make it EPIC! If not then WoW will continue to be the game for people who like e-sport pvp and hamster wheel pve. It’s probably too late anyway given that the next phase of mmorpg releases marks, in my mind, the further decline of WoW.
If you’re going to add open-world pvp in an expansion rivaling the release of a game that is centered around open-world pvp (rvr) doesn’t it make sense to, at the very least, offer a competitive design? I think Blizzard would almost be better off trying to create an experience closer to RvR. At this point who cares if people consider it blatant copying? Do it right or don’t do it at all.
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Mark Jacobs Interview Part Two - Punkbuster, Capitol Cities and Careers, Page One
Jul 14, 2008 Articles Recommend|237views
Punkbuster
First, Mark Jacobs, the VP and General Manager of Mythic Entertainment, announced to MMORPG.com that the studio has partnered with well-known anti-cheat company Punkbuster in an effort to make sure that their upcoming RvR game (Warhammer Online) is as free from cheaters, hacks and the like as possible.
“As you know,†said Jacobs in an interview, “we have fought a long battle against hackers, cheaters and other assorted slimeballs who think that it’s both fun and fair for them to have an advantage over other players.â€
“We obviously did a lot of things in Dark Age of Camelot that worked,†he continued. “ We banned cheaters whenever we found them. We made a tremendous effort to sort out and deal with hackers and companies or individuals who promote this sort of stuff. Did we do a perfect job? Absolutely not, nobody does, but we did a pretty good job.â€
In 2008 though, he said, Warhammer is seeing a much wider distribution than its earlier counterpart and the landscape of MMOs has changed, leading to more and more people who look to cheat. Rather than facing down these cheaters and hackers on their own, Mythic is taking on a partner in Punkbuster, a company with a strong reputation in the online gaming world.
Says the company website:
“Welcome to Even Balance, Inc., home of PunkBusterâ„¢, the original Anti-Cheat system for online multiplayer games. We daily battle the selfish little punks who want to ruin your favorite online games and the hack-writers who supply them with cheats. Our goal is to keep the playing field as even as possible so that PunkBuster-enabled games are played the way they were meant to be played.â€
The company currently supports such games as: the Battlefield franchise, the Call of Duty franchise, the Quake franchise, the Rainbow Six franchise and others, but Warhammer Online will be their first forray into the realm of the MMORPG.
“We think this is a huge win for the players,†said Jacobs of the partnership. “We are an RvR-centric game and anything that gives a player an advantage over another player in an RvR-centric game is a very bad thing. We take this stuff incredibly seriously, our history shows that. We wanted, by doing this deal with Punkbuster, to show the players that we’re willing to go an extra step for them.â€
Jacobs went on to say that they want their players to have the best RvR experience possible, and that no matter how good they are as a company at resolving issues to do with hackers and cheaters, there will always be someone better out there who wants to get past it. That is why Mythic is going to both the effort and expense of gaining an ally in the fight.
The technology, we are told, has already been implemented into the game’s beta, though it hasn’t yet been activated. They will work with Punkbuster throughout the beta process to be sure that the technology is working properly. If not, Jacobs says, the technology can be easily turned on and off without hurting gameplay.
“The key is a great RvR experience,†said Jacobs, “and this is important to know: We’re going to continue our own efforts as well. If we were to just rely on them, that would also be a mistake. It’s not that they’re not good at what they do. They are. But we’re here every day, working on the code, so by having the combination, if we have to disable it for any reason or if they miss something or if we miss something, we’ve got a second set of eyes.â€
Capital Cities
Originally, the plan for Warhammer Online was for each of the races in the game (Greenskin, Chaos, Dark Elf, High Elf, Empire and Dwarf) to come fully equipped with a “living, breathing Capital Cityâ€. These cities not only serve in the game as quest and social hubs, but also play a pivotal role in the game’s Realm vs. Realm design. As the war rages on, the game’s capital cities will gain and lose in rank, opening and closing new content, dungeons (yup, right in the city) and the like.
MMORPG.com has learned that a decision has been made to reduce the number of Capital Cities at launch from six down to two. Altdorf (Empire) and Inevitable City (Chaos) will stand at launch as the Capitals not only of their race, but of their faction as well.
“A number of months ago,†Jacobs began, “we sat down and looked at where we were with our Capital Cities and we looked at what we were doing with Altdorf and Inevitable, we looked at the Greenskin home, the Dwarf home and we went ‘there’s an awful lot to do here and there are some issues‘.â€
There was something missing. It wasn’t enough fun, it wasn’t interesting enough, it wasn’t “alive†enough. From there, the team was faced with a choice. They could either keep going down that path, working on all six cities and trying to get them finished before launch or make the hard decision to shelve four of the cities until post-launch and make sure that Altdorf and Inevitable were as full and rich as their design had intended. Mythic chose the latter.
“we decided to focus our energies on two capital cities; one for Order and one for Destruction, and make them fabulous, said Jacobs. “Not good, not great, but fabulous.â€
“We wanted to make our Capital Cities the best cities in any MMO. We think we’re doing that, but it came at a price and that price is that the other cities aren’t going in the game right now.â€
While he and the rest of the company do realize that this is going to frustrate some players, they also see three upsides to the decision:
1 Each city will now be polished as much as possible. “These things,†he said, “are getting our full attention. They are a tremendous effort by the team on all levels.â€
2. Capital cities are more than just “a place for people to hang out, buy stuff and run around making Chuck Norris jokes,†says Jacobs. He went on to talk about the detailed nature of these cities and how, no matter how good you or your team is, you’re not going to get it 100% correct on your first time around. Starting with two cities will allow the team to learn from their mistakes so that when the other four are incorporated, they will be better and the devs won’t have made the same mistakes six times over.
“Nobody gets it right the first time. Not WoW, not Camelot, not EverQuest. Everyone changes their game once it goes live. We have to expect the same thing will happen with cities.â€
3 Players won’t be distracted or divided between cities and will be able to focus their collective efforts on a single target and a single defensible position. “By only starting with two, we can really focus the community, focus the player base, focus the guilds, the teams, that are all working to sack the city.â€
Mark went on to say that he feels that while it would have been nice for each race to have their own city, they believe that, for the above reasons, the decision is a net win for the players. The team, according to Jacobs, really believes that while they would have liked (and know that players would have liked) to have all cities fully functional, it is better to do it right twice, than wrong six times.
Jacobs also talked about their other option, which would have been to delay the game on behalf of the Capital Cities. In the end, that wasn’t really an option as even delaying the game to accommodate the cities would have resulted in issues and in the end, wouldn’t have resolved the issues listed above.
“Once something goes live,†he added, “it becomes much more difficult to change so you have to be more careful. You can‘t make as many sweeping changes and when you make changes you have to look at the impact on the existing player base. There are so many bad things that can happen post-launch when you make significant adjustments. By doing it this way, we don‘t have to worry about that. We can make the adjustments to the new cities and then rotate in those cities.â€
From there, I asked Mark whether it would be difficult for players who were not Empire or Chaos to access their side’s city.
“No,†he answered quickly. “You’ve got to be able to get to all of the cities no matter which side you’re playing on, otherwise it would be a terrible thing for players.â€
So how are non-Empire or non-Chaos players going to feel an attachment to these cities? I asked.
“Well, number one, it’s on your side,†Mark replied, “and two, you’re going to need to go there… We’re trying to put things in there to make all of the races happy when they get there, but that’s a little tougher to do. I think the biggest reason for attachment is that it will be to your benefit to be attached. One of the things we said from the beginning is that when you look at any other game that has RvR or something like RvR in it, players need to feel not just attached to whatever the target is, but it also has to be of benefit to them to defend it. In a lot of games, there is no benefit. It doesn’t matter what game you play, if there’s no reason for people to come defend the city, a lot of players won’t bother. We’re giving them reasons to defend the city, we’re giving them rewards for defending the city, we’re giving them quests, public quests, etc.â€
The bottom line here is that players will feel attachment through RvR and rewards as well as for lore reasons.
Next, I asked whether there was a danger that with all of the players congregating in one area, lag and other performance issues might crop up.
“It’s always a danger,†he said, “but we hope that whether it’s RvR or the way that we’ve laid out these cities that it won’t be an issue. If it is, then we’ll figure out something else to do. The nice thing is that in talking just PvE, these cities are big. We hope that with the design that performance in non-RvR will be just fine. So far, just fine. If we find out during Beta that it’s not fine, we can look at various things to make sure that the player still has a good experience.â€
The last question that I asked revolved around content and the concern that by eliminating four of the six cities, there would be a dip in the amount of content offered.
The answer to that question was that this had been taken into account by the developers when the decision was made, and they are beefing up the amount of content offered in the two cities at least twofold (he didn’t have exact numbers in front of him during the interview, but was comfortable saying that).
“Right now, for each city, we have 12 public quests and almost 100 quests that either lead to the city or within the city, or leading out of the city, plus three dungeons for each of the capital cities. That’s a fair amount of content and there wasn’t going to be that much in each city in the initial design.â€
Careers
The last subject that we tackled in our interview was the announcement that was neither a pure positive for the players nor a sort of mix of good and bad news:
“This isn’t something that I can say that it is really a good thing for the player,†he began. “We’re cutting out some classes. I can say that we are doing this for quality, absolutely. Unfortunately, what I can’t say, and I won’t because I’ve never lied to the player base and while this would be a great place to start, I’m not going to.â€
 advertisement “Four of the classes that we’ve been working on, we just couldn’t get great,†he continued. “We looked at them and we said these careers are just not great… and we tried, and they weren’t coming out well.â€
This left them with a decision similar to the one that they were left with for the cities, do they continue and try to get it, or do they shelve them? In the end, after looking at the metric data that they have been collecting throughout the beta process, they saw that there were four careers that just weren’t working for the players.
“We tried,†Jacobs said, “we tried to see if we could make them better and we just couldn’t make them great. So we had a choice. Do we put in some non-great careers just because they are iconic, or we cut them out and put them in post-launch if we can get them right, or do we not put them in at all?â€
In the end, whether it’s the second or the third option is still unknown.
The four careers that are going may surprise players (and even includes one of Marks personal favorites). The list is as follows:
Choppa (Greenskin)
Hammerer (Dwarf)
Blackguard (Dark Elf)
Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire)
This means the removal of two tanks and two melee DPS classes.
“I wish we didn’t have to do it,†Mark said, “I really do. Unlike the capital cities [which provided a silver lining in the end], I can honestly say that I really wish we didn’t have to cut them out, but it’s better for them to be cut out than to have classes that aren’t great and that we would spend more time trying to make them great post-launch than we should have to.â€
In the end, the team felt that adding careers into the game that weren’t up to their standards would have hurt not only the game and the company, but the players as well. Trying to fix classes (that are already in the game) post-launch can cause a boatload of nightmares as players not only of the careers involved, but of other careers as well. Many MMO players have experienced the nerfing and other annoyances that are often involved in a great deal of tinkering with an existing class, and Mythic didn’t want to put anyone through that experience unnecessarily.
“We’ve been down that path before and we’ve seen other companies go down the exact same path. We’re not going down that path. We’ve launched too many other MMOs and seen too many other guys go ‘it’s not quality, it’s quantity’… Bad move, especially in an RvR game.â€
“Of all of the news in this interview, this is the worst. Having to cut these guys out, even though it’s the right decision, I am really sorry that we have to do it. I truly am. I don’t like going to the guys and telling them ‘hey sorry, we’ve got to cut these guys out. They’re just not good enough but that was what we had to do.â€
In the end, Mark tells us that the classes that were cut were either not different enough, or they weren’t strong enough. “They just weren’t enough fun. We’re looking for exciting, we’re looking for fun.â€
Whether or not you agree with the decision, it’s hard not to like the fact that EA Mythic… I’m sorry, Mythic Entertainment, is telling players up front about the changes and not keeping them under a PR hat, even though some of these announcements will undoubtedly frustrate and anger some players.
“We’ve always believed that it is important to go to the community with both good news and bad,†he said. “Whether it’s the state of the games, or just talking in the forums, we’re professional enough to confront bad news head on and not try to hide it and not try to play games and wait until the last minute when people have already bought the game to tell them. We will not play those kinds of games.â€
Of course, we only have their word for it and in this cynical time, players will have to trust their own guts. Personally though, Mythic has never given me a reason not to believe them.
The last thing that we discussed before ending the interview took us full circle back to the first announcement on the EA Mythic name change and the company’s relationship with the publishing giant.
“This has nothing to do with EA,†he said, pointing out that this was entirely a Mythic decision, and it isn’t a directive from the company which many MMO players feel has a dubious history in our genre. “they had zero input in this. This is not something we went to them with and said ‘hey guys, we need an extra few months…’ and they said ‘no, you must ship on this day’. They don’t even know about it. It’s not a discussion we would have with them.â€
Well, I guess they know now.
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Mark Jacobs Interview Part One - What’s in a Name?
Jul 14, 2008 Articles Recommend|213views
Mythic Entertainment. It’s a name that we haven’t really heard much of since June 20th, 2006 when the company known best for their Realm vs. Realm style MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot and their upcoming MMORPG Warhammer Online announced that it had been acquired by publishing giant Electronic Arts (EA). After the announcement the company went through a name change and a re-branding, including a new logo, that saw the studio re-named “EA Mythicâ€.
Today, MMORPG.com learned that EA Mythic will be going through another transition as the company reclaims the Mythic Entertainment name.
“We are going back to Mythic Entertainment,†said Mark Jacobs, the VP and General Manager of EA Mythic. “I’ve always been a believer of separate branding,†he continued, going on to cite a number of successful companies like Disney and GE that operate subsidiary companies under separate and distinct brands.
“I think that this is a wonderful example of how things at EA are changing,†he continued, “both John (Riccitiello, CEO of EA) and Frank (Gibeau, EA) have spoken multiple times about city states, more freedom, that sort of thing and I think this is an obvious example.â€
With that quote, Jacobs is referring to statements that Riccitellio made published in a February 10th article from Gamasutra essentially stating that EA subsidiaries are like city-states [of the larger EA empire]:
“These citystates are more about who they are individually than they are part of EA… The heart and soul of what our company is with the developers who create the products because without that we are absolutely nothing.”
It seems as though a part of supporting that individuality means a re-branding or in this case a re-re-branding of their studios, including Mythic Entertainment. Still, just in case there was any confusion, Jacobs also points out that they are still the same company and are still a part of EA:
“We’re still part of EA,†he said, “this is a name change and both Mythic Entertainment and EA are well represented in the game, on the box, etc. but the developer is going to be officially Mythic Entertainment.â€
The last question I asked before moving on to other subjects revolved around the logo. Is the new logo here to stay, or whether we should expect a return to the classic Mythic Entertainment.
“We are going to go with a hybrid,†Jacobs answered. “Going back to the old logo… ok that’s good, but we’re looking to do something better so I think you’ll like our new logo. It is very similar to what we’ve done before, but it’s not identical.â€
While this is the end of the announcements for tonight, log on to MMORPG.com tomorrow for a report on the rest of that interview that includes three other exclusive announcements specifically addressing Warhammer Online.