Activision CEO Bobby Kotick traf auf dem Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 die Aussage, dass Firmen die World of Warcraft Konkurrenz machen möchten, eine Summe von 500 Millionen bis eine Milliarde Dollar investieren müssten. Und selbst wenn eine solche Summe investiert wird, ist der Erfolg nicht vorprogrammiert. Laut Kotick war dies unter anderem ein Grund, um mit Blizzard zu fusionieren. Also ist in Zukunft wohl keine Kokurrenz für World of Warcraft in sicht.

"We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it," he said.

"When we first started looking at it, it appeared to us like a game in an insurmountable product category... EA, Microsoft, Sony and scores of venture capital investments had been put to work unsuccessfully in trying to develop massively multiplayer games as a product opportunity," Kotick said.

"When you... Look at all the money that's already gone to these businesses that have failed, there didn't seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category."

Kotick also paid tribute to the talent at WOW developers Blizzard. "They have a model that is very well-developed, they have a very keen understanding of their audiences, and they're just scratching the surface of opportunity in a lot of areas... These guys are among the best in the world of game development."

Danke an CreaturA für den Hinweis.