14 DAY TRIAL // Avid fans of Blizzard Entertainment (makers of World of Warcraft), must be aware of the developer's plans to roll out a new MMO. According to the company's CEO, the Mac gaming community remains an important pillar of Blizzard's business, with the iPhone also being in the scope for future developments.
Talking to Wired magazine, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime dished out some details about the Blizzard/Activision merger, but also offered some insights on the company's upcoming MMO project. According to Morhaime, the Mac gaming community is still a prominent figure. Noting that all of Blizzard's games are released with both the PC and Mac versions on the same disc, the interviewers asked Morhaime, “why?”
He replied beginning with a good laugh. After settling, he stated, “Well, nobody else does because the Mac gaming market is substantially smaller than the PC gaming market, and it does take effort to support the Mac.” However, “we have internal expertise in supporting the Mac,” Blizzard's CEO revealed. “We’ve been doing it for a very long time, and we have the volume of interested players in our community that makes it important for us, I think, to continue supporting them,” Morhaime further explained.
Not long into the interview, the iPhone came about. Pointing out that many game developers had picked up on Apple's mobile platform (EA was offered as an example), Wired asked Morhaime whether Blizzard planned to take up the same route. Morhaime revealed that while they “think the iPhone is a great gadget... at this stage, our interest is focused on 'How we can use mobile devices to allow players to stay connected to the community?' ... When you think about World of Warcraft as a social network, and you think about the future version of Battle.net as Blizzard’s social network, then you wanna stay connected to your social network. Whether you’re in-game, whether you're out of game, whether you're at home, whether you're on the road. I think that, for us - that’s probably the first area that we would take advantage of mobile devices like the iPhone.”
So, all Blizzard is planning on throwing at the iPhone is an interface for its community of gamers that will enable them to chat, share thoughts, track their progress, and perhaps exchange goods. If you were holding your breath for a mobile version of WoW, forget about it. It's not happening. At least not yet, anyway.