14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard has disappointed a lot of fans and investors by announcing that it was no longer working on the Titan MMO project, after seven years of investing resources in it, but gamers need to understand that the move opens up resources which can now be used in order to improve successful titles that were introduced recently, like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.
The company says that it lost the passion for the ideas that powered the initial design of Titan and never managed to make the experience as fun as it needed to be.
The fact that the title is no longer in development also means that Blizzard no longer believes that scale is important for the success of a game.
Hearthstone, a free-to-play card game created by a smaller than usual team, might be the one that will benefit the most from the newly liberated resources.
Chris Metzen, senior vice president of story and franchise development at Blizzard, is quoted by Polygon as saying that “Maybe we can be what we want to be and inspire groups around the company to experiment, get creative, think outside the box and take chances on things that just might thrill people. Maybe they don't have to be these colossal, summer blockbuster-type products.”
Heroes of the Storm, the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena title which uses characters drawn from a variety of franchises, is another sign that Blizzard is focusing on smaller and more innovative projects.
Metzen adds, “I think the lesson that comes around again is just making damn sure that the things we commit to do and the things we burn calories on and the things we commit to our community that we will do are coming from a place of focus and inspiration.”
World of Warcraft and the MMO dilemma
Titan was supposed to be the MMO project that was going to introduce a range of revolutionary ideas to the genre and to appeal to all those players who were originally fans of World of Warcraft but were no longer interested in the older title.
Since the Titan title was first rumored to exist, the industry has shifted in some important ways, with the biggest change being the rise of the free-to-play model, and the company does not seem very interested in exploring these new directions.
Blizzard is at the moment preparing to launch the Warlords of Draenor expansion for World of Warcraft, which will arrive on November 13 of this year.