14 DAY TRIAL // When developer Blizzard announced they were interested in creating an action shooter spin-off from Starcraft, featuring one of the Human ghosts, a lot of fans were excited about the possibilities of the game only to then have their hopes crushed when the company terminated the development process without much ceremony.
And it seems that the World of Warcraft MMO was the main reason.
Speaking at the DICE 2011 summit, Mike Morhaime, the leader of Blizzard, has stated, “We have to choose, we can't do everything. Our vision for what's possible directs that. We like complex games and we like casual games.”
He added, talking specifically about Ghost, “They were working on StarCraft Ghost the same time we were working on World of Warcraft and StarCraft II. World of Warcraft exploded and we needed to make some resource decisions. It just wasn't an environment in which a project like could succeed."
On some levels, the decision makes perfect sense for Blizzard, as World of Warcraft has managed to become the most successful MMO in the subscription space, with more than 12 million people paying to play it, while Starcraft: Ghost was an unproven concept that could have flopped when released to gamers.
On the other hand, the fact that Blizzard was not interested in taking a chance on something completely new says something about a company which bases its business on three big games, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, with all of them recently adhering to time proven gaming mechanics.
At the moment, Blizzard is working on the first expansion for Starcraft II, called Heart of the Swarm, and recent reports are suggesting that gamers will have to wait until 2012 in order to see it released.
Fans of the Ghost concept could try and use the extensive modding possibilities included in Starcraft II to bring it back to life.