14 DAY TRIAL // A number of former developers from companies like Blizzard, Sony Online Entertainment and Relic have banded together to launch a new game studio called Molten Games, based in San Diego, which is currently working on a free-to-play AAA PC game project.
Paul della Bita, a former senior director of global community development at Blizzard, is the chief product officer at Molten, and other recruits include Blaine Smith, a lead designer who has worked at SOE and at Relic on Company of Heroes.
The team is not yet willing to offer any details about its free-to-play online game but the resources required to create it are offered by NCsoft.
Paul della Bita tells GamesIndustry that the pair has created the studio because, “We played a lot of Valve and Blizzard games before I worked there. These were studios that were made up of gamers just making great games they enjoyed playing. And we’re trying to follow in those footsteps.”
Molten Games will retain the right to any kind of intellectual property that it creates and will remain independent from other gaming companies.
The developer also explained the unique selling point of the free-to-play title Molten Games is working on.
He added, “This is a game that you would have happily paid $60 for at retail. We’re just trying to take advantage of the free-to-play model, but we want people to have the same expectation of quality they would if they went and bought a $60 console game at the store.”
It’s unclear whether the new AAA title is set to only arrive on the PC or if they are also planning to deliver it on the next-gen consoles from Sony or Microsoft.
World of Warcraft, the Blizzard-made MMO, continues to be the biggest subscription-based game in the world of gaming.