Itās hard to untangle whether itās a media creation or born of the competitive natures of gaming and business, but according to at least one newspaper the war between Activision and Electronic Arts continues to simmer.
āWith Star Wars EA is taking aim at Activisionās World of Warcraft game,ā the Wall Street Journal reports. It is the second major strike, the newspaper says, against Activision.
Drawing a battle line between Activisionās Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and EAās Battlefield 3, with its āAbove and Beyond the Callā marketing, is pretty obvious.
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But does Electronic Arts see itself taking on Activisionās World of Warcraft with Star Wars: The Old Republic? Sure, on some level that makes sense. Any massively multiplayer game that enters that market canāt help but acknowledge the night elf in the room. But drawing a direct connection seems a little much.
In his recent conversations with the Doctors Bioware, our own Evan Narcisse says that they didnāt seem to view the game as a direct competitor.
Still, perhaps publisher EA has a different take on the matter. The Wall Street Journal piece says āEA executives said their titles would compete against Activisionās twin juggernauts but acknowledged they wouldnāt overtake them.ā
The story goes on to quote EAās head of studios Frank Gibeau saying that half a million subscribers would be approaching profitability and a million would be a good investment.
World of Warcraft, which has had and continues to have tremendous successes, is eventually going to wind down. Blizzard already seems to be preparing for that, but I donāt see that game exiting the marketplace any way other than under their own terms.
Thereās no such thing as a World of Warcraft killer, not until Blizzard decides there is. Trying to take the game on directly is the easiest route to the land of games that quickly, sometimes surprisingly went free-to-play.
