Posts with tag mtv

At the Worldwide Invitational, MTV interviewed two Blizzard executives: Paul Sams, Chief Operating Officer, and Frank Pearce, Executive Vice President of Product Development. It's an interesting read -- if not the best interview I've ever read -- which includes more info on Diablo 3, mobile apps, and thoughts about MMOs in general. The duo leaves the door open for Blizzard to create an MMO that might "cannibalize" the WoW player base, although for some reason they are not convinced that Diablo 3 will impact that base. (I, for one, disagree. The huge response we got to the Diablo news on WoW Insider tells us that there is a huge amount of crossover between the franchises.) They also don't believe that there's much overlap between Starcraft and WoW. Frank stressed that, regardless of what the marketing research might say, "those aren't necessarily the data points that we use for decision-making when it comes to the games that we want to make."

Read on to see what Blizzard says about time between game releases and new MMOs.

After yesterday's subliminal debacle, we need some quality time in front of the television. lagspikefilm, previously known for his runaway hit, Crossing Over, has invited us into Thrall's Crib. This parody of MTV Cribs is so inspired by the real deal that I wouldn't be surprised if MTV sought permission to air it, or, alternatively, cease and desist it.

We're introduced to Thrall at the front of his pad, where he gives us a tour of his sweet rides, the room where the magic happens, and his unfortunate hair days. Fans of Cribs will notice every cut scene, musical choice, and even the sudden sped up footage. I wonder what a "house" like that costs?

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

The always awesome Alice Taylor from Wonderland was at the Hollywood and Games Summit this past week, and Blizzard's Rob Pardo made an appearance in a panel about creating a "parallel experience" between entertainment media and MMOs. Alice put up summaries of the various points made, and the result is a pretty interesting read into how Blizzard is working on their upcoming Warcraft movie.

The whole panel is a good read (reps from MTV and Sony also make appearances to talk about how they're taking audiences across media), but Pardo specifically makes the point that in whatever media you're in, you have to balance how you're using that media against how you're using the intellectual property the media is based on. "Demographics," he says, "follow the IP," so Blizzard clearly thinks that if a Warcraft movie is released, that Warcraft players will run to see it in droves. But at the same time, he says the media must define how you use the IP-- Warcraft RTS is a different experience than WoW, and WoW will be (supposedly) a different experience than a Warcraft movie. He does want to make sure "the epic scale of the IP shows up in that movie."

He also speaks to Blizzard's plans to make "episodic content" for WoW rather than "boxed content," and says that they haven't delivered content as fast as they've wanted to yet. But he also claims, "We've got our head round it now." So maybe they really will have a new expansion for us ready on time next year.

The good guys over at Curse Gaming have pointed to a Jeff Kaplan interview at MTV.com, in which he talks about comparisons to Second Life, how the Sword of 1,000 Truths didn't make it to the expansion, and the idea of player housing!

They caught him on the phone at the BC Launch at Universal CityWalk in LA (where, strangely enough, he's being asked to sign things as "Tigole"), and it seems as though the interviewer doesn't quite have a grasp on online gaming-- Kaplan is asked how Second Life compares to WoW, and as he says, while Second Life is great, it's not really a competitor to what Blizzard has built. There's a huge difference between Blizzard-created content, and the user-created stuff. He also namechecks the Starcraft and Diablo universes (not the first time we've heard those hinted at).

But the most interesting part of the article is what Kaplan says about player housing: "I think housing can take 'World of Warcraft' to the next level." That's definitely not a "no" to the idea, and frankly it's much more credit than I ever thought Blizzard would give to creating an in-game customizable area for players. While he does say it's an idea they had in the beginning (the huge inaccessible instance in Stormwind was rumored to be a player housing area at one time), Kaplan also confirms that if they're going ahead with it at all, they won't release anything until they have a "Blizzard-quality feature." So while there's no way we can expect it in the next patch (or even the next expansion), it's very interesting news that the gears appear to be turning over at Blue HQ about player housing.