Rumor: New Blizzard MMO to be Starcraft Online?

by Chris Chester Jan 31st 2008 at 1:30PM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, Rumors

This is a bit of a long-shot, given the source, but we felt it was worth passing along anyway. A report out of Beijing has surfaced indicating that Blizzard's next foray into the MMO space will indeed be the oft-rumored Starcraft Online. Citing an anonymous industry insider, it was reported in Caijing magazine that Chinese game operator Netease will be the Chinese partner responsible for the distribution of Starcraft Online on the mainland. Netease CEO Ding Lei refused to confirm the rumor, but didn't deny it either. It's nothing official, but it's certainly plausible that the existence of the Blizzard new game would be leaked via a back-door channel like this.

Blizzard's unnamed "next-gen" MMO has been known to be in existence for some time now. Originally discovered visa vie the wording in a few job listings on Blizzard's careers page, the project was later confirmed by a mod on the World of Warcraft forums. It's been the fodder for many a discussion between the Massively staff, including a prominent appearance in Ask Massively. For my part, I speculated that the new Blizzard property would be an expansion of the Diablo series in part 2 of the Top 10 MIA MMOs of 2007. And just last week, our own Akela Talamasca speculated about how exactly an MMO set in the Starcraft universe would work, if at all.

Is this source completely reliable? Maybe. Is it right? Maybe. Are we going to stop until we've found the answer? Hells no!

[Via Gamesindustry.biz]

Tags: asian, blizzard, breaking, netease, rumors, starcraft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Aaron said on 4:33PM 1-31-2008

I really hope this happens. I can't think of a better next-gen MMO opportunity for Blizzard.

Coherent said on 9:02PM 1-31-2008

This is something of a no-brainer from a business perspective.

It's hard to analyze the veracity of rumors like this based on real-world information because it so overwhelmingly makes sense for them to do it. It's hard to add up the pluses and minuses if there's no minuses.

Crawford Mckinley said on 9:48AM 2-01-2008

Team 3, a seperate workforce from the current influx of new MMO staff, have yet to finalise production issues on the single player third person action world of warcraft to be released in a couple of years - only then can they turn to starcraft world after release of starcraft2.

Charlie said on 3:22PM 2-03-2008

Your comments confused me, did you mean to put world of wacraft in that sentence?

Anyways, since this is coming from the eastern world it gives it alot less credibility. Starcraft is HUGE in korea, and most places in the eastern world, alot bigger than it is here. So, considering its coming out of a magazine in that region, the rumor is probobly a way to generate some cash for the mag. The "unnamed" source makes it even more sketchy.

That being said, I really hope that SC is the next MMO for blizzard. It makes sense, as WoW only beats out SC by a small margin in copies sold. (Starcraft is at 10 million sold). But the difficulty in designing it would probobly push it back.

ScytheNoire said on 8:18PM 2-03-2008

There is no real top-notch Sci-Fi based MMO's out there. What is out there is weak. A Starcraft MMO would clean up, especially in Korea and the Asian market.

If Blizzard gives the option to bundle the monthly fee for both WoW and the Starcraft MMO, they can really make a nice profit without damaging the WoW player base too much. But if they make people choose, WoW will take a large hit in player base.

But the rumors are not so far fetched, especially if you consider how Warcraft III set up WoW, it's likely that Starcraft II will set up the Starcraft MMO.

Personally, I would find it hard not to move to the Starcraft MMO, it's far more interesting. And if it's has more integrated PvP like Warhammer Online, rather than being an after thought and side game for free epics like in WoW, then it would really attract a lot of players.