Paul-Sams posts

Blizzard CEO calls shipping an unfinished product, 'devastating'

by Kyle Horner Jan 19th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, MMO industry, News items

When you're going to make a statement, you may as well make it a good one, right? Well, Blizzard CEO Paul Sams has delivered in that regard. Speaking with Gamesindustry.biz (a free account is required to read the whole article) Sams went on to make a bevy of remarks that reinforce the developer's stance of, "It's done when it's done." while also commenting on the "devastating" effects of shipping an unfinished product.

So what gets devastated? The people who put in all those long hours of hard work, says Sams. We believe it, too. This kind of issue is bad for any game, but for an MMO we can only begin to imagine the sort of downtrodden emotions that can permeate a dev team after seeing their work pushed out into the world before it's ready. And while we all know MMOs are living, breathing things that are never "Finished." there's still a point where more gestation time is far better than getting pushed out the door prematurely.

Tags: blizzard, blizzard-fps-mmo, blizzard-mmo, gamesindustry.biz, mmo, paul-sams, world-of-warcraft, wow

What is Blizzard planning for its next MMO?

by Shawn Schuster Sep 1st 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, Interviews, MMO industry, New titles

According to a recent interview with Wired's GameLife, Blizzard's next MMO project will be "Significantly different" than what they have now with World of Warcraft. This alleviates most concern over self-competition, since they seem fairly confident that the new MMO will scratch a new itch. And seriously, even if it did take players away from WoW, would it be such a bad thing for Blizzard?

This interview with COO Paul Sams (by our own Tracey John) touches on much more than this next MMO, which Blizzard is understandably tight-lipped about. Sams discusses the future of WoW's expansions, the potential of Battle.net across multiple titles and even a bit on micro-transactions. So as we can only speculate at this point, what do you think will be Blizzard's next MMO?

Tags: blizzard, blizzard-mmo, gamelife, paul-sams, wired, world-of-warcraft, wow

Blizzard humbly denies keeping PC gaming alive

by Shawn Schuster Dec 5th 2008 at 5:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, Economy, Expansions, Interviews, MMO industry

In a recent interview with PC Retail, Blizzard's COO Paul Sams gives us a look into the present and future state of the company after the launch of the record-breaking Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft. Sams touches on the work Blizzard is doing between Starcraft II, Diablo III and their upcoming "unannounced" MMO, still in the works.

What we found most interesting about this interview was Sams' view on PC gaming, discouraging that water-cooler rumor that MMOs (namely WoW) are keeping PC gaming alive in this troubled market. He points out that their support of games like Starcraft II and Diablo III shows that they believe in the longevity of PC gaming across the board. "I think that there's always going to be a very big place for PCs – they are multi-use devices." Sams stated. "Consoles are brilliant, but at this stage are not multi-use devices, or at least not compared to a PC."

[Via WoWInsider]

Tags: blizzard, diablo-3, diablo-iii, paul-sams, pc-gaming, pc-retail, starcraft-2, starcraft-ii, world-of-warcraft, wow

Blizzard deal with in-game ad firm does not mean ads for WoW

by Shawn Schuster Dec 4th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, Economy, MMO industry

Despite a recent multi-year partnership between Massive Inc and Activision/Blizzard, the in-game advertising firm will not be adding in-game advertising to our favorite games. "Massive understands and respects our stance against advertising that might detract from gameplay or offend our players," stated Blizzard COO Paul Sams.

As this story has circulated throughout the last two days, many players got worried that they would soon see Coke ads in Northrend or a Ford banner on Guitar Hero, but that's just not the case. Massive Inc's focus with Activision and Blizzard will mostly be web-based ads and the Battle.net service, as they team up with video game advertising representation company Intergi to manage these ads. So as the websites will get more annoying, our in-game space is safe... for now.

Tags: activision, advertising, blizzard, in-game-advertising, massive-inc, microsoft, paul-sams, world-of-warcraft, wow

World of Warcraft's paid customization may allow race, gender changes

by Michael Zenke Nov 13th 2008 at 11:30AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Game mechanics

Eurogamer caught a few moments with Blizzard COO Paul Sams and Associate Producer Lee Sparks at the London, UK Wrath of the Lich King Launch event last night. There they managed to catch a few moments of conversation with the busy, busy men and asked a few follow-ups on the recently announced paid character customization options the comany has in the works. Essentially, the company views it as another value-added feature along the lines of the paid server transfer or name transfer. The paid character customization options will allow players to go back and tweak choices made at character creation.

The capacity is already in the game to change hair style and color, but Blizzard seems to be implying 'deeper' changes - facial features, skin color, perhaps even gender or race. Despite that, the two company men resisted nailing anything down specifically. The feature, Eurogamer offers, is "more about making changes to decisions made in the past than adding additional options," and isn't intended to be a new microtransactional revenue stream. "The reason for the monetary expense is more of a barrier so that people don't do it every day," Sparks said. Read on into the article for full details.

Gallery: Wrath of the Lich King

One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!

Tags: blizzard, breaking, lee-sparks, microtransactions, paid-character-customization, paul-sams, world-of-warcraft, wow

Blizzard talks (very generally) about its next MMO

by Michael Zenke Nov 13th 2008 at 10:00AM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles

Speaking very generally, Blizzard COO Paul Sams has unveiled just a few pieces of information about the well-known game developer's next MMO. He spoke briefly with Videogaming247 ahead of the London launch event for Wrath of the Lich King last night, referring to the in-development title as 'next generation', 'cool, new, and different.' Despite the time we've known they were working on another game, it is still apparently very much in the early stages of development. Sams describes a bit of their development process, noting the length of time the company takes on pre-production before actual content creation even starts.

The COO was up-front about the fact that Blizzard is going to keep this thing under wraps for some time yet. As Sams put it, "The last thing we want to do is say, 'Hey we're doing this,' and everyone says, 'Oh cool,' and then we change things completely. We want to have a level of confidence that the direction we're going in the right one, and that it's polished enough to be able to show something, also. And we're not in either of those places yet." Check out the full article at VG247 for his complete (if uninformative) commentary.

Tags: blizzard, paul-sams, world-of-warcraft, wow

Blizzard exec: I wouldn't bet against BioWare

by Kyle Horner Nov 12th 2008 at 7:00PM

Filed under: New titles, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Blizzard executive Paul Sams has a lot of things to say about BioWare and Star Wars: The Old Republic in an interview with Eurogamer. And while he starts off with, "I wouldn't bet against them, that's for sure." Sams doesn't stop there. He goes on to point out his reasons, stating that not many MMOs have both the strength in IP and development team that BioWare possess. He also points out the deep wallets of Electronic Arts, which will most certainly play an important role in getting Star Wars: The Old Republic just right via BioWare's "It's done when it's done" approach.

Still, Sams is quick to point out that building, running and maintaining an MMORPG is a very difficult task and that "time will tell" if the house that built KOTOR is able to react to the various situations that can erupt. A perfect example of this would be the server issues World of Warcraft has been facing for the past couple of days. Will BioWare be up to a job of that magnitude? Well, Sams is right, only time will tell.

Tags: activision-blizzard, bioware, blizzard, ea, electronic-arts, eurogamer, knights-of-the-old-republic, kotor, paul-sams, star-wars, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor, world-of-warcraft, wow

WoW players coming back from the WAR

by Shawn Schuster Oct 16th 2008 at 1:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, MMO industry, Warhammer Online

It was inevitable that a wave of World of Warcraft players would be taken away from the game for Warhammer Online. It is also inevitable that many of those players would return to WoW after trying out the new shinies. Yet, according to a recent interview with Blizzard COO Paul Sams at GamesIndustry.biz, more than half of the players that left WoW for WAR have since returned.

Sams states that this a typical trend for new MMO releases. "We've certainly had some of that happen, which is the same thing we experienced with Age of Conan and each time an MMO has come out we've seen some amount of reduction of use." He also gives his respect to Mythic and everything they're doing, stating that he thinks "Warhammer is best positioned to succeed out of the various products that have come out thus far since World of Warcraft has come out."

Tags: blizzard, gamesindustry.biz, migration, mythic, paul-sams, war, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow

Blizzard may have considered free-to-play for WoW, but won't change the model now

by Michael Zenke Jul 2nd 2008 at 7:00AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, MMO industry, Free-to-play

Gamasutra recently spoke with Paul Sams, chief operating officer at Blizzard Entertainment, just after the WorldWide Invitational came to a close. Alongside questions about the framework around Diablo 3 and the potential of user-generated content, the site referenced the recent revelation that World of Warcraft could potentially have been a free-to-play title. Sams offered, in response to the question, that he doesn't see the company changing the game's business model any time soon.

Echoing the points made by individuals such as Min Kim and Ray Muzyka, Sams noted that changing the business model would likely neccessitate a substantial revamp in game design - something they're not prepared to do. "The game has been designed in such a way to where we determined the business model to wrap that around what the game experience was." Sims also puts forth that the company has no plans to create a 'kiddie' version of the popular MMO, nor to port it to handheld systems.

Check out the interview for a number of other interesting topics, including Sams' followup to Mr. Pardo's rebuke against Microsoft over its Xbox 360 focus.

Tags: blizzard, business-model, free-to-play, paul-sams, rob-pardo, world-of-warcraft, wow

Blizzard to Activision: we choose you

by Chris Chester Jun 30th 2008 at 7:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Business models, Interviews, MMO industry

We don't know if anybody has told you, but Blizzard is actually kind of a big deal. Not many companies can hold the attention of their target audience for an entire week with naught but a series of cryptic splash pages. They're such a big deal, in fact, that when it came time for Vivendi to choose a partner for their big merger, Blizzard's preference for Activision was instrumental in their ultimate decision. That is, if Blizzard COO Paul Sams is to be believed.

It was no secret that Blizzard was the real prize in the merger, having pulled in approximately $1.2 billion for Vivendi in 2007 alone. With the twin juggernauts of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 looming on the horizon, and their "next-gen MMO" project still lurking in the shadows, it seems clear that Sams' comments are anything but idle boasting. According to Sams, the leverage they have in this arrangement is what is going to allow them to preserve their existing management structure that has proved so spectacularly successful. I think that's something we can all get behind.

Tags: activision, activision-blizzard, blizzard, diablo-3, interview, merger, paul-sams, starcraft-2, vivendi, vivendi-games, world-of-warcraft

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