Blizzard COO: We hope Titan will still be growing in 20 years

Finding (or developing) the first real World of Warcraft-killer is something of a holy grail for MMO fans and developers alike. The extraordinary success of Blizzard's fantasy title has set the company and its flagship product on a seemingly unreachable pedestal in terms of financial success and subscriber numbers.

Conventional wisdom says that's unlikely to be duplicated any time soon, if ever, but Blizzard COO Paul Sams isn't so sure. In a new interview with Gamasutra, he talks a bit about Titan, the code name for the as-yet-unannounced followup to World of Warcraft. "I believe [it's] the most ambitious thing we've ever attempted," Sams told Gamasutra. "And I feel like we have set our company up to succeed on that. We have some of our most talented and most experienced developers on that team. Many of the people that built World of Warcraft are full time on that other team."

Will WoW's 12 million subscribers jump ship and make Titan the raging success that its predecessor was? "The thing that we hope will happen is that it will not stop World of Warcraft but we believe it will eclipse it," Sams said, before adding that he expects Titan to be an industry force over the next two decades.

Reader Comments (59)

Impossible.

20 years seems realistic to me. Here's the timeline...

17.5 years from now -- Titan goes into beta.

18 years from now -- Titan launches

18.5 years from now -- end of the world (only Blizzard and cockroaches left inhabiting earth)

19 years from now -- Blizzard releases first expansion. Collectors Edition comes with a free Titan Mouse -- cockroach sized.

20 years from now -- Titan growing like a weed.

If Titan gets dumbed down to having the exact same things to do at end-game that WoW does, I don't see why I'd bother playing it.

I played WoW for about five years off-and-on before finally just calling it quits, so Titan would have to be one hell of an improvement to keep my interest for twenty years.

@Sorithal

Ditto, to the letter.

I really don't know why Sorinthal's comment is getting down ranked. Love it or hate it everyone knows WoW end game is just a gear grind.

Oh wait I know why it's getting down ranked. This article was linked on WoW Insider so all the brain dead fan boys are coming here.

@freebase

Yes, how dare that Sorithal person insult the state of such a popular game, even if most people who disagree probably never played the game before WotLK or Cataclysm.

World of FacebookfarmvilleadventuretwitterRSScustomerabusecraft.

With $15 dollar subscription fee and cash shop, featuring brand new 'Grandma/Toddler Casual' mode for seniors and small children!

"Many of the people that built World of Warcraft are full time on that other team."

No wonder...

Now that Blizzard has all the money in the world, they have made plans to build this titan thing and take other world's money as well.

"Many of the people that built World of Warcraft are full time on that other team."

That's tells me all I need to know about WoWs current state

@JoolaPrime Some of the big names have been gone even before Wrath started to start working on the new project. Tigole was one of the beloved members of WoW that moved on to Project Titan in the early start of Wrath. Blizzard knows how to put the cheese just far enough to keep people coming moving onward. Will Titan succeed? No one knows for sure til it's out. Will Blizzard spend a ton of money to make sure it's gonna attract people? They will spend more than all the 3rd world countries combined probably.

@Alex Oglitchkin

WoW has gone from strength to strength after Mr. Kaplan moved over to work with this new project. The game is so much more accessible now, I dare say the design decisions made after he left is what has given the game new vigor and longevity.

I'm not superconfident that Titan will be great just because Tigole is working on it.

I doubt Titan will have the complete success of WoW, but it should still do well. Want more information though.

who can say what the future holds, however, after playing WoW for a few years and quitting this new game will have to be pretty spectacular. The Raid, PVP, or be bored endgame of WoW showed me what I don't like, so the time I spent playing wasn't a *total* loss.

@Arkanaloth

Maybe their strategy is to make the smart MMO players start to hate WoW/what Blizzard's doing to it, so that their Titan game is suddenly a "zomg this is so awesome" game.

WHAT IS IT?!?!?!

I'm sure this will be answered in time, but enough with the teasing already!

All this secrecy pretty much comes out to one thing...
meh

So intresting fact... WOW will not be around in 20 years ? Great.. time to find a new 3rd person MMO then since Titan aparently is FPS MMO...

Thax BLizzard for clearing it up that focus for WOW is only to keep it afloat. And we were actlually hoping that 12 millin subs would actaully mean that they would keep the innovation in WOW going. Aparently not.

@Deadalon
WoW's been Actiblizz's corporate whore for a good while now. If you were expecting them to actually invest some of that largesse into the game and its playerbase you've been sorely mislead.

@Deadalon For one thing, I didn't see him say that WoW wouldn't be around then (but maybe I missed it, this isn't the critical part of my comment).

More importantly, would you seriously not play a game based on the fact that it will not be running in 20 years? I mean... that's pretty far ahead to think with any kind of certainty about what games you will be playing.

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Blizzard COO: We hope Titan will still be growing in 20 years

Reader Comments (59)

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 4:40PM Apakal said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 4:53PM yeppers said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 4:58PM Sorithal said

Posted: Mar 10th 2011 8:40AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 16th 2011 9:20AM freebase said

Posted: Mar 16th 2011 12:54PM Sorithal said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:00PM Nenene said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:02PM cdave said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:03PM kasapina said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:16PM JoolaPrime said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 8:54PM Alex Oglitchkin said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 11:44PM SgtBaker1234556 said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:21PM Greyhame said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:21PM Arkanaloth said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 6:01PM Sorithal said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:28PM Tovrin said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:34PM mandarin said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 5:57PM Deadalon said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 6:18PM Nenene said

Posted: Mar 9th 2011 7:15PM ErikC said

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