EA and LucasArts is confident Star Wars Old Republic will dethrone WoW

Here's what EA says:

"We have very high expectations for this," said Frank Gibeau, president of the EA Games label, to Videogaming247. "Just look at the base of Star Wars fans, plus what BioWare can do. Trust me: we want to win. EA's reputation is for wanting to win. This is going to be a powerful category and there's lots of ways to compete in this category. [Blizzard] created a much larger opportunity for everybody else, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way."

"When World of Warcraft came out, everybody thought, 'No, the market is only this big, because that's as big as EverQuest was.' Blizzard showed that it could be much larger," Nichols said. "Our goal is to show that by bringing storytelling to the genre that we can attract an even wider audience. Plus, we have the benefit of this huge brand, which has done very, very well for nearly 30 years."

"I think this game has that potential, with a premiere developer behind it; with a clear differentiating feature being story and something that's very compelling, and being a feature that's true to BioWare's expertise as well as the Star Wars brand; plus the power of the Star Wars brand, which is still doing very, very well 30 years after it started."

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170917

What does everyone else think? For me? Nah. WoW will still be the MMO king.

If LucasArts were actually as confident as EA, they wouldn't have already said they were keeping the SWU servers up after KOTOR 3 launches.

LucasArts and EA both have an MMO to fall back onto, meaning that this game is not actually a natrual progression for either of them. This fundamental difference will allow WoW to squash any chance this game has of actually competing in the same sphere of competition, as both companies cannot (note: will say they do, but then choose not to) rally their intense communities to this one cause. Unless the pay structure included either two as playable with KOTOR, both companies are basically dropping the ball and crashing all hope that the game will see the numbers EA is bragging about.

The magic of World of Warcraft was never the game itself, rather the community the game brought. BOTH of these companies know how to handle the community aspect, but neither of them realize that the community will not split both ways when not given an incentive. Paying and supporting an MMO just for the name is not incentive anymore, and while KOTOR III will see the beginning numbers, the long-tail will be tremendously short if the community would rather just play WoW.

Any MMO going up agaist WOW has a massive uphill battle ahead of it...people dont want to give up characters they have worked on for years...and any developer serious about competing with WOW, is gonna have to give many many free content updates post lauch.

That said, if any MMO can do it, it will be this one....its made by a great developer, its relativly inovative, and it has a huge IP atached to it.

Galaxies had the benefit of the Star Wars brand and it didn't set the world on fire. So they're left with the story aspect that they're pushing - an element that has failed time and time again in the MMO space. They're also ignoring the fact that most KOTOR fans are extremely displeased with a great single-player RPG going MMO. LucasArts has repeatedly demonstrated how out of touch they are and this is just one more example.

No game stays on top forever. So for everyone saying, WoW is invincible you're absolutely wrong. Everyone said EQ would stay on top forever. We see how well that worked out. So rest assured, one day a game will come along and kick WoW to the curb (and I'll bet money it won't be WoW 2 either).

Now, all that being said, this new Star Wars game isn't the one that's going to do it. What EA fails to grasp is while the Star Wars Universe has a big fan base (though not what it once was after the last trilogy and Clone Wars), the Star Wars name actually limits the appeal. World of Warcraft wasn't a common place name and most WoW players probably never even heard of the series prior. Star Wars on the other hand already has built in critics who will swear off the game just based on the license.

Additionally Bioware and LucasArts seem to have missed out on what is so appealing to these games. It's not storyline, which is what they're boasting this game will be so far superior to WoW. MMORPGs appeal to their fans because of two things; character customization and the opportunity for social gaming. That's what EQ did, and ultimately that's what WoW did better. If KOTOR 3 doesn't do these two things better than WoW then forget it.