http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=C ... ail&id=166
he fourth annual Austin Game Conference kicked off this weekend in Texas with over 100 exhibitors and sponsors boldly proclaiming this year's conference theme "Brave New Worlds". And who to speak at such a conference? None other than Blizzard Entertainment's Vice President of Game Design, Robert Pardo. PC Game sales have been on the decline over the past few years, and MMOs like WoW and Guild Wars have been dominating the charts. New market research announced at the conference shows the market's current worth of $1.1 billion in 2005 and a projected $4.4 billion by 2010. With 7 million subscribers playing World of Warcraft, (announced at the conference) Robert Pardo is perhaps the most qualified person to be leading us into this era of massive multiplayer online entertainment. In his keynote address, Rob spoke about Blizzard's core design philosophies and briefly touched on their general approach to game development, specifically using World of Warcraft as the prime example. According to Pardo, Blizzard sees the market as "a donut" with the hardcore players in the middle and the more casual players ringed around the center. "It's increasingly important to appeal to both", Pardo said. He went on to stress that any successful game needs to be "easy to learn but difficult to master".
Sprawl's Scrawl - World of Warcraft: Hot Topic! : World of Warcraft General Discussions
RSS Feed
Sitemap
