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Warhammer 40K MMO Not Competing With World of Warcraft
Project to feature flexible business model based on geography.
by Jim Reilly

February 24, 2010 - THQ isn't looking to take down Blizzard's mighty World of Warcraft with its upcoming Warhammer 40K MMO. During yesterday's Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell said he believes there's room for another major title in the crowded, massively multiplayer gaming space.

"World of Warcraft is a great game, but as you know in entertainment, there's always the juggernaut and that means there's opportunities out there for the right MMO, said Farrell. " What we love about the Warhammer 40K MMO is that it's different in that it's a sci-fi, futuristic-based world. We're not competing directly in the orcs and elves fantasy environment that World of Warcraft is in. We can differentiate ourselves."

"We have an experienced team building it. On the PC alone, the Warhammer 40K series has sold over five million units, so there's an audience there that likes that universe," he added. "We think there's always competition in every market, but you got to have an x-factor, a point of differentiation, and we think we've got that."

Farrell also revealed the 40K project will have different pricing structures depending on which part of the globe the game is played.

"The way we're building the 40K MMO, and we think it's the right way, is with a flexible business model in mind. We think the subscription model still works in North American and Europe, It's more challenging in Asia, so we're building it in a way that we can either use time-based sessions or microtransactions as the business model in different markets," Farrell said.

"I think going forward in the MMO market you're going to have to be flexible in business models based on geography, and that's how we're building the 40K project."

THQ revealed during its last fiscal quarter conference call the publisher is set to reveal the Warhammer 40K MMO at this year's E3 in June. "Take a look at E3 and I think people will like what they see," Farrell added.

hmmm. Lets hope they do the same thing they did with age of reckoning: make pretty much everything based on multi player. With me being Australian i couldn't really play with much people because of the time difference.

Im still wondering how they are going to manage the races.... Bah so many questions, it looks like they have to wait.

Cant wait for E3 in June, hope they don't disappoint us.

The best way to show us their wonderful MMO would be to release a series of high-quality CGI movies that neither show-off game features nor use any assets from the game itself.

Y'know, like every other MMO out there.

I'd be in. Something different would be nice.

The trailer movies used by MMO's are just to wet your whistle per say and get you talking. They should release them as most games in general do this as well it's called great advertising. Truthfully though I have little faith in this upcomming MMO after the disaster with W.A.R and yes that game was released too soon with way to much lacking in the overall game sense. I will however check it out and I hope I will be wrong.

Its a bit of a switcheroo... at this point we really shouldn't be amazed when they show us something cool and say "no, you don't get to play that game."

That said I am actually really looking forward to seeing more of this. I think THQ has always tried when it came to the other 40k games. Mixed results aside, I think they're taking the right approach not competing with WOW.

WOW in and of itself is already on the downward slope. Their Lore writer litterally said in an interview he just doesn't care anymore, and with that they have been banned from china as well(long story explaining all the overall details). So with all that their really is no competition though Star Trek online is taking off with a hit, and the new star wars online is showing to be EXTREMELY promising.

Well of course The Old Republic looks promising.

It's BioWare.

So happy I will get to see this at E3 =)

As a massive MMO player I will not be touching any 40k mmo, games companys have shown over the years not to care about the product after 2-3 years and it becomesmore about income generation rather than player base.

my two cents.

In the end all MMOs become china farm income makers.

lords2001 wrote:I'd be in. Something different would be nice.

Then play Star Trek Online. It's nothing like WoW.

Empchild wrote:WOW in and of itself is already on the downward slope. Their Lore writer litterally said in an interview he just doesn't care anymore, and with that they have been banned from china as well(long story explaining all the overall details). So with all that their really is no competition though Star Trek online is taking off with a hit, and the new star wars online is showing to be EXTREMELY promising.

WOW's back in China actually Emp, Been re-approved at long last about a week ago, and not only that they've finally approved the release of Burning Crusade... and aye, I was pretty surpised that China hadn't had even the first expansion yet.


On topic - I'm just eager to see anything from E3 atm, although that does seem a pretty standard statement by the Pres of THQ, I'm pretty sure Mythic said things of a similar vein before the release of WaR.

All I know is if they go PvP centric, it better have more than two factions.

Aside from a bunch of hot air, what is on the real about this game?

Does anyone know anything about it?

From what I've seen it looks like its WAR in space. Other then that anyone got any good dope on this game that would give me a reason to look at it?

Tauzor wrote:As a massive MMO player I will not be touching any 40k mmo, games companys have shown over the years not to care about the product after 2-3 years and it becomes more about income generation rather than player base.

my two cents.

In the end all MMOs become china farm income makers.

That is just crazy. Why would a company care about making money? It is a crazy world we live in.

I’m Really looking forward to this game. 40k is such a rich and diverse world, I wonder what the overall plotline will be? Orks and Chaos vs the Imperium? Every race for themselves?

Empchild wrote:WOW in and of itself is already on the downward slope. Their Lore writer litterally said in an interview he just doesn't care anymore,

Not to defend WoW or anything, but this is a premise why?

I retain few hopes for the MMO. :(

If I were to make the 40k MMO, instead of gaining in level, you'd gain in rank.

IE, take an Ork:

You start off as an Ork boy. Shoota or slugga boy. Over time, as you gain experience and loot - you take a path to lead you to becoming a nob (and hard work eventually gets you a big choppa, twin-linked shoota, etc....and eventually, the mythical powerklaw - which only about 1 in 30 ork players will ever achieve). Or you progress to become a Loota - long distance firepower. Or a flash git...

Eventually, a couple of people will sort themselves out as warboss, and attain even greater powers (mostly related to their ability to boost other orks) and one day someone might accomplish something so epic in proportion that they become Ghazghkull Thraka - and only one person on a server can be Ghazghkull Thraka. Although Ghazghkull can be challenged by warbosses aspiring to be Ghazghkull.

That's how I'd make it anyway.

oh man that means I'm needing a new laptop XO

bhsman wrote:

Empchild wrote:WOW in and of itself is already on the downward slope. Their Lore writer litterally said in an interview he just doesn't care anymore,

Not to defend WoW or anything, but this is a premise why?

Read the whole thread please before asking that question. We were talking about THQ saying how they weren't trying to match up to WOW.

Empchild wrote:

bhsman wrote:

Empchild wrote:WOW in and of itself is already on the downward slope. Their Lore writer litterally said in an interview he just doesn't care anymore,

Not to defend WoW or anything, but this is a premise why?

Read the whole thread please before asking that question. We were talking about THQ saying how they weren't trying to match up to WOW.

The lore writer has never been an important part of world of warcraft. The story has always been a distant third to gameplay and presentation. THQ is fortunate to be introducing a futuristic MMO with guns in a fairly unique and noteworthy sci fi universe. Warhammer online was far too similar to WoW for its own good. If the 40k mmo doesn't suck than it won't fail, the niche it's filling has been left wide open by the unimpressive startrek online and the now defunct and dead tabula rasa.

Dashofpepper wrote:I retain few hopes for the MMO. :(

If I were to make the 40k MMO, instead of gaining in level, you'd gain in rank...

(I think) I remember reading that's how they're going to do it.

If you've ever played Face of Mankind (Which, BTW, is an awesome game if you love the whole Role-playing part of a role-playing game), and seen how you gain Rank in your Faction rather than levels, I think it'll be something like that. You'll probably get a number of missions that you'll complete to gain potential standing in your faction, which will then result in your promotion based on how much of a visible effort you've put in, or you'll automatically rank up after obtaining a certain amount of career exp.

WOW isn't as popular as it used to be. I should know i used to play it, i stopped after watching the video thing on what they are releasing in their 3rd expansion i was just like".....ah Oh well thier is Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3"

Metallifan: That would be good if they did that, looking at the universe of 40k it would be very difficult to do something like that, but from what i've heard from Darksiders, a game vigil games made, they might be up for the task. I my opinion two things can come from the MMO: 1 very sweet game or more likely im afraid to say 2. Very s y game.

WOW isn't as popular as it used to be. I should know i used to play it, i stopped after watching the video thing on what they are releasing in their 3rd expansion i was just like".....ah Oh well thier is Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3"

Subscription population has held pretty steady at ~11.5 million.

I wouldn't be surprised if the population went up a bit more with the new expansion. As is WoW is a powerhouse, but hopefully the 40k mmo, like THQ said, will be different enough to survive. That, and who knows where WoW will be when 40k mmo comes out.

I'll wait and see, no way am i going to buy it as soon as it's released.

I have only ever played Starwars Galaxies and got out of there when they started killing the game.

I really hope that the 40k one meets expectations as i woudl love to play a good 40k MMO. But i'll with-hold judgement untill some reviews and more info comes out.

Any MMO really breaks down into one of two categories as seldom when they try to incorp both is it ever that successful. They either shoot for lore/ good end game content that is derived from Lore or they shoot for PVP. No game as of yet to include wow has been able to be of great resounding when they try both. W.A.R had KILLER PVP but the lack of end game content killed it for all but the most die hard fans. Star wars comming up is heavy into lore so pvpers won't be comming out by the droves to play it. I am hoping with the rich backround that THQ sticks to lore because generally this is shown to have higher sales.

Empchild wrote:Any MMO really breaks down into one of two categories as seldom when they try to incorp both is it ever that successful. They either shoot for lore/ good end game content that is derived from Lore or they shoot for PVP. No game as of yet to include wow has been able to be of great resounding when they try both. W.A.R had KILLER PVP but the lack of end game content killed it for all but the most die hard fans. Star wars comming up is heavy into lore so pvpers won't be comming out by the droves to play it. I am hoping with the rich backround that THQ sticks to lore because generally this is shown to have higher sales.

More accurately, WoW included, no MMO has a large amount of endgame content at launch. The issue being that a newly launched MMO is going to stack poorly against established and similar ones due to the content difference that is generated by several years of disparity between their releases. Any game going against WoW is playing catchup.

I completely disagree that wow is losing popularity, when they have had over 10 million subscribers for a long time now. Though I do wonder sometimes if that's 10 million ACTIVE accounts, or total accounts? Like with facebook, you can cancel your facebook account but facebook will never, ever delete it. They keep it and count it in their totals because they use that # to give to their advertisers to get more money out of em. When you go back to facebook, your account is still there just as you left it, it was just hidden the whole time. And the same thing happens if you cancel your wow account and go back to it 2 years later (like I did).

anyway, as far as gameplay goes I really liked how Borderlands did it. They took WOW's quest system, but built it around a FPS. You still got levels and all that stuff, just the gameplay was a bit different.

They are gonna need endgame content to keep subscribers happy, but not so much at launch. No one will be high enough for it. Yeah there will be lifeless kids who want to race to be the first one to level 500 on their server and don't realize that no one will care but them. If there's a couple of high end areas and they continue to regularly add more they should be fine. One thing I don't like about wow and other games is when it comes time to release an expansion it's geared only toward high level folks, low levels are stuck with the same old areas that become ghost towns. Of course they should focus on the majority of the players, but it would be nice if they didn't forget the little guys in the process.

I guess one thing that the 40K MMO has going for it that should give it a much needed starting boost, is that players apparently won't need to rely on a crappy group system like WoW has in order to experience the other 50% of the game content. If you're not a people person, or you just can't find a group, you'll be able to do any and all missions by your self at a slightly higher difficulty, though with better rewards.

IMO, giving people that choice will be a huge boost

Is their anyway to find out revenue for WoW? If they are claiming 11 miilion accounts when only 5 million are active, surely their earnings would take a hit?
Certainly apocryphal evidence suggests fewer people are playing. I used to have dozen of friends addicted to the game, now only a few show interest, and thats when there's an expansion.