Responding to Blizzard COO Paul Sams' earlier claims that Warhammer Online players are already returning to World of Warcraft, Mark Jacobs, Mythic's CEO, simply commented that "It's a marathon, not a sprint."
"One thing about MMOs is that people play multiple games," he added. "That's one of the reasons I was very surprised by Paul's comments. He knows that people may play WoW and they'll play WAR and maybe even a third game at the same time."
"Any comment along the lines of 'well if they're in my game they're not playing in another game,' flies in the face of all research that's been done among MMO players... The idea that you only play one is really kind of silly."
But will Warhammer Online be able to retain its subscribers when Blizzard releases Wrath Of The Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft? Jacobs sure believes so. "We've known that Blizzard is preparing to launch in November. We just announced some of the things that will be going in our first major patch… that's one of the ways we're going to respond."
"This is the beginning of a rather lengthy battle with the guys at Blizzard," he explained. "We're in this space to be successful and, when you have a competitor that is as successful and important to the games industry as WoW has been, you don't go into this space unless you're willing to spend money and spend time and really compete against them."
"It's a marathon, not a sprint", Jacobs concluded. "We've got a lot of stuff going in, not only this fall but then there's spring and then after that."
