THQ Announces Warhammer 40K MMOG

In our interview with the Warhammer Online team a while back, there were questions as to why we weren't going to be seeing a Warhammer 40K MMOG. Several people seemed quite keen on the idea. Well, for those people: your time is now. THQ has announced they'll be developing Warhammer 40K into a MMOG and mobile games. Gamasutra reports on comments from Kelly Flock, executive vice president of worldwide publishing for the company, about their plan to work with Austin startup Vigil games on the project. Says Flock, "We realized this is one of those few properties that has a high level of interest from the hardcore gaming community, which could be a great launching point to turning it into a great mainstream mass-market MMO ... We're not out to replace World of Warcraft, we think we have a unique offering in the same category that will get its own share of attention if we deliver properly on the gameplay mechanics we'll build our own audience." Flock demures from offering a timeframe for release of the game, saying they're not even going to try to pinpoint a development schedule yet.

Inquisitors and Space Marines

[RockoTDF]

I hope the game comes off like the sub game inquisitor, where you play more as individualistic characters (Inquisitors, Assassins, Rogue Traders, Eldar Rangers etc) rather than just being a soldier or space marine. I get the feeling that if they put the option to be a space marine out there everyone will do it and it will be over saturated just like the table top game. On the other hand, if they don't they will be missing out on a huge part of the market for that game. Perhaps they should consider doing what the Star Wars MMO did with Jedi. You can't start as one, but instead have to get an offer for training and earn it somehow. But then again being a space marine wouldn't be a great deal of fun in an RPG (shoot, shoot, shoot some more) so perhaps they could stick to the specialist chapters like the Grey Knights and Deathwatch who actually have abilities/powers to keep them interesting.

Re:Obligatory

[flyingsquid]

What they really mean when they say, "we're not out to kill WOW" is "we won't get killed by WOW". If I wanted to invest in or partner with a company doing a MMORPG, my first question is going to be, "how will your company survive if you can't take significant market share away from WOW?" The answer is that you'd have to find a different group of gamers, or offer something different enough that people would play both your game and WOW.

Otherwise... well, Blizzard isn't invincible. If you build a better game and market it well, people will come. But even though it's possible to beat Blizzard, your chances of failure are very high. So if your entire strategy hinged on the idea that you could beat Blizzard at their own game, I'd say you were at best, reckless, and at worst, deluded.