The industries are completely different, massive online gaming and 3D storytime don’t fall in the same ball park, they create their own arenas. Yet the truth is that gaming becomes the more profitable for studios and a bigger investment for consumers.

Something to be considered is how WoW was developed previous to the surge of next generation platforms that most gamers are capable of experiencing.

We will be seeing massively improved graphics, AI, interactivity, storytelling, rich soundtracks, online social interaction, and user impact.

If you thought WoW was nice, you haven’t seen the future yet.

1. Glad they got financing, concept art is nice, but let me know when theres a demo

2. Someone mentioned MMO profitability, try a bit of research, its a 26b worldwide market

3. 18m is just about what they need to built a distibutable platform for? eh?

4. On why WOW/Blizzard was successful:

a. Existing IP with a huge fan base
b. 60m+ for development
c. smooth release, polished mass appeal game play
d. lack of high quality alternatives at the time (market timing)

5. The “Pixar of Studios” leads me to believe they’re planning a distributable art/content middleware platform?

Thats a great idea actually, make it compatible with multiverse and partner….

OR

6. If your making a gaming platform, for indie distrobution, well you wont be the first entry, but innovation and ease of use make take you far

Good luck Red 5, maybe I’ll see you at the GDC

As for the existing IP vs new IP, I don’t really see how that’s an issue. There are plenty of examples of new IP making it in MMORPG, Norrath and Eve come to mind as new IP that are/were successful.

The big questions are when they’ll release and who’s running the games.

The studios that consistently produce hits (Blizz, Valve) seem to do so primarily by slipping the release schedule till the game is polished. I think WoW slipped more time than they’re claiming for development. I’d love to see them pull it off, but unless they’re doing some Spore-like parametric asset generation, the mind boggles at how they’re going to produce the art.

As far as running the game goes, if they’re going to run the game like Sony and Blizz, count me out. I did Eve long enough to appreciate how CCP runs their game. I like that the devs jump on the forums and explain why suggestions are stupid, I like that when the db goes down Valar explains what happened and gives a personal apology, I like that everybody I’ve seen from CCP seems to love their game and that PR is non-invasive, I like how t20 provides data dumps for addon developers. In brief, CCP makes me feel like a customer rather than a revenue generation unit.

It’ll be interesting to see if the first titles make it out of the gate when expected though.

Working in a large company as an development employee is very different to running your own dev co, which the founding Red5 members will no doubt find out…

The reason WOW was a success in the first place was they were using an existing IP; doing a game of this size with orginal IP is going a hard fight. Ok they can ride the “We created WOW” in the press but that is only going to reach hardcore PC gamers at best.

Oh to the poster above who asked why Pixar don’t do games? its quite simple they stick to what they are good at and partner others for the skills they are not good at IE Games.

Like Jon, I’d also like more detail on the Pixar reference. Is the point simply that Pixar is a successful company, and therefore Red 5 projects itself as successful?

Then there is also the very profitable secondary market

Red 5 will do very well.

The company got 18.5 million because 1) they were from Blizzard employees and 2) because they were part of the WoW team.

It’s very unlikely anyone else can expect to garner that much VC funds if they want to launch a MMORPG, the space is quite full of players, big and small. I recall reading an article earlier this year talking about 2005’s string of MMORPG games, all 100+ of them.

The evolution of gaming is moving online, it’s now expected and commodity, but even then it doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Video games has always been a product that’s derived from masters of storytellers and creatives.

PS Nick Denton’s going to be all over you for that remark about blue glowing cleavage fantasy babe being “absolutely awesome”. Just sayin’.