THQ Speaks on the 40k MMO Subscribers
So the president of THQ had some recent words on the highly anticipated Warhammer 40000 MMO, due for a debut at E3. Here’s what he had to say:
“One of the reasons that we think our costs are under control here is because we think we’re building this game right,”…
“We started with a very small and experienced MMO team who gave us the very wise advice to prove out all the technology and world-building tools before you start adding to the team and really ramping up all of the content that an MMO requires. That’s why we think our budget is going to be very competitive.”…
“You can imagine that given the fact that we have a lower initial investment than some of our competitors talk about… we don’t need the kind of subscriber levels that people throw around, like a million subscribers, to make a lot of money on this title. If we get anywhere near that level, we’ll be making a lot of money.”
Even more analysis here. You will remember that one of the hurdles to the success of EA’s Warhammer Fantasy MMO was the extreme cost of development, making a massive userbase mandatory for it to be considered a financial success. The question is open as to whether this means the game has been built in a “lean and mean” software development style but still has full sized content, or whether THQ is simply scaling down the game to a smaller size to hedge their risks.
