Blizzard in for "lengthy battle" - Mythic

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has only just begun to compete with World of Warcraft, says Mark Jacobs, Mythic's CEO, who commented "It's a marathon, not a sprint".

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Jacobs took issue with comments made by Blizzard exec Paul Sams that over half of the subscribers who left World of Warcraft for Warhammer Online had returned, which Mythic's CEO interpreted to as an accusation Warhammer users were leaving the MMO.

"One thing about MMOs is that people play multiple games," asserted Jacobs. "That's one of the reasons I was very surprised by Paul's comments. He knows that people many play WOW and they'll play WAR and maybe even a third game at the same time."

He added: "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."

When asked if he was confident Warhammer Online could hold onto its subscribers when World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, comes out, Jacobs assuredly claimed that Mythic is well prepared to fight back with its own content updates.

"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," Jacobs 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."

Jacobs further declared: "It's a marathon, not a sprint. We've got a lot of stuff going in, not only this fall but then there's spring and then after that."