$1bn MMO still couldnt touch Warcraft, says Activision

Chief executive of Activision Bobby Kotick believes that even if a publishing rival was to invest $1 billion on a new MMO franchise, they would still struggle to take on Blizzard’s World Of Warcraft.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 conference, Kotick said:

"[Blizzard] has probably half a billion dollars invested in the franchise over 15 years. They have hundreds of people involved in refreshing the content every year…

"We don’t think that even if we made the $500 million or billion-dollar investment to make a World of Warcraft competitor that we would even be successful doing it."

"When you look at Lucas and EA and Microsoft and Sony–and you pick the venture capitalist–and look at all the money that’s already gone to these businesses that have failed, there didn’t seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit anytime soon in this category. And so that became very apparent to us."