There are lots of established game franchises in the MMO space, like World of Warcraft and EverQuest, and plenty of famous IP outside of games that have attempted to break into the space with varying degrees of success, like Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Star Wars. However, Elder Scrolls Online game director Matt Firor believes that the IP he’s working on will be more than enough to drum up attention.
“It is a crowded space, but this is Elder Scrolls,” said Firor. “One of things of having a huge IP like Elder Scrolls is it cuts through the noise. It’s safe to say – looking at the lines for people to play – that everyone knows about it. That is the first step to getting a lot of people into the game. Part of the crowded landscape is it’s hard to get your message out there. When you say ‘Elder Scrolls‘, we don’t have a problem getting the message out, which helps us immensely.”
“Elder Scrolls is definitely a quality target, but everything it brings with it intrinsically is almost perfectly suited for an MMO. Giant open world, lots of cool classes, lots of history and depth, the cool combat system that you just experienced. That came from Elder Scrolls. That by far outweighs the expectations of the crowd who hear Elder Scrolls and want to come in. We want to make it meet their expectations,” he explained. “We know we have Elder Scrolls players and MMO players that are interested. Skyrim and Elder Scrolls players won’t have problems adapting to the system; it’s very similar. If you’ve never played an Elder Scrolls game, you’re going to need to wrap your brain around it.”
Source: GamesIndustry International
