Omega points out two articles on Blizzard where one emphasizes that they are not giving up on PC gaming (PCR Online) and the other states that gaming is a serious business (LA Times) as told by Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime.
"Its certainly not written off by us. PC development has a number of unique challenges that console developers don’t face, but Blizzard is one of the few companies that is there making great PC games. We've spent a lot of time in development focussing on scalablity, on new PC hardware and old. If you were just designing for a console it would be a much easier task."
More information.Blizzard's greatest success came with a tough lesson. In planning for the release of World of Warcraft (WoW) in late 1996, Morhaime thought the market for the much more expansive new game — the first that required players to pay for a subscription — would start off slowly.
"We felt it was very likely the fee would be a deterrent for people, and that WoW would not sell as quickly as some of our previous games," he said. All of Blizzard's production decisions were based on that conservative projection.
But to Blizzard's delight, and terror, WoW sold furiously, leaving the underprepared Blizzard temporarily unable to keep stores stocked with the game. "For the whole first year, we scrambled to keep up with demand," he said. "It probably took years off of our lives."
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