Blizzard Entertainment Exec Rob Pardo Sees An All Digital Gaming Future

Blizzard Entertainment Exec Rob Pardo Sees An All Digital Gaming Future

Blizzard Entertainment had a very good 2012. The company saw Diablo III sell over 6.3 million copies in its first week. The latest World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, helped draw back MMO gamers to the fantasy world. And StarCraft II remains a top game in eSports around the globe. Blizzard Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Rob Pardo talks about what抯 next for the Blizzard half of Activision Blizzard Publishing and addresses the shift in the games industry toward an all-digital future in this exclusive interview.

What do you think gamers will like about StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm?
What happens a lot of times with our expansion sets is it really gives us the opportunity to learn all the lessons we did from the previous one and just do a ton of improvements to make the game itself better. With Heart of the Swarm, we抮e adding the Zerg campaign, which I think will be really exciting. We finally get to explore Kerrigan抯 story and we have all kinds of additional features for eSports and community enhancements. It抯 probably one of our best expansions that we抳e ever done.

Do you see potential for Diablo III抯 Auction House translating to other games like World of Warcraft?
I抦 not so sure. I think it抯 a really interesting thing that we did with the Auction House and I think there were some pros and cons with Diablo, but I really don抰 see it ever coming to World of Warcraft because World of Warcraft was never designed for it. It really wasn抰 designed up and we already have a player economy. We have an Auction House in the game for virtual currency of course, but I really don抰 ever see us bringing real money currency to World of Warcraft like that.

What抯 the feedback been like for World of Warcraft Patch 5.1?
So far, so good. The thing that was most surprising about 5.1 for everybody was how fast it came out after Mysts of Pandaria itself. We抮e pretty well known for it taking us awhile to get that first big mega patch out after the expansion and we really said not this time. This time we wanted to get the first patch out right away and I think it caught people by surprise that we had one out before they were even out of content from the original release.

Besides Blizzard games, what do you play in your spare time?
I play lots of stuff. I know I抦 a little late to the game, but most recently I抳e been playing Minecraft. I抳e been playing a lot of tablet games. I played the most recent Black Ops. I play Skylanders with my son. I play all kinds of games, all the time.

What games are you looking forward to in 2013?
I think we got all the Wii U stuff. We抳e got Bioshock Infinite coming out and that抯 going to be pretty exciting. I keep on hearing rumors about something new from the Bungie guys. I抦 excited about a lot of stuff. 2013 definitely should be a big year. It抯 going to be an interesting year because we抮e going to start the console transition. We have the Wii U out and I really want to see all those games. I think Wii U is getting trashed just a little bit in the press, but we don抰 know. It抯 like Nintendo always delivers and they always deliver especially on their first party games, so I really want to play all their first party stuff.

The industry is gearing up for the next round of consoles. What do you think about an all digital platform?
I think you will see it happen. I don抰 know that it will happen with the next console transition, because I think they抮e still going to have the digital media as a delivery device, but I think all the consoles are going to embrace digital download. I think it will be this hybrid transition model and what I will guess will happen is you抣l still see a lot of optical media at the beginning of the cycle, but I bet you once we get towards the end of the next cycle almost everything will be digital downloads.

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