Blizzard: We are not threatened by EA and The Old Republic

Blizzard COO Paul Sams has told VG247 that the prospect of a Star Wars BioWare MMO in the shape of The Old Republic isn't threatening to his firm.

"No, we don't feel threatened by them," he said. "We actually think that having additional players in the market is positive, because it's going to introduce a broader group of people than maybe are available right now."

Sams also said that, despite the fact EA has a "spectacular" developer-license pairing in BioWare and Star Wars, the logistics of bringing a large MMO to market are "easy to underestimate".

"The good news that they have going for them is that they have a great development team, and they have a great license that they get to build their game around, so i think that's spectacular," he said.

"But, I think it's really easy to underestimate how difficult the rest of it is. We went into this being the world leader in online games, and we still got our ass handed to us countless times.

"I think they've got a couple of the key foundational elements there, which is spectacular developer, spectacular franchise, and they should not underestimate the other items. I don't think there's anyone better at those other things than Blizzard. It's going to be hard to do the catch up work on that."

Both LucasArts and EA were very clear about the fact that they believe The Old Republic can have a userbase larger than World of Warcraft's, speaking at the recent announcement event in California.

No date has been put on the launch of The Old Republic as yet.