The Reason Titan (Blizz MMO) Never Came To Be.

[Jaylock]

Titan was scrapped for a variety of reasons, but I contend that the #1 sole reason Titan never came to be was because Blizzard realized that they are dominant on all genres of games except 1: First Person Shooters.

Although it was widely known that Titan would have been a First Person Shooter MMO, the MMO part was the problem.

Blizzard already has the dominant end all be all MMO in the industry. They already have the end all be all RTS in the industry (Starcraft franchise), they broke into the card game market and now they are the industry leader for that (Hearthstone). They broke into the MOBA market and now they are climbing their way up to being one of the top MOBAs in the industry.

They were no where to be found in the FPS market, and that is a HUGE market.

Titan was scrapped and elements of it were kept and the game was converted into a real team based FPS. I contend that the majority of the players of Overwatch are all completely brand NEW customers to Blizzard.

Sure a Titan MMO would have attracted new players to MMOs, and probably some FPS players, but it would have been too much "cannibalizing" their already acquired customer base. Making the game a pure FPS, they were able to take away a lot of the call of duty gamers and the battlefield gamers.

I believe they still want to create a new MMO, as their mothership MMO (WoW) is aging and they could very well consolidate the MMO market yet again like they did with WoW. Possibly as an mmo in one of their existing franchises (World of Diablo???)

Thoughts?

[Treeskee]

Hmm, maybe.

[Deleted]

They realized it was shit which they said themselves and then gathered all useable content/engine parts in order to make Overwatch.

[Segus1992]

Thoughts? Didn't Blizzard say pretty much this when they said Overwatch is what Titan became? What's the revelation here?

[Puupi]

When Blizzard was working on Titan they were only dominant on the MMORPG genre.

In RTS they weren't king. Diablo 3 was pretty dead in the ARPG genre.

Hearthstone and HotS didn't even exist yet.

[Swalload]

Who is Blizzard with? Activision. Who else is in there? Bungie. What is Bungie making? Destiny 2. What is Destiny 2? MMOFPS.

Thank me later.

[stellvia]

I dunno, why go with a TF2-alike if you want to dominate the FPS genre? Their current target of casual gamers don't like teamwork and it doesn't really compete with COD or Battlefield.

Besides, its too ADHD with the 5min matches and mostly blob combat with one suicide dive. That gets stale fast. Game has something like 30M sales but already down to only 300k concurrent players. I just don't see it having much staying power beyond the two year mark unless they plan to keep reinventing the game with new game modes. In which case, its pretty much a new game and they're just fudging things.

[ro9ue]

Yeah I actually think there's more to the Titan-Destiny correlation than we know. It's just TOO coincidental. I suspect that Activision gave the green light to Bungie for Destiny, but ultimately stopped Blizzard from treading into the same territory. It doesn't have to be "evil" Activision either here. It could simply be like "Hey just a heads up, the Bungie guys are doing a similar thing right now", and that led Blizzard to try to differentiate away from them.

I mean this is all we have for sure from the horse's mouth:

[Darknessvamp]

I think Titan never really materializing as nothing more than a loosely confirmed project at Blizzard was largely down to they couldn't lock down the concept for it. They obviously wanted it to be an mmo but they also wanted to make it as separate from WoW as possible so people would be attracted to both games which is difficult if you're unable to set a solid idea for it. Also if the dev rumors were to be believed there were some concepts involving large social hubs where players "lived" their character's lives doing menial jobs like running a dry cleaners or something during the day and at night arenas would open up in the world where the players could assume their fps shooter hero identities with special powers and carry out their competitive content. That was also one of their more advanced concepts that they thought would be fun before the project was scrapped but it's pretty obvious they didn't want the work they spent on Titan to go to waste as Overwatch was announced rather quickly after the Project's closure.

Who is Blizzard with? Activision. Who else is in there? Bungie. What is Bungie making? Destiny 2. What is Destiny 2? MMOFPS.

Thank me later.

Actually you might be pretty close to something there, Blizzard might have been working with some of the devs from Activison considering their experience on FPSs would help with the development of a mmofps. Higher ups in Activision realise that Project Titan is going nowhere and is being a "waste" of their COD resources around the same time that Bungie has stopped making Halos for Microsoft and looking at doing other projects. Activision brokers a deal with Bungie that they develop a game series that they will publish and market stipulating that it has to be online fps preferably an mmo whilst giving them creative freedom (and maybe later updates that contract that the game has a bigger presence on the new consoles) and once Bungie accepted, they "suggested" to Blizzard that Project Titan's resources would be better shifted to other games. All theory though.

[Mister Cheese]

Who is Blizzard with? Activision. Who else is in there? Bungie. What is Bungie making? Destiny 2. What is Destiny 2? MMOFPS.

Thank me later.

While this is entirely plausible Bungie has been working on Destiny for a bit longer than Blizzard was working on Titan. When it comes to FPS Bungie has way more recognition. Activision probably doesn't want to run 3 big FPS games at the same time. Seems like a waste.

[I Push Buttons]

Yeah I actually think there's more to the Titan-Destiny correlation than we know. It's just TOO coincidental. I suspect that Activision gave the green light to Bungie for Destiny, but ultimately stopped Blizzard from treading into the same territory. It doesn't have to be "evil" Activision either here. It could simply be like "Hey just a heads up, the Bungie guys are doing a similar thing right now", and that led Blizzard to try to differentiate away from them.

I mean this is all we have for sure from the horse's mouth:

I doubt Destiny had anything to do with it, though I don't doubt Activision having a lot to do with it.

My guess is WoW just got too big. Titan ideas were probably floating around for years and that became their next project, but WoW just kept growing. So it got to the point where releasing a new MMO would mean hurting the success of their already hugely successful MMO, which at the time, was as big as ever. Not to mention the MMO space was jam packed with a plethora of new MMOs the last decade; most of which have failed.

There wouldn't seem to be any upsides to a new MMO. They would be competing with themselves, with WoW hurting Titan and Titan hurting WoW (in terms of user base, not in terms of subs or anything since it would all be $$$ in their pockets). Not to mention launching a new MMO, even if it was Blizzard doing it, would have been hindered by the dozens of other MMOs being churned out at the time.

They were probably just like "fuck it" and decided to just keep pumping out more WoW. And all of this was happening on top the development problems the devs claim (which I don't doubt).

[Deleted]

Here we go again with the "Activision owns Blizzard" crap...

[Deleted]

Titan was scrapped for a variety of reasons, but I contend that the #1 sole reason Titan never came to be was because Blizzard realized that they are dominant on all genres of games except 1: First Person Shooters.

Although it was widely known that Titan would have been a First Person Shooter MMO, the MMO part was the problem.

Blizzard already has the dominant end all be all MMO in the industry. They already have the end all be all RTS in the industry (Starcraft franchise), they broke into the card game market and now they are the industry leader for that (Hearthstone). They broke into the MOBA market and now they are climbing their way up to being one of the top MOBAs in the industry.

They were no where to be found in the FPS market, and that is a HUGE market.

Titan was scrapped and elements of it were kept and the game was converted into a real team based FPS. I contend that the majority of the players of Overwatch are all completely brand NEW customers to Blizzard.

Sure a Titan MMO would have attracted new players to MMOs, and probably some FPS players, but it would have been too much "cannibalizing" their already acquired customer base. Making the game a pure FPS, they were able to take away a lot of the call of duty gamers and the battlefield gamers.

I believe they still want to create a new MMO, as their mothership MMO (WoW) is aging and they could very well consolidate the MMO market yet again like they did with WoW. Possibly as an mmo in one of their existing franchises (World of Diablo???)

Thoughts?

Blizzard realized that turning it into a shooter that required less work than an MMO was a better idea financially than making another MMO that would only compete with WoW. That was clear from the moment they announced Overwatch. Too bad, Titan sounded like it was going to be really cool, now we'll never get to see it.

- - - Updated - - -

Here we go again with the "Activision owns Blizzard" crap...

They totally don't. I mean, if they did, you would see some of their games showing up on a platform like battlenet or something.

[Thimagryn]

Doubt MMO Diablo would work.

WoW's success is in due part to their ability to market to the mainstream. Cute character choices, light hearted fun, very casual gameplay. All works against the dark and gothic feel of Diablo's story and universe.

[Gadzooks]

Titan was scrapped for a variety of reasons, but I contend that the #1 sole reason Titan never came to be was because Blizzard realized that they are dominant on all genres of games except 1: First Person Shooters.

I don't agree with this at all. While it's hard to be completely certain, everything they have said about Titan is it failed on every level - it wasn't canned because it wasn't a FPS, it was canned because it wasn't working. It was a fuckup of epic proportions, it killed Metzen. He either had a breakdown because of it, or he was forced out - they talk about the failure being at every level - and that includes leadership, and Titan was Metzen's baby.

I could believe they wanted a FPS, while Titan was being worked on, and had maybe done some groundwork on it, so when Titan fell, they had that idea to fall back on. But I don't believe they shitcanned a project that everyone involved with has said most of the company was working on, to change genre. It's just not credible, and goes against most of what little has been said about it.

[Deleted]

But Blizz still doesn't have any FPS game... (unless you count Overwatch but that is not a true FPS.. that is a Team Based Shooter)

[Gadzooks]

I doubt Destiny had anything to do with it, though I don't doubt Activision having a lot to do with it.

My guess is WoW just got too big. Titan ideas were probably floating around for years and that became their next project, but WoW just kept growing. So it got to the point where releasing a new MMO would mean hurting the success of their already hugely successful MMO, which at the time, was as big as ever. Not to mention the MMO space was jam packed with a plethora of new MMOs the last decade; most of which have failed.

There wouldn't seem to be any upsides to a new MMO. They would be competing with themselves, with WoW hurting Titan and Titan hurting WoW (in terms of user base, not in terms of subs or anything since it would all be $$$ in their pockets). Not to mention launching a new MMO, even if it was Blizzard doing it, would have been hindered by the dozens of other MMOs being churned out at the time.

They were probably just like "fuck it" and decided to just keep pumping out more WoW. And all of this was happening on top the development problems the devs claim (which I don't doubt).

This video is interesting. Metzen and Kaplan are skating around the real issues it failed, but the message I got is, the team broke down into camps, and each camp was warring with each other, and probably went off in their own direction, with no consideration for other team, and the actual execution of the game fell apart. Metzen used some interesting terms, "Went squirrely", etc. Talking about how each team carved out a part they could be responsible for. My gut feeling is, with Blizzard's very unique workflows and organization, the project was just out of control, nobody had a clear vision at the top, that everyone was following. With wow, they had people who already knew each other working on it, it was a small team, and it grew slowly over time, so they could expand how much they could handle over time. I think they dove into Titan expecting it to work the same, but starting with a huge team, with a lot of people who didn't know each other, massive politics on who got the control of the cooler parts of the game, and ultimately would be the "rock stars' when the game shipped. Politics can and will kill projects. I've been through that too many times in my career to discount it.

And, they flat out admit they bit off more than they could chew. Blizzard has always done better with small teams. I don't think their corporate culture scales well. They might have had a fallout with the art department, designing a game that would require hiring massive amounts of people.

I've always thought Blizzard has has some major internal issues, especially within the WoW team. Ego, too many gatekeepers, too many chefs, inefficiency, poor leadership, poor management - that all goes on the table as to why this project failed. I don't think it had anything to do with competing with WoW, competing with other MMOs, or trying to enter new genres. I think they had an idea that was MMO+, a new kind of MMO, and hubris and politics led them down a rabbit hole they couldn't get back out of.

[Halicia]

When was it stated that Titan was an MMO and not just a concept that never came to be ?

[Thelxi]

I don't think they suddenly realized that they did not have their hands in the shooter pie, for all we know they were already developing a shooter and merged the two.

It is pretty safe to assume that the n1 reason Titan was scrapped was that it simply was not better or more potentially lucrative than WoW.

[davesurfer]

Or how about something simple. It wasn't good, they knew it, and Destiny was going to be good/hit the market first. Don't forget they did a reboot of the project.

Knowing Destiny was good and be there first, they had garbage, they went another direction. Smart business