Entries in bobby kotick (1)
Cataclysm on Track for "Back Half" 2010 Release
pixiestixy on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 1 Comment Tags: activision blizzard, blizzard, bobby kotick, cataclysm, conference call, earnings call, mike morhaime 
Blizzard still expects to put out the Cataclysm expansion pack this year, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick announced Wednesday in the 2009 fourth quarter conference call on financial earnings.
During the call, Kotick discussed the “better than expected” financial results that Activision Blizzard has shown through 2009, and also spoke on what the company expects for 2010:
“For World of Warcraft, we expect to launch the next expansion pack, Cataclysm, and continue to grow our player base around the world. And finally, a much anticipated release of Starcraft II, which will also be available for download on the new Battle.net site. And that illustrates how we’re building significant digital capabilities, and that we we expect these to create new and unique opportunities for gameplay.”
This is a bit of a relief for me to hear after going months since the reveal of Cataclysm at BlizzCon. We had been told at that point that Blizzard anticipated a 2010 release for Cataclysm, but since then we’ve heard very little. Now we have at least another morsel of hope that we’ll see the expansion in the relatively near future (well, the next 11 months.)
Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime expanded on the topic, adding that the development team is continuing work on the expansion, and is aiming for “a release in the back half of 2010.” As we already know, one of the big changes expected is the overhaul of the Old World, and Morhaime states that developers are trying to bring those areas up to match the team’s “constantly rising design standards.”
Of course, things can always change, and a lengthy disclaimer at the front of the webcast conference call notes that “forward looking statements” should not be taken as fact. But hopefully this will hold out as true. And to any of you who have seen release dates listed on gaming sites or Amazon or some such, I would warn you that until we hear it straight from Blizzard, those dates likely aren’t anything beyond a guess.
Some other morsels from the webcast: