Roper shocked by WoW success
Former Blizzard man admits surprise
Former Blizzard top brass Bill Roper has revealed that no one at the developer expected World of Warcraft to be the runaway success it has been.
Speaking to CVG, Roper, now chief of Flagship Studios (Hellgate: London) said: "I remember a meeting at Blizzard where we were hoping we'd be able to sell a million copies of the game."
"You have to remember that the most successful American MMORPG at that time was EverQuest with about 500,000 players. It would have been impossible to predict that World of Warcraft would take off as a cultural phenomenon as it did, but those are the kind of surprises that you like to get in life," the veteran game maker added in conversation with CVG.
World of Warcraft currently boasts over nine-million subscribers.
"As for regrets, I could never regret starting Flagship and Ping0 and building what we have here. The string of games I worked on at Blizzard makes me proud," he added on the success of WoW, which followed his own departure.
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