An exclusive gaming industry community targeted
to, and designed for Professionals, Businesses
and Students in the sectors and industries
of Gaming, New Media and the Web, all closely
related with it's Business and Industry.
A Rich content driven service including articles,
contributed discussion, news, reviews, networking, downloads,
and debate.
We strive to cater for cultural influencers,
technology decision makers, early adopters and business leaders in the gaming industry.
A medium to share your or contribute your ideas,
experiences, questions and point of view or network
with other colleagues here at iVirtua Community.
During a keynote Q&A at the Paris Game DevelopersConference, Blizzard SVP Rob Pardo revealed that World of Warcraft wasoriginally planned as a free-to-play title.
According to a Gamasutra report,Pardo told GDC executive director Jamil Moledina: "When were firstgoing to make World of Warcraft, we wanted to make it free andadvertising supported."
"We didn't want to charge a subscription, but as we researched market conditions, we realised that wouldn't support us."
Pardoalso referred to the upcoming Activision and Vivendi Games merger -forming a new entity to be known as Activision Blizzard.
"It really doesn't affect us at all," he said.
"Onething that was great about this particular merger is that Bobby Kotickand all the great people at Activision didn't want to do this dealunless everyone at Blizzard bought into it."
"They really wantedto get to know us, and that's never happened before... they wanted tomerge with us because ultimately it would make us a stronger company."