EA reportedly cancelled a Harry Potter MMO because they didn't believe in the IP - briefly
(hx) 10:40 PM CET - Dec,23 2021
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According to a former EA director, EA cancelled a Harry Potter MMO back in the early 2000s because the publisher didn’t believe in the future of the franchise.
In an interview with Twitch streamer The Real Brandolorian, EA’s former director of product marketing, Kim Salzer, explained that in her time at the company between 2000-2003, EA cancelled what sounds like quite a promising MMO.
“A big one for me, because I was so personally involved in it, and it’s such a huge IP that has lived on, is an online massively multiplayer game for Harry Potter,” Salzer said in the interview, which has also been uploaded to Twitter.
According to Salzer, this Harry Potter MMO wasn’t just a few scattershot ideas, as EA had a “beta built out” and plenty of extensive research into the project. Described as an “online/offline experience,” EA even planned to mail out prizes, ribbons, and rewards to players, which sounds perfect for the games target audience.
Despite the developers of this MMO being “very confident in the success” of the game, EA ultimately killed the project. According to Salzer, this was because “EA was going through changes at that time and they just didn’t know or believe enough that that IP would have a shelf-life longer than a year or two.”
Since deciding to cancel this Harry Potter MMO project we’ve seen the franchise skyrocket in popularity, so much so that, even despite the decidedly average Fantastic Beasts series, there’s another Harry Potter game in the works for 2022.
Being developed by Avalance Studios, Hogwarts Legacy is currently planned to release sometime during 2022, after being delayed in January of this year. Hogwarts Legacy will also feature trans-inclusive character creation options in spite of the controversial opinions from author J.K. Rowling.
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Updated:06:33 PM CEST Jun,03
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