War of the Devs

Yesterday, mtv.com published an interview with World of Warcraft game director Jeff Kaplan entitled “Allegedly Blocked from Beta, WoW Designer Plays WAR Anyway“, where Kaplan describes his experiences playing  Warhammer Online in a not-so-favorable light.  Later in the day, the same website published a rebuttal from EA/Mythic’s head honcho, the feisty Mark Jacobs.First of all, let me say that I stand neutral in the great WoW-vs-WAR debate. I have active subscriptions to both games and love both for different reasons. I have also interviewed Jeff Kaplan and think he’s a very nice guy, and briefly met Mark Jacobs at E3, though I didn’t sit in at the interview with him (Keen did the interviewing) since I wasn’t really into WAR at the time.

At a press panel held during Blizzcon, I saw at least one reporter try to get J. Allen Brack (WoW lead producer) to make a comment on WAR while the rest of us kinda leaned forward expectantly.  Of course Brack was too smart to fall into the trap, and it might have had to do with the half a dozen PR people in the room. He gave the standard expected answer: that he wished WAR all the success in the world because it would be good for the industry as a whole.

So I’m guessing Jeff Kaplan was caught off-guard and there were no PR people around to shush him…