It's obvious that Vivendi hopes to emulate WOW SoD's huge success. But is the giant V already promoting the future MMOGs for investors? It's not so, if a message from a moderator on the Blizzard forums is to be taken seriously. Yesterday night "Drysc" wrote in the forum that was filled with WOW SoDers who were clearly excited about the game that: "I believe this was an error in quotation marks. We haven't yet announced any specific development plans other than the forthcoming expansion for World of Warcraft Season of Discovery, and we're not going to concentrate on just one type of game or platform with the future games we'll release."
Drysc's statements are somewhat supported by Blizzard's job page, which includes listings for PC and console jobs. But considering Starcraft: Ghost on indefinite absence, it's possible the console game being discussed could be an MMOG too.
[UPDATE 2] A few hours later yet another Blizzard moderator "Eno," issued a more forceful denial. "Nothing about that rumor is accurate in relation to Blizzard.," he wrote in a blog post. "If I could speculate, there was a bit of confusion as to the plans Vivendi plans for gaming division and what Blizzard plans to do. However, since Blizzard is controlled by Vivendi the game division is separate and is not part of Blizzard."
[UPDATE 3] However at noon, the official word came by Blizzard to say that the story was not true. "No this rumor is not true the company Blizzard," the company said to MMOexp in the morning. "We believe that the story that has been circulated about this issue is based on an incorrect interpretation of the information that was provided to analysts from the industry. We don't currently have any MMO plans for development beyond the planned expansion of World of Warcraft Season of Discovery, and in addition, we do not intend to concentrate on a single type of game or platform for the future games we develop."
