Veteran MMO developers from Blizzard, Sony Online Entertainment and Relic have joined forces to create a new studio called Molten Games.
According to Games Industry, the fledging studio was formed by Paul Della Bitta, who was Blizzard's former senior director of global community development and eSports, and Blaine Smith who was lead designer for PoxNora at SOE and Company of Heroes Online at Relic. Della Bitta will now serve as Molten's chief product officer, while Smith takes up the VP of creative development role.
The studio's first project is set to be a free-to-play online PC title with triple-A production values and quality, thanks to a multi-million dollar funding package from NCSoft. Della Bitta told Games Industry, "AAA to us is really an identifier for quality. With the advent of mobile and social games, some gamers are starting to associate free-to-play with games that don't have the depth or overall quality level that was expected of a PC or console title of the past. This is a game that you would have happily paid $60 for at retail. We're just trying to take advantage of the free-to-play model, but we want people to have the same expectation of quality they would if they went and bought a $60 console game at the store.
"We remember the games and the dev studios back in the day," he continued. "We played a lot of Valve and Blizzard games before I worked there. These were studios that were made up of gamers just making great games they enjoyed playing. And we're trying to follow in those footsteps."
More details about Molten Games' first title will be announced at a later date.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Junior Editor and has played more MMOs than you can crippled a social life with. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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