Tobold Prediction – CCP Bankrupt in 2012

Hey, it is Friday and Tobold has made a prediction for the 2012 MMO market over in the comment thread over at Hardcore Casual:

I am quite willing to bet you that CCP goes bankrupt in 2012. You might want to interpret their “great success” how ever you like, but financial reports don’t lie.

Yes, there was the whole Incarna debacle and the recent layoffs that brought with them a return to focus on EVE Online at the expense of the planned World of Darkness MMO.  But it is a long jump from there to bankruptcy.  Or is it?

Tobold elaborates further with his thoughts on the subject here, while SynCaine has his own view.

What do you think will happen to CCP in 2012?

I enabled the “other” field if you have a different vision of the future.  And, of course, feel free to justify your point of view in the comment thread for this post.

BlizzCon Blues

The crowds are gathered in Anaheim.  The presentations are set.  Jay Mohr is probably reviewing his jokes.  The Foo Fighters are wandering around somewhere I am sure.

BlizzCon is coming.  It will be kicking off shortly.

But unlike past years, there is not much I am looking to get out of BlizzCon.  I have subscribed to it on DirecTV previously and watched it nearly end-to-end.  But not this year.

Part of that is because I am not really playing any Blizzard games.

Cataclysm took too much of the fun out of World of Warcraft for me.

The StarCraft II beta convinced me I had really lost my RTS skills.  I am more of a tower defense guy now.

Diablo III has been pushed out to next year.  I guess it would be nice to know the final release date, but since that will be somewhere past the SWTOR event horizon, it isn’t really a big deal to me at the moment.

There are bits of BlizzCon I wouldn’t mind seeing.

There are usually some good interviews and sessions.  I find watching the StarCraft II tournaments to be surprisingly interesting.  48 million Koreans can’t be wrong.  The dance and costume contests are always amusing, though this many years in a row the freshness has certainly worn off.

And the musical act… well, the Foo Fighters spark no interest from me.  But neither did Ozzy Osborne.  Tenacious D was okay last year, but that was more novelty I think.

But none of that really makes it worth paying to watch the event.

So I will watch other people reporting from BlizzCon this year.

And what dare I hope for from BlizzCon 2011?

Maybe they will announce the next WoW expansion.  Though to excite me, they better be able to explain how it will make up for Cataclysm. (And it better not be another 18 months away.)

Then there is the new MMO, the secret project called Titan, where all the real talent at Blizzard is alleged to be focused. (Judging from all the live team smack down comments people make.)  I would like to hear about that, though I doubt they will be able to tell me anything at all that will get me eager to play at this stage.  We know how the Blizzard release timeline goes.  If they are just giving us a glimpse over the next two days, they are at least two years away from launch.

And what else is there?

What news do you want to hear out of BlizzCon, if any?

What would get you amped up about Blizzard?