Next Blizzard MMO to have more broad appeal

Activision Blizzard's bossman Bobby Kotick has promised that Blizzard's next MMO project after World of Warcraft, which is already in development, will have a much broader appeal than WoW.

It's hard to imagine how anything could have a broader appeal than WoW, which has in excess of 11 million players, but we're sure that's a problem Activision is working on.

"What we've announced at Blizzard is that we have StarCraft coming, Diablo has been in production... and a new, unannounced MMO that has a little more broad appeal," said Kotick in a technology conference reported on by GameSpot.

It's also been confirmed previously that Blizzard's MMO will be based on a brand new franchise and isn't intended to compete directly with World of Warcraft, driving rumours of a more casual based MMO or even an MMO racing game.

During the conference Kotick also mentioned some new features for Starcraft II's Battle.net tournament system, including "cash play and prize play options".

"As we start to add cash play and prize play and better rewards and recognition systems that come through the Internet, you will start to see audiences expand even further," he said.

Let us know your thoughts in the forums.