Harry Potter is one of the top IPs, 2022 is a bumper year, the birth of the "Harry Potter: Magical Awakening" blockbuster mobile game, the release of the open world ARPG "Hogwarts: Legacy", the end of the year launched a 20th anniversary film "Back to Hogwarts", the Iron Triangle reunion, proving the eye-catching ability of this series. However, even EA, one of the most profitable companies in the gaming world, has a major moment of mistake because they missed a massively multiplayer online Harry Potter online game project many years ago, when MMO was the most popular and Harry Potter was booming.
Recently, Kim Salzer, who was EA's Director of Product Marketing from 2000 to 2003, talked about related tidbits. In an interview with Original Gamer Life, she said she was involved in the large MMO of Harry Potter, the game's development progress has reached the stage of internal testing, and the developers have made online and offline components for the game. The team also plans to give out prizes and send some physical peripherals, such as ribbons or something, to the player. However, the project was eventually "snuffed out" in the cradle by EA.
The important reason is that EA underestimated the IP of Harry Potter, believing that it would be popular for 1 or 2 years at most, and may not be able to support an online game. As we all know, Harry Potter is one of the most popular IPs in movies, books and other fields, but it was only in its infancy in 2000. The first Harry Potter movie, the Philosopher's Stone, was released in 2001, and then four Harry Potter books went viral in the media.
EA's project proceeded early, even before the first film was released, and out of skepticism, it disbanded the project before 2003. In connection with the environment at that time, 2003 was the time when "World of Warcraft" came out and changed the entire game market pattern, and it also led to the prosperity of the entire MMO market, and there were countless domestic online games that followed the trend, earning a lot of money. Can only lament that EA missed the best era, the best IP.