There are a lot of high-profile executives out there and many have been speaking out on the state of the game industry lately. The very type of person that manages to rise to such a role tends to enjoy that adjective, even actively promoting it. The A types they’re often called by us plebeians. From Denis Dyack proclaiming crowdsourcing as the future of gaming to Mark Kern of Firefall announcing that he helped kill a genre with World of Warcraft, there have been some fantastic one-liners recently.
We expect the recently NCSoft-funded Molten Games to produce a sound byte in the near future. In its press release announcing the multi-million dollar funding, Molten expressed its desire of “breaking free from the traditional developer/publisher relationship and putting gameplay first and foremost.” A good first attempt.
In addition to funding from NCSoft, which, as you’ll recall, has funded and closed numerous studios, from Destination Games (Tabula Rasa) to Paragon Studios (City of Heroes), the San Diego-based development firm has retained the employment of Della Bitta and Jungwon Hahn, both formerly of Blizzard Entertainment, and Blaine Smith of SOE and Relic Entertainment. The three specialized in eSports, managing Blizzard’s Korean efforts and producing Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, respectively.
That’s quite a pedigree to start. I’ve $20 says Molten will announce an MMO soon! Likely backed by the Unreal Engine. Looking for a career in the industry? Molten has a handful of openings, from artists to programmers.