EA publishing TOR solo

Just like Han EA is going Solo (with its trusty BioWarian wookiee to keep the engines running). Where originally was supposed to be done together with LucasArts it seems that the two have struck a deal for EA to take everything on.

Here's the news from GameSpot:

When Star Wars: The Old Republic launches next year, it will have only one publisher. At an event this evening, Electronic Arts announced it will be the sole distributor of the massively multiplayer role-playing game, due out in 2011 after sometime after the first quarter of the year. The game is being developed by EA's role-playing game studio, BioWare, at its Austin, Texas facility.

The MMORPG had been set to be co-published by both EA and LucasArts, the game arm of Lucasfilm, which created the Star Wars franchise. Lucasfilm will remain involved in the project as a "a key partner, collaborating on design and marketing, and as a licensor of the property." Speaking with GameSpot, BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka said LucasArts would also remain involved in development of the game, as it is "part of the same organization as Lucasfilm."

The financial terms of today's deal were not disclosed, but the rationale was. According to EA, the deal was done "so that all publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities can be centralized for efficiency."

It makes a lot of sense to me for just one of the two to do all the publishing. Things can get messy otherwise. And as far as publishing goes at least EA is definitely a powerhouse (and they've even got some experience publishing MMOs). In general, though as players we shouldn't really notice this sounds like good news to me overall.

From that link I also noticed a video interview I hadn't seen before (must've missed it somehow) about PvP:


Nothing really new there I think.


[link] to news at GameSpot.
[link] to PvP video interview at GameSpot.