New Franchise Slipped?

[s]wow[/s]GamesIndustry.biz has interviewed Bruce Hack - Vivendi Games CEO. He talks about the past and present changes of the company and of World of Warcraft. However, at one point in the interview he talks about the franchises of Blizzard such as Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft. Out of nowhere, he implied Blizzard could be developing a new franchise. It is no secret that Blizzard is working on two unannounced projects. However, it is been discussed among fans in the past the possibility of a new franchise. A recent interview of Paul Sams - Blizzard COO - revealed an interest in creating new console games and franchises. Are we getting breadcrumbs to a upcoming announcement? Time will tell.

We go after the various markets through fully accountable divisions - Blizzard Entertainment is obviously the first and foremost of them. This is really the only way to attack a series of disparate opportunities in the business. Music companies are organised this way, where the different genres of music are organised around particular labels, and the labels themselves are the entrepreneurs - they attract the talent, and then they do the marketing and promotion for the talent, they manage the talent throughout their careers. The talent is their franchise.

Here, too, the brands - let's just take Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, or Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft, or Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo, or Blizzard Entertainment's Starcraft - they are the accountable unit for those IPs. By the way, any other IPs which they might invent, they would be accountable for exploiting.

Links
gamesindustry.biz - Interview