Did Mark Jacobs just call me an old fogey?

In the concluding part two of an interview with Gamespot, Mark Jacobs goes into some pretty deep details about why Warhammer Online is an RPG and not an FPS:

“if you're looking for the widest possible margin, I think it needs to be an RPG. Magestorm, being an FPS, would end up being less attractive to a very wide audience when you translate it to the MMOG world. The reason being is FPSs are generally perceived to be games that are played by younger people. People with better reflexes. People with more time. And that's the polite way of looking at it. There are all sorts of nasty things that people say about FPSs when you play them competitively."

I think he just called me old. And that hurts, but then again he's right. I don't want to be slaughtered by a twelve year old from the midwest over and over, I'd rather have my head handed to me by old guys who sneak up behind me while I'm guarding the Barracks or get blasted to bits by a Bright Wizard.

So if not an FPS, what is next for the MMO genre? Well Mark lets us know that too:

"Well, I think the first thing we have to do is get some great sci-fi and horror games out there. Those are the first two. I mean, I think we still have other types of MMOGs to do right. Because if you look at the sci-fi games that have come out that are true RPGs, none of them have approached WOW's numbers, right? Not even within sniffing range. And even the most successful wasn't even in the top two or three, or even four or five, I think, in terms of subscriber numbers. So there is a h*** of an opportunity in RPG right there for sci-fi. You know, horror, nobody's ever done a horror game in North America or Europe."

And while looking ahead to where the market is going is always a fun exercise, I'm sure Mr. Jacobs is looking much more short term and how his newly launched game is doing. From the numbers of pre-orders and discussions of 1.5 million boxes being shipped, it sounds like Mr. Jacobs is in a good place to discuss the future.

The rest of the interview can be found at the Gamespot. For more interviews from Mythic, check out the recently posted discussion about fat loot with Adam Gershowitz and Mike Donatelli from Mythic.