Looks like Blizzard is sticking with WoW

[Kevin]

Titan has been cancelled

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/23/6833953...gen-mmo-pc

[Bolty]

It'll be fun to hear in a few months/years more info about the whole thing.

My pet theories:

1) No other subscription-based MMO (sans maybe Final Fantasy) has made any significant headway into the MMO market. With WoW's insane success and status as perhaps the most profitable game ever made, dozens of imitators have been released and been crushed under the sheer inertia that is WoW.

2) If WoW was released against itself nowadays, it would lose, despite its quality. See #1.

3) Free-to-play has taken over the space now, and that didn't even exist when they started work on Titan. The industry has changed. There's no room for another high-quality subscription-based MMO. See #1.

4) The Warcraft movie is due to be released in theaters March 2016. Have no doubt, the movie release will coincide with a WoW expansion. They're going to want to keep WoD short (1.5 years vs the usual 2).

5) Since WoW's success may never again be repeated in the games industry, it makes sense to pour everything you have into it to keep the cash cow going.

But who knows.

[Bolty]

The extreme tinfoil hat theory being spouted on the forums is that Titan is actually Destiny, a game recently released by Bungie. Bungie is also under Activision's umbrella and, according to the theory, they took over the project from Blizzard to dump out what had already been worked on through the years as a console game.

Now that Destiny is released, Titan can be "cancelled."

Despite the fact that it makes no sense (why would you NOT market the game as a collaboration between Blizzard and Bungie, two wildly successful gaming firms), it's a fun theory.

[Kevin]

The extreme tinfoil hat theory being spouted on the forums is that Titan is actually Destiny, a game recently released by Bungie. Bungie is also under Activision's umbrella and, according to the theory, they took over the project from Blizzard to dump out what had already been worked on through the years as a console game.

Now that Destiny is released, Titan can be "cancelled."

Despite the fact that it makes no sense (why would you NOT market the game as a collaboration between Blizzard and Bungie, two wildly successful gaming firms), it's a fun theory.

That is an entertaining theory. I tend to agree with your pet theories. Especially #4. I've read elsewhere that they stated they wanted to speed up the expansion release rates too.

[TheDragoon]

The extreme tinfoil hat theory being spouted on the forums is that Titan is actually Destiny, a game recently released by Bungie. Bungie is also under Activision's umbrella and, according to the theory, they took over the project from Blizzard to dump out what had already been worked on through the years as a console game.

Now that Destiny is released, Titan can be "cancelled."

Despite the fact that it makes no sense (why would you NOT market the game as a collaboration between Blizzard and Bungie, two wildly successful gaming firms), it's a fun theory.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is true. I read a synopsis on what Titan was supposed to be on MMO-Champion the other day (Earth after aliens invade, huge world, lots of interactions with NPCs) and then when I just pulled up the Destiny website, it sure as heck looks like what I would expect given that sort of a basis, at least as far as the world design and such.

[Bolty]

PC Gamer has a short bit on Titan's cancellation with a leaning towards my point #3 above.

Another analyst, David Cole of DFC Intelligence, said the decision was likely prompted by the need for a subscription-based MMO to be "out-of-this-world unbelievable" in order to succeed in a market dominated by free-to-play games, which includes Blizzard's own Hearthstone. "I am expecting to see them continue to focus on high quality products but also focus on products with shorter development cycles and less cost," he said. "The market is just not in a place where you can have games with seven-plus year development. It is changing too fast."