Barriers to Innovation

Barriers to Innovation

Thursday, February 28, 2008 2:46 PM (permalink)

Is it possibly true that it could take a half a billion dollars to successfully compete with World of Warcraft? If Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is correct in this, it is not only a potentially untraversable strategic moat, it is also a real barrier to innovation. Sure, there will always be quality shareware and MMORPG's published with less grandiose ambitions, but if the price of entry for something truly transcendent is $500 Million, where will the next WoW come from? Will anyone even try with a potentially huge loss, and even many positive scenarios showing marginal return on investment? Not to mention the gamer's investment--with WoW soaking up so much online time (indeed, requiring it for in-game success), how many mainstream gamers will make that investment?

Yet, history indicates that someone will try, and someone will succeed. I can't wait to see what that looks like.