One might have expected the online game, Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, to arrive on the Internet with the fanfare that opens each Star Wars movie. Instead, Thursday's debut is more like Luke, Han and Obi-Wan sneaking on to the Death Star to rescue Princess Leia.
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After three years of development and a rumored $20 million budget, LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment launched Thursday their massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMPORG, based on the Star Wars universe.
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It's regarded as one of the biggest titles of the year in the video-game industry. But one might not guess that from LucasArts and Sony's marketing efforts. Instead of using Hollywood-like blockbuster tactics, the companies are taking the art-house-film approach.
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The companies are intentionally taking things slow to work out bugs that might crop up. Other online worlds, starting with Electronic Arts' medieval fantasy role-playing game Ultima Online in 1997, have had shaky launches where software glitches appeared and servers became overloaded -- leading to early bad word of mouth.
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In addition, virtual worlds often aren't completely "baked" on launch, simply because game designers and developers need feedback and input from initial players to add new content and features.
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Even with the soft launch, the game is unlikely to have much difficulty attracting players. Indeed, LucasArts is limiting its initial shipment -- although Sarris would not say to how many units. And the soft-launch strategy may have the effect of simply magnifying the game's cachet among hard-core gamers and movie fans clamoring to live out their Star Wars fantasies.
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"One of the reasons it's exciting is because we can relate to the game world we will live in before we have even played it, we know what Mos Eisley is about, we know how powerful a Jedi is and we all know the charm of owning your own droid," Wharton continued. "Everquest and the like can't do this."
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