Feature Side Latest/ December 23, 2021/

EA Once Considered Making a Harry Potter MMO

Table of Contents

EA once considered making a Harry Potter MMO, but the project was scrapped because it would be too expensive. The company had to focus on their strategy of “living games” instead which is cheaper and more profitable than creating new IPs.

EA once considered making a Harry Potter MMO. EA has had many success with their games, but they were not able to create the game that they wanted. They decided to make a new game instead.

Warner Bros. is the source of this image.

According to a former EA executive, the company explored building a Harry Potter MMO at one point. The publisher originally had the gaming rights for the successful series, according to Kim Salazar (director of product marketing from 2000 to 2003). When she was asked what game she most regretted not seeing created during her time, she brought up the subject.

“We conducted all the research, we constructed the beta, it was a hybrid offline/online experience where we’d really send awards and ribbons to the kids, and things like that.”

Fun fact: You can find proof of this in the Matrix Online executable’s code to authenticate with SOE servers from circa 2003. This was something I discovered lately, and I couldn’t locate any reference of Harry Potter Online on the internet. pic.twitter.com/yGaC49Ip3K

December 23, 2021 — Nyx! (@Nyxiva)

EA determined the game wouldn’t endure more than two years since it didn’t have enough staying power. Changes in the firm aided the choice even more.

“However, it was killed, for want of a better phrase, since EA was going through some changes at the time, and they just didn’t know or believe enough that the IP would last more than a year or two.”

Given the continuing uproar about microtransactions and loot boxes in games geared at children, it could have been for the best. One can only imagine the repercussions in Harry Potter’s wizarding world if it had happened. Portkey Games is developing its own open-world RPG, which will be released in 2022.

The Original Brandolorian (via VGC)