Roper wards off WAR subscription critics

Bill Roper, the Hellgate and Diablo developer currently at work on Cryptic's superhero MMO Champion's Online, has stood up in defence of Mythic's Warhammer Online - saying that its subscriber base of 300,000 users is nothing to scoff at.

"It's so funny, I hear half the people are saying, 'Oh gosh, Warhammer looks like it isn't doing so great,' because they said they had 300,000 subscribers," he said, adding: "Those are not bad numbers."

Speaking to MTV, Roper explained how comparing every MMO to World of Warcraft was an error, and that Blizzard's title was more of an "aberration" than a standard.

"I think people look at it and go, 'Well, WoW has got 11 million and your game only has 300,000, your game must not be doing good'," Roper said. "You have to throw the aberration out."

He continued: "...you can have a few hundred thousand subscribers, do great, keep the company alive, grow it over time, and keep it moving."

"I know many games out there that would love to have 300,000 subscribers," he said, explaining that Mythic could still grow its subscriber base when it launches in new territories. "[Warhammer has] not launched everywhere either. I don't think they're in Asia yet. There's a lot of room to still be able to grow their numbers."

"I think it's a really good thing," he said, concluding: "I'm sure Mark [Jacobs] would always love bigger numbers, but I can't imagine he's disappointed that he's only got that many. That's a lot of players to keep happy, and a good base to build off of."

Earlier this month, Mythic's executive producer, Jeff Hickman explained how the developer was "proud" of the numbers of subscribers for Warhammer Online and that it had "expected" to lose some customers to competitors.