Trion says RIFT doesn't need 10 million subs to be successful

Will Cook, Trion Worlds' lead dynamic content designer on RIFT, has said in an interview that the MMORPG doesn't need 10 million subscribers to be successful.

Speaking with Strategy Informer, Cook said catering to the game's community is more important than going after a large sub base.

"It's been six years since WoW, and we've not even seen a pretender to the throne," he said. "I think people are coming to realize that... for us we don't need 10 million subscriptions, we just need enough.

"We just want to value our community. The beta was about testing how quickly we could respond to what THEY were doing, or what THEY were asking for."

Cook said the team is more interested in following in the footsteps of MMO trailblazers like Everquest, Asharon's Call, and Dark Age of Camelot due to the more "hands-on" approach used in those games.

"We knew that those communities were small and dedicated, and those games got to exist for a long time, not on 10 million users, but they had modest numbers and still got to exist forever, everyone still got paid, and we all got to work on what we loved to do," he explained. "We need to value the community like the old days."

Those who pre-ordered RIFT can currently play the game through the head start program before it goes public on March 1 and 4 in the US and Europe,respectively.