A Harry Potter MMO was canceled by EA due to a lack of belief in the IP
“They just didn’t know or believe enough that IP would have a shelf life of longer than a year or two”
As we’ve just found out, EA was determined to make a Harry Potter MMO in the early 2000s, but the idea was killed due to a lack of faith in the series.
The company’s former director of product marketing Kim Salzer gave an interview to a Twitch streamer The Real Brandolorian and she was asked about any projects she worked on that didn’t see the light of the day. Here’s what she had to say: “A big one for me, because I was so personally involved in it, and it’s such a huge IP that has lived on; is an online massively multiplayer game for Harry Potter. We did all the research, we had a beta built out. It was a combination offline/online experience where we’d actually mail stuff to the kids like prizes and ribbons and stuff like that.”
Still, despite all the enthusiasm, the project was canceled because “EA was going through some changes at that time.” She also adds - “…and they just didn’t know or believe enough that IP would have a shelf life of longer than a year or two.” Salzer left EA in 2003.
Speaking of Harry Potter MMO, let’s remind ourselves that Warner Bros. Interactive is now in charge of the Harry Potter and Wizarding World license. The next Harry Potter video game project is Hogwarts Legacy, an RPG set in the Hogwarts universe 100 years before the events seen in Harry Potter books, movies, and games based on them. The game will launch in 2022.