Pirates of the Caribbean Online Interview

Disney’s Mike Goslin was willing to provide some honest answers in a new Pirates of the Caribbean Online interview over at Massive Gamer Magazine.

Massive Gamer: Licensing discussions are big in the MMOG space right now. What expectations did Disney lay down for you during development, both in terms of the game and the expected playerbase?

Goslin: With Disney, a lot depends on the property. Pirates of the Caribbean is jointly owned by the studio and Jerry Bruckheimer. During the time we were developing the game, we were driven by the film more than anything else. We didn’t start development until the first movie was a success.

We started by working on a central (bible.) That is, we worked with the core team handling the mythology. That process was worth it. There were a lot of things going on at once console games, books, and so on. When Disney does a franchise, there are a lot of avenues.

The studio people had no idea what to expect in terms of players. They thought it would be a nice way to stay in touch with the core audience during the intervals between movies. They were pleasantly surprised at the number of people we were able to reach.

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Massive Gamer: I don’t suppose you want to tell me how many subscribers you’ve got, but can you tell me the proportion of users who subscribe, versus that of users content to play the free game?

Goslin: We give quite a bit of the game for free. The exact figures depend on the promotions we’re running at the time, but generally, around 10% is paying. We use the velvet rope model.