CCP Games CEO Hilmar Petursson delivered a speech at the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) 2007 and part of it focused on the difference between World of Warcraft's "themepark" approach to the MMORPG genre and Eve Online's playground structure. He also talked about how their company was already there when the genre wasn't fully formed yet.

"We began full-force in 2000 by raising US$ 3 million, which is about one-tenth of the current MMORPG. The last year of which we had no money, but everyone turned up to work anyway despite us not being able to pay them. This created a core of people who have gone through hell with us, and helps with the community especially," explained the CEO.

On to the juicier part, Petursson reminisced how Eve Online started as an MMO video game but looking at it now, it is more of a virtual society or the console platform's sandbox genre. While acknowledging that WoW is a good game, the CEO hinted though that Blizzard is not giving its user base the chance to "play" and "explore".

According to the official, this is not even about giving the players complex tools to tinker with because the players themselves will eventually come up with "complex in-game behaviors" as long as they understand the tools at work in the game. He added:

When people play, they are doing something social and its inherently competitively social, which allows you to hone and develop skills which are applicable to real life: incentive plans for employees, using PR to take down your enemy, manage complex logistics, and so on.

Lastly, Hilmar Petursson reminded everyone that it's about time MMO developers give back the power to the hands of the players. "We are now in a big effort to decentralize governance of the world. We want to employ democratic elections to elect representatives to have an ongoing say in development," he added.

CCP's CEO and EVE Online boss Hilmar Veigar Petursson has posed the question: Why make a World of Warcraft clone? There are two approaches in the development of games in the MMORPG market today: The first would be to be like WoW while the second involves innovation. For Petursson, the second choice seem like a better option.

He spoke about this topic in an interview with Games Industry saying that "I just don't understand why people do yet another fantasy game. Why make a clone of World of Warcraft?" He then went on saying that it is the "perfect implementation" of the said game in the genre so it's time to focus on developing something new. This point of contention is not new and there have been numerous attempts at taking down the "T-Rex" of the MMORPG world.

Some like EVE Online and Second Life have decided to target a different niche in the MMO world and have been relatively successful in their attempts. A comparison with WoW becomes a mute point considering the different audiences that these games cater to. Now those who stick with the current formula and are trying to take on WoW on its home turf have been fighting a losing battle.

Given that The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar has received some success, but you have to consider the technology and the core story that is driving the game. The technology is similar (and we use the term loosely) to that of World of Warcraft. The storyline and world in which LoTRO is in happens to be one of the most, if not the most influential stories for medieval fantasy. Petursson gave a theory on why some developers are still trying this approach.

This might have something to do with the fact that the birthplace of massively multiplayer games is in the MUD, and the MUDs were very fantasy-driven, and the whole sort of level treadmill and all these things – it's so ingrained into the people developing it that people always fall into the same traps

It's still accepted that World of Warcraft is the king off MMORPGs. There will come a point where it will be still be king of their specific genre in the market but not the entire MMO field. This separation is slowly becoming the trend in the MMORPG sector of the gaming market. The question is not how this will happen anymore but when.