WoW goes mobile, says venture capitalist

A venture capitalist is predicting that a cut-down version of World of Warcraft will be released for mobile in 2008.

"You will be able to play a small version of WoW on your cell to win a small number of experience points", Baris Karadogan, a venture capitalist with ComVentures, reckons in an article featuring his technology predictions for the year.

"The game will be different but it will be the extension of the overall experience। So when you have three hours free, you'll play the real thing, when you have 30 minutes free you'll play a small casual game on your PC that counts towards your experience in the big game and when you have 5 minutes free you'll play the mobile handset version."

Right now we're wearing our extremely large sceptical hats; but as a move forward in the way we interact with MMOs in general, such is surely on the future cards.

In fact, Jeffrey Steefel, exec producer on Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online, suggested exactly this idea when we spoke with him last year about potential future developments the MMO genre.

"I've got this thing called Lord of the Rings that my subscription, depending on how much money I pay, entitles me access to in different ways. Each device, each way of interacting, has a different strength and weakness", Steefel said.

"So I can manage my inventory on a cell phone very easily, I can do crafting on a cell phone. Doing a raid on a console? That's cool. Doing more social things, chatting, maybe that's better on a PC. Think of it that way - I built this game, now I'm going to translate it and put it on this thing, put it on that thing.

"It's a broader vision, it's harder, more risky, but that's where we headed".