"Just look at the base of Star Wars fans, plus what BioWare can do. Trust me: we want to win. EA's reputation is for wanting to win," said Gibeau to VG247.

Gibeau credited Blizzard with creating a massive market for MMOs, but he feels that EA is poised to take advantage of the sweat of Blizzard's brow. "This is going to be a powerful category and there's lots of ways to compete in this category," said the outspoken executive.

EA already runs Warhammer Online as a Warcraft competitor and even still maintains Ultima Online, considered by many to be the first mass-market MMO. Even if Ultima Online's peak of 250,000 players paled in comparison to Warcraft's 10.5 million subscribers, the team behind The Old Republic thinks they can eclipse Blizzard's still-growing number.

"Our goal is to show that by bringing storytelling to the genre that we can attract an even wider audience," commented Tom Nichols of publisher LucasArts.