IGNPC: What do you think the future of subscription-based games in general? It seems everyone is chasing World of Warcraft, but is it going to be at a certain point that only Blizzard can sustain the model?

Mike O'Brien: No, that's not going to happen. First of all, there's plenty of room for games like EVE that attract a dedicated core audience that's perfectly willing to pay monthly fees, but don't reach a broad enough audience to sustain the game without the monthly fees. Games like that will continue to be successful with a subscription model. And second, there's plenty of room for a new game that offers players new experiences to become the next industry-changing phenomenon. In fact, it's at times like these when it seems like everyone is chasing an existing game that players are most ready for something new and exciting.

IGNPC: Can we expect Guild Wars 2 news this year? Will the game ship in 2009 or 2010?

Mike O'Brien: The Guild Wars 2 team is twice the size of the original Guild Wars Gold team, so you can imagine the level of art, content, and production values we're putting into the game. The game is already beautiful, and is getting more so every day. In addition to the normal playtesting of everyday development, the entire team logs on every Wednesday to simply play the game together, and we always have a lot of fun.

I'd love to say more, but we're not ready to start making news just yet. Remember that we were public about our decision to work on Guild Wars Gold  right from the beginning, so unlike most development teams, we didn't have a long period of working in secrecy before fans knew about the game and started wanting updates. So I know that it has been a long wait for the fans, but when they do see the game I think they'll agree it was worth it.

IGNPC: What's next for the original Guild Wars franchise? How many more years does it have? Do you plan to introduce any new content in terms of updates or patches or even expansions, or is everything going to transition to Guild Wars 2 at this point?

Mike O'Brien: We plan to keep supporting Guild Wars for a long time. We have a dedicated Live Team that's focused exclusively on Guild Wars, listening to the fans and looking at what type of new content we can release. You see that philosophy in practice this week, as our company is hard at work on Guild Wars 2 but taking time to release a major update to Guild Wars Gold.