EA Canceled A Harry Potter MMO Years Back

Elec­tron­ic Arts was close to mak­ing a Har­ry Pot­ter MMO, but decid­ed to can­cel the project due to “changes” at the pub­lish­er. There was also a lack of faith that the Har­ry Pot­ter fran­chise would remain pop­u­lar enough for the game to be a success.

This infor­ma­tion comes from Kim Salz­er, the for­mer direc­tor of prod­uct mar­ket­ing at EA (2000–2003). In a recent inter­view with The Real Bran­do­lo­ri­an, Salz­er was asked about can­celed projects, which is when she men­tioned the Har­ry Pot­ter game.

A big one for me, because I was so per­son­al­ly involved in it and it’s such a huge IP that has lived on, is a online mas­sive­ly mul­ti­play­er game for Har­ry Pot­ter,” Salz­er said (via Poly­gon).

This can­celed Har­ry Pot­ter title would have used an “offline/online” mod­el where play­ers would be mailed phys­i­cal prizes to go with the in-game achievements.

The game did make it to the beta stage of devel­op­ment, Salz­er stat­ed, but EA decid­ed to pull the plug.  “EA was going through some changes at that time, and they just did­n’t know, or believe enough, that that IP would have a shelf life longer than a year or two,” Salz­er explained.

EA was the for­mer rights-hold­er for the Har­ry Pot­ter game license and they took advan­tage of it, mak­ing many titles before the license moved to Warn­er Bros. The next big Har­ry Pot­ter game is Hog­warts Lega­cy, an open-world title set before the events of the films. It’s sup­posed to release in 2022.