World of Warcraft on iPhone: Hack or Hoax?
The fine folks over at TouchArcade were recently tipped off to the existence of a YouTube video claiming that a very dedicated coder has found a way to get World of Warcraft running on the iPhone. It may sound like an elaborate hoax (and for all we know, it is) but does that mean it’s impossible?
If you check out the video you’ll see that they’re actually booting the game from Vollee. VolleeX is an engine designed to allow PC games to be streamed to the iPhone, not unlike how certain PlayStation 3 games can be streamed to a PlayStation Portable. So it’s entirely feasible that the game could be booted with the aid of the Vollee client. But even if it was as simple as that, the video shows a layout for World of Warcraft that is uniquely adapted for the iPhone. That would mean that someone would have had to invest the time and money into getting everything just right. What kind of hacker would have the resources to tackle that?
Vollee would.
As it turns out Vollee has a partnership with Activision-Blizzard, World of Warcraft’s parent company. It’s entirely feasible that this could just be an early teaser that’s surfacing in the form of a “leak” from the developer. Fake leaks are a big part of viral marketing. They’re a great way to get people talking. Clearly, it’s working — the Vollee website has been knocked offline (one would assume due to traffic) all afternoon.
And Vollee has never said they weren’t working on a mobile version of World of Warcraft, either. In an interview with PocketGamer.co.uk back in May 2008, they were asked flat out if they might be able to bring World of Warcraft to the iPhone. Here’s what they had to say;
We can bring all MMOs and virtual worlds to mobile. We’ve been approaching the major developers and publishers with the idea of enabling all of them to benefit from VolleeX… The possibilities are limitless.
That’s not to say that Vollee is necessarily responsible for the footage online, or to even say that this isn’t just an elaborate hoax. But when you weigh all the facts, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to find out this was just an early look at what might one day become the official iPhone app for streaming World of Warcraft. For all we know, they’re just testing the water.
Seeing WoW on the iPhone may seem like a crazy concept at first, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. It’s the most popular game on the planet right now. People have no mobile way to access their characters(save for a wireless laptop). Vollee is working on technology to do things just like this. And most of all, rumors of the Premium Games Store haven’t gone away. If Apple is looking for the perfect app to launch a store with games at a $19.99 price point, i couldn’t think of a better way to guarantee that success than with Warcraft.
That interface doesn’t shock me at all. If you’ve played WOW, you know that’s it’s UI is extremely customizable (more than any game I’ve ever played) and people overhaul the standard UI all the time.
Building a custom one to fit the size of the iPhone is a piece of cake and they can certainly do it, Google ‘WOW custom UI’ and see what I mean!
This looks plausible to me, especially if they are running it on a PC through Vollee!
“If Apple is looking for the perfect app to launch a store with games at a $19.99 price point, i couldn’t think of a better way to guarantee that success than with Warcraft.”
No doubt!
anyone who pays a monthly fee for an online game needs to get a life.. paying for xbox live is the limit.. get with it people. WOW
What’s the difference paying a monthly fee for an online game than for paying a monthly fee to a golf course, the cable company, to Netflix, or to… well you get the point. If you derive entertainment or pleasure out of something, pay what you will. And you might want to get used to the subscription-based billing model. That’s the way pretty much any entertainment service will is/will be.
It’s also rather hard to find a realy good game that’s free. Oh, there are some out there, but free games means the people who run it are less inclined to listen to your needs if something goes wrong.
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