There’s a whole raft of “could’ve been” MMORPG projects that litter the past couple of decades, titles that went through some development but ultimately were not pushed live. One of these that could’ve had a significant impact on the community was Harry Potter Online, a project that Electronic Arts worked on in the early 2000s.
This past week, then-Director of Product Marketing Kim Salzer confirmed that the game had been made to the point of a beta test before EA pulled the plug.
“It almost happened but EA cancelled it,” Salzer said. “They did the research and even a beta version of the game, but didn’t think Harry Potter was going to be around more than a few years.”
She said that there was even an offline component planned where EA would have mailed prizes and award ribbons to players for certain accomplishments.
To learn more about Harry Potter Online, read our Game Archaeologist investigation into this fascinating project.
