Guild Wars 2

One of the suggested problems with F2P games is paying for cosmetics, typically P2P games offer cosmetics through the use of in-game currency.

Why not have an optional subscription of the standard fee of 9.99 a month where the player is given a nice Cosmetic bundle each month?

So for example the new costumes, maybe 1 piece of new dyes, new minis, and perhaps a random item such as a total makeover kit. It could even be possible to give loyal customers who have x amount of payments in a row additional prizes. Not only would this likely bring in more money, it would remove the F2P disadvantages of paying high amounts for new cosmetics separately.

Thoughts?

It would obligate the monetization team to come up with a “nice” set of cosmetics every month. As it stands now, if the gem shop offers new items that people hate, then those items fail to sell. But if there was a subscription with less-than-stellar offerings, subscribers would be justifiably upset that they paid for poor value.

Near as I can tell, ANet doesn’t want to make any specific commitments along those lines, so they are able, in any particular development cycle, to prioritize what the game needs the most — sometimes, that might be new/improved cosmetics (to help generate revenue), but sometimes it could mean overhauling something fundamental (e.g. the wardrobe allows improved features for all players and makes it possible to develop new sets of cosmetics).

That said, I don’t think there’s anything stopping them from bundling existing items into bundles that sell at a discount. And we’ve seen a few of those (not all of them embraced by the players).

Not gonna happen (or at least I hope it’s not). This would cause a bit of a player revolt from well established, long term GW fans. NO SUBSCRIPTION fee means just that (at least from my perspective).

I get that many new players are coming from subscription model games to play GW, but this game model is based around getting everything you NEED for free (after purchasing the game) and then paying extra for the things you WANT. It’s pretty simple and does not need changing so it’s more like what you are used to playing.