Guild Wars 2

the Devs have a singular Evil intent behind everything they did….find ways to take our money.

That is the evil way of saying it. The good way of saying it is it is their job to find ways to take our money.

Of course Anet is trying to make as much money as possible from us. At least that’s the job of people who work for the finance/cash shop department.

laokoko.7403:

the Devs have a singular Evil intent behind everything they did….find ways to take our money.

That is the evil way of saying it. The good way of saying it is it is their job to find ways to take our money.

Of course Anet is trying to make as much money as possible from us. At least that’s the job of people who work for the finance/cash shop department.

That’s not how a lot of ANet staff see it. Their job is to make the best multiplayer coop RPG out there and it’s someone else’s job to figure out how to make money off it.

My bet is that a lot of gem store additions start as ideas from a marketing/monetization point of view and get straightened out by developers, designers, the Economist, and even QA before something makes it into the store. They probably have a few people dedicated to the UI/flavor text for the gem shop and maybe a few dedicated artists.

But the vast majority of the design, playability, and “is it fun” discussions take place without the Specter of Profitability in the room.

At least, that’s how it’s worked in every business I’ve worked in.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

laokoko.7403:

the Devs have a singular Evil intent behind everything they did….find ways to take our money.

That is the evil way of saying it. The good way of saying it is it is their job to find ways to take our money.

Of course Anet is trying to make as much money as possible from us. At least that’s the job of people who work for the finance/cash shop department.

That’s not how a lot of ANet staff see it. Their job is to make the best multiplayer coop RPG out there and it’s someone else’s job to figure out how to make money off it.

Right but I think that’s because there are different department. The people focusing on wvw, UI, living story obviously are doing their job to do whatever they are doing.

But their financial or cashshop department should be trying to make the most money from player as possible.

The someone you mention are Anet’s marketing team, they are part of the staff right?

Esplen.3940:

azzy.6485:

lordkrall.7241:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

Yeah.. except the fact that it isn’t.
We got multiple new skins released in-game. Champion box weapons and Ascended sets for one.

We also have gotten loads of new stuff overall that have nothing at all to do with the cash shop, such as new maps, new events, new dungeon, new systems and so on.

champion box weapons 1 year ago, ascended armor (UGLY!) 9 months ago, fossil weapons a few months ago….that’s it – now how many armor sets and RNG chest weapon sets have been added to the store? about 5x as many. This is the issue…it should be 75% IN GAME, 25% in store – yet is is the opposite. I should also mention that 95% of all good looking medium armor for females is from the store unless you are a norn or human…then it’s 80%. I think what upsets me the most is the only armor sets that have been added in game in TWO YEARS have been the hideous ascended sets… oh, unless you tPvP in the official tourney’s which many people don’t.

Esplen.3940:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/New-Items-since-release/

I’m sorry but that list shouldn’t count considering many, many, many of the skins and items were temporary.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I’m sorry but that list shouldn’t count considering many, many, many of the skins and items were temporary.

I’m growing sick and tired of the argument that if content isn’t permanent then it isn’t content.

Did players who earned those skins loose them because the LS chapter than offered them disappeared? No. Then they count.

laokoko.7403:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

laokoko.7403:

the Devs have a singular Evil intent behind everything they did….find ways to take our money.

That is the evil way of saying it. The good way of saying it is it is their job to find ways to take our money.

Of course Anet is trying to make as much money as possible from us. At least that’s the job of people who work for the finance/cash shop department.

That’s not how a lot of ANet staff see it. Their job is to make the best multiplayer coop RPG out there and it’s someone else’s job to figure out how to make money off it.

Right but I think that’s because there are different department. The people focusing on wvw, UI, living story obviously are doing their job to do whatever they are doing.

But their financial or cashshop department should be trying to make the most money from player as possible.

The someone you mention are Anet’s marketing team, they are part of the staff right?

That is exactly what I wrote: the marketeers are part of ANet staff. But you seemed to have missed the primary point: the vast majority of work at ANet isn’t affected by marketing. Some work by non-monetization teams are influenced by it.

So yes, ANet is in business to make money. They do this by making the best coop game they can, attracting players who will then spend money in a cash shop. The marketing team’s job is to supply items that people want to buy. The horse drives the cart (that carries the shop), not the other way around.

inb4: of course, there are plenty of companies that do it the other way around. “Hello, Kitty” brand was developed to sell product; it’s TV shows etc aren’t built to be the best cartoons ever, they exist to sell more nick-knacks.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

laokoko.7403:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

laokoko.7403:

the Devs have a singular Evil intent behind everything they did….find ways to take our money.

That is the evil way of saying it. The good way of saying it is it is their job to find ways to take our money.

Of course Anet is trying to make as much money as possible from us. At least that’s the job of people who work for the finance/cash shop department.

That’s not how a lot of ANet staff see it. Their job is to make the best multiplayer coop RPG out there and it’s someone else’s job to figure out how to make money off it.

Right but I think that’s because there are different department. The people focusing on wvw, UI, living story obviously are doing their job to do whatever they are doing.

But their financial or cashshop department should be trying to make the most money from player as possible.

The someone you mention are Anet’s marketing team, they are part of the staff right?

That is exactly what I wrote: the marketeers are part of ANet staff. But you seemed to have missed the primary point: the vast majority of work at ANet isn’t affected by marketing. Some work by non-monetization teams are influenced by it.

So yes, ANet is in business to make money. They do this by making the best coop game they can, attracting players who will then spend money in a cash shop. The marketing team’s job is to supply items that people want to buy. The horse drives the cart (that carries the shop), not the other way around.

inb4: of course, there are plenty of companies that do it the other way around. “Hello, Kitty” brand was developed to sell product; it’s TV shows etc aren’t built to be the best cartoons ever, they exist to sell more nick-knacks.

I’m not sure what I said wrong. Companies do everything to make money. Obviously making a great game is part of making money. Because a bad game wont’ have any players.

And GW2 does heavily revolve around cash shop. The way I see it is GW2 cash shop and economy is very similar to the other F2P games on the market. And the head of GW2 cash shop is from Nexon. Which make it seemed more obvious.

I find GW2 a bit less pushy than the other cash shop games, I dont’ think Anet do it out of charity. It’s more to sustain players longer. But the overall structure of the economy isn’t too different.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Esplen.3940:

azzy.6485:

lordkrall.7241:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

Yeah.. except the fact that it isn’t.
We got multiple new skins released in-game. Champion box weapons and Ascended sets for one.

We also have gotten loads of new stuff overall that have nothing at all to do with the cash shop, such as new maps, new events, new dungeon, new systems and so on.

champion box weapons 1 year ago, ascended armor (UGLY!) 9 months ago, fossil weapons a few months ago….that’s it – now how many armor sets and RNG chest weapon sets have been added to the store? about 5x as many. This is the issue…it should be 75% IN GAME, 25% in store – yet is is the opposite. I should also mention that 95% of all good looking medium armor for females is from the store unless you are a norn or human…then it’s 80%. I think what upsets me the most is the only armor sets that have been added in game in TWO YEARS have been the hideous ascended sets… oh, unless you tPvP in the official tourney’s which many people don’t.

Esplen.3940:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/New-Items-since-release/

I’m sorry but that list shouldn’t count considering many, many, many of the skins and items were temporary.

Sorry that it does, because it is content that was released… since release. It might not fit your playstyle, you might not have most of them, but that doesn’t make them not exist.

Gw2 is definitely Whale-based in their design decisions. Living story has been one long cleverly disguised cash-shop advertisement after another. Hence why E.C. did not give it any nods but instead listed 6 other companies as doing much better jobs with it (including SOE who used to be the “bad guys” 10 years ago). Any parts of Anet’s current designs that aren’t Whale-centered, such as “Skill” balance, are instead 100% Conquest based (based purely on the pvp minigame that’s roughly as popular as Codex was, and somehow less “deep” than Costume brawl). …which sounds like a massive contradiction but somehow it’s exactly what nearly all skill balance patches in the last 2 years has pointed directly to.

Obtena.7952:

People should stop complaining and speak with their feet. No seriously … if you don’t like the business model, just move on because it’s the only method that truly sends a message to Anet and the industry that the model isn’t what players want.

You got the phrase wrong. We vote with our wallets. We can “stay here” and voice whatever we want for as long as we want and there’s nothing you can point to in a logic argument that removes that reality because access to the forum was Buy-to-Play.

ilr.9675:

Gw2 is definitely Whale-based in their design decisions. Living story has been one long cleverly disguised cash-shop advertisement after another. Hence why E.C. did not give it any nods but instead listed 6 other companies as doing much better jobs with it (including SOE who used to be the “bad guys” 10 years ago). Any parts of Anet’s current designs that aren’t Whale-centered, such as “Skill” balance, are instead 100% Conquest based (based purely on the pvp minigame that’s roughly as popular as Codex was, and somehow less “deep” than Costume brawl). …which sounds like a massive contradiction but somehow it’s exactly what nearly all skill balance patches in the last 2 years has pointed directly to.

Because EC didn’t list GW2 out of all the “F2P” games out there as a good example they must therefore be targeting whales? The only game they mentioned was Hearthstone, a DCCG. The whales they are talking about spend thousands of dollars to feel superior, what can they spend that on here? RNG keys to get ticket skins? $5-10 armor skins and outfits? A handful of convenience items? If whales were converting that much cash to gold to buy legendaries we wouldn’t be seeing gem shop rates going up month after month after month after month.

This game doesn’t cater to whales.

No …. E.C. specifically turned away from GW2 during the big lead up to the hype year of 2012, and has shunned Anet ever since. It’s really weird since both fanbases used to be the “SJW’s” of game design. There’s no telling what exact incident took place, but it’s probably something James saw first hand that told him there was trouble on the way.

Or maybe it was b/c of NcSoft… hard to say.
Either way, I don’t even need to dabble in your question of “what whales can buy”.
You know exactly how much they can buy. Don’t act so incredulous.

I never care too much about EC. That is just an opinion from someone.

The author of EC may be expert, but the person working for GW2 cash shop are expert too, who have experience in this field. Rumors have GW2 hired a monetization manager, who previously worked for Nexon. I would say that person have more experience and expertise than the author of EC.

My opinion is GW2 some what cater to whales, and some what not. If you compare various games, you’ll notice you can’t even buy gold for a huge percentage of the F2P on the market. I would say GW2 caters to whale more than those other games.

There were a bunch of games which were previously subscription games and turned in to F2P. Those games use freemium model. I would say in comparison GW2 caters to whale more than those games.

But if you compare GW2 to some other asian made F2P games, I would say those games caters to whale much much more.

A huge percentage of GW2 players are basically freebies. Who are happily playing because they don’t get tempted by cosmetic or gimic stuff.

And with the high gem price now, I would say more and more people are willing to spend 5-10$ to buy some cool skins or fun stuff.

laokoko.7403:

Rumors have GW2 hired a monetization manager, who previously worked for Nexon.

And the fact that Nexon has just bought controlling interest in NCsofts stocks at the time had nothing to do with that? …..have you ever heard the StockHolder term “protecting one’s interests”???

ilr.9675:

laokoko.7403:

Rumors have GW2 hired a monetization manager, who previously worked for Nexon.

And the fact that Nexon has just bought controlling interest in NCsofts stocks at the time had nothing to do with that? …..have you ever heard the StockHolder term “protecting one’s interests”???

Isn’t that Nexon’s right? Since they are the largest shareholder. Obviously they have much interest in protecting their investment.

ilr.9675:

laokoko.7403:

Rumors have GW2 hired a monetization manager, who previously worked for Nexon.

And the fact that Nexon has just bought controlling interest in NCsofts stocks at the time had nothing to do with that? …..have you ever heard the StockHolder term “protecting one’s interests”???

… sigh … They don’t have controlling interest. 15% is not controlling interest.

Behellagh.1468:

ilr.9675:

laokoko.7403:

Rumors have GW2 hired a monetization manager, who previously worked for Nexon.

And the fact that Nexon has just bought controlling interest in NCsofts stocks at the time had nothing to do with that? …..have you ever heard the StockHolder term “protecting one’s interests”???

… sigh … They don’t have controlling interest. 15% is not controlling interest.

It’s not, but I think it’s cited as the biggest single block of interest.

More on the topic of the video. I don’t think this game “caters” to whales in the same way Daniel is talking about. Sure, whales are welcome here but it’s not to spend tons of money to be superior, it’s merely to bypass the randomness of a Legendary (assuming that’s where the money isn’t going instead of other objects).

I’ve played more than a few games where you were expected to buy into the game and the game became more and more balanced around people using “VIP” or “Premium Currency” to get around limitations. Including some where it was blatantly required to buy in.

As of April 7th, from NCSOFT’s web site

Nexon – 14.68%
National Pension Service – 11.38%
Taek Jin Kim (CEO) – 9.98%
Treasury Shares – 8.99% (owned by NCSOFT)
Others – 54.98%

Also the Board of Directors have not changed one bit years before or any time after Nexon’s purchase. Since the time Nexon purchased their shares from Taek Jin Kim’s personal stake for 804.5 billion KrW, it’s value has dropped by 41.8% to 468.2 billion KrW. What Nexon got out of the deal was an agreement to work together on a number of new games jointly.

And you keep forgeting that ArenaNet’s somewhat independent nature from NCSOFT. They made their own license agreement to distribute GW2 in China. NCSOFT had gone with Tencent while ANet went with KongZhong. ANet hired it’s own marketing firm to promote the game before launch in NA/EU. ANet’s forum and accounts aren’t tied to PlayNC at all.

While it true ANet did hire someone from Nexon to handle the cash shop, it was months before the stock purchase. And before she worked for Nexon for three years, she worked at Walt Disney Interactive and before that … at NCSOFT. Plus if you were going to hire someone to run your cash shop, wouldn’t you want someone already experienced running cash shops?

It’s kind of a confusing topic. I don’t know much about business. I always thought the people with the most share have control. That being said a few party can join together and they’ll have more share than Nexon.

Anyhow, Nexon have 14.68% shares. I would say if they want to put their cash shop manager into NCSoft, they’ll probably be able to do so.

ANet is indeed some what independent to NCSoft, but I think everyone saw what they did to City of Heroes. NCSoft does have the final say, they can make changes anytime they want(if they wish so).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Behellagh.1468:

ilr.9675:

laokoko.7403:

Rumors have GW2 hired a monetization manager, who previously worked for Nexon.

And the fact that Nexon has just bought controlling interest in NCsofts stocks at the time had nothing to do with that? …..have you ever heard the StockHolder term “protecting one’s interests”???

… sigh … They don’t have controlling interest. 15% is not controlling interest.

It’s not, but I think it’s cited as the biggest single block of interest.

More on the topic of the video. I don’t think this game “caters” to whales in the same way Daniel is talking about. Sure, whales are welcome here but it’s not to spend tons of money to be superior, it’s merely to bypass the randomness of a Legendary (assuming that’s where the money isn’t going instead of other objects).

I’ve played more than a few games where you were expected to buy into the game and the game became more and more balanced around people using “VIP” or “Premium Currency” to get around limitations. Including some where it was blatantly required to buy in.

Right, those game blatantly required people to buy VIP and premium. But those games are actually the one that don’t cater to whale. It’s almost like a subscription. So there will be a bunch of people spending 10-30$ each month, but usually not more than that.

laokoko.7403:

It’s kind of a confusing topic. I don’t know much about business. I always thought the people with the most share have control. That being said a few party can join together and they’ll have more share than Nexon.

Anyhow, Nexon have 14.68% shares. I would say if they want to put their cash shop manager into NCSoft, they’ll probably be able to do so.

ANet is indeed some what independent to NCSoft, but I think everyone saw what they did to City of Heroes. NCSoft does have the final say, they can make changes anytime they want(if they wish so).

Stockholders elect the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors hire the people who run the company. Often founders or the CEO are also on the BoD.

What a large stockholder can do is stir up other stockholders until they have 50%+1 majority and tell the BoD to do X. But that hasn’t happen.

laokoko.7403:

Right, those game blatantly required people to buy VIP and premium. But those games are actually the one that don’t cater to whale. It’s almost like a subscription. So there will be a bunch of people spending 10-30$ each month, but usually not more than that.

Honestly . . . no, not the games I’m thinking about. Whales could continuously sink $200+/month into the one game and still only open RNG boxes for things which had minor stat bumps but would keep them easily on top of everyone else along with all the other spending.

And the other . . . when the game is centered on PvP type play, and the only restraint is time to “reload” for another strike . . . but you can get around that by plunking down some cash? It’s amazing how many people think nothing of “$50/week” to stay on top of the leaderboards.

That’s two. There are others which basically set up a velvet rope at the club: “You must spend this much time and real money to get into the fun stuff.” And once you were in, well, then there was the cool VIP suites you could book . . .

There’s a reason I say GW2 “isn’t all that bad” or some stronger language when discussing its cash shop process. They barely avoid (dancing dangerously around the edge) of one of the other sins Daniel cited way earlier – “Never, ever, ever, sell power.” No, GW2 sells the Gem-to-Gold shortcut . . . which I have no problem with. (My problem is more with being able to sell Legendaries. . . )

Whales would buy gold anyway. With how ANet implemented it, buying gold with gems “helps” players who sell gold for gems by keeping the exchange rate from going ballistic.

Behellagh.1468:

Whales would buy gold anyway. With how ANet implemented it, buying gold with gems “helps” players who sell gold for gems by keeping the exchange rate from going ballistic.

quite honestly, I dont’ think anyone know what’s going on in that black box called trading exchange.

The assumption many people put is the gem bought with gold equals the gem sold for gold. That is actually unknown if it is true.

Not calling Anet evil in anyway. It’s part of the business. And I think Anet is having lots of pressure to sustain their profit. Both from keeping players and persuading people to spend money.

ilr.9675:

You got the phrase wrong. We vote with our wallets. We can “stay here” and voice whatever we want for as long as we want and there’s nothing you can point to in a logic argument that removes that reality because access to the forum was Buy-to-Play.

I don’t think you understood my point … nothing makes more of a statement than leaving. I have no problem with people having issue with the game and speaking out but the most significant impact to Anet is people playing the game vs. not playing it.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/628858

That’s a better video that explanes how this works