Guild Wars 2

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I have been active in these forums for a while helping to give feedback on items that I think are lacking. However after some time you keep repeating yourself in many threads on the symptoms of some underlaying problems.

Anet recently ask for feedback so I will give my feedback in this way and hope they will try to look at this with an open mind.
Even if it turns out they will do nothing with this advise I am happy knowing I did participate in these forums doing my duty reporting what in my eyes where the problems.

So in order to stop (or at least lower) participating in all those threads I decided to make 3 threads that all have one of the underlaying problems I think are the reason for all the problems we see in the game.

These problems result into many things (like gold-grind and so on) but in the end mainly boils down to frustrating (like making people rage) and boring game-play.

For me most problems seem to come from the following 3 underlaying problems:

1. A focus on micro-transaction / cash shop / gem-store to generate the main income in stead of for example focusing on regular expansions as a main source for income.

2. Wanting to do thinks different as other MMO’s simply for the sake of doing it different and even being stubborn about it, having a sort of tunnel vision towards the current sometimes flawed solution in stead of also looking at proven working solutions.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Problem-of-being-different-for-the-sake-of-it/first#post3316917

3. A so called quick-and-dirty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick-and-dirty) way of doing (developing) things.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Problem-of-the-so-called-quick-and-dirty-way/first#post3316929

This thread will be about the focus on micro-transactions.

In my opinion the focus on micro-transactions is one of the main issues that result in many of the ‘bad’ decisions in GW2. Many of them being made after the release, some before.

Let me start by saying that I am not against a company making money. I am perfectly fine with that, they may get extremely rich with it. However there are multiple ways to Rome.

Sub-based is one and those games tent to be able to give a very good quality game but partly because of the cost and because of the timer that is placed above every player is (and I agree) not very popular anymore. With not popular anymore I refer to the fact that about all MMO’s that have been released in the last 9 years (after WoW) that started as sub-based had to convert to F2P models or simply went off-line or failed.

Then there is the micro-transaction based income. Infamous because of it’s option to become very P2W but no matter if it’s P2W or not it always effect the game in some way. The problem there is that a company that needs to generate money with micro-transaction has always as main question when designing new stuff “how do we get people to buy stuff from the cash-shop” in stead of “how do we make the best game”.

And then there is the option to generate income with a focus on generating income from the game itself and expansions. This is something GW1 was very known for and likely one of the reasons it became such a big player in the game-world. The question there is “how do we get people to buy expansions”.

Personally I think that last option is the best and yes it would also work for an open world MMO like GW2. There are some problems with it because you can not ask new players to buy all expansions 3 expansions down the road but there are easy solutions for that (requiring only the last 2 expansions for example).

That being said (and I did because I know from the other threads where I was active that this sort of questions where being raised) I really want to go in to how the gem-store focus seems to influence GW2 in a bad way.

One of the problems in the game that for some people make many content very dull is the gold driven nature of GW2. Gold is everything.
It’s very hard so not impossible to really farm for a specific item you need, a better solution is always grinding for gold and then buying what you need with gold.

A reason for this ‘gold is almost everything’ nature of GW2 can of course be the fact that you are able to transfer gems to gold. As a company you want people to buy the gems and if gold is such a high motivator and you can buy gold there is good reason to make sure gold is everything.

The fact that they also put gold into sPvP to me was also not a big surprise. How do we get the sPvP people to also be more interested in the gem-store? Use gold in stead of glory and there you go.

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Like the gold there are many other examples. Take the mini’s. How fun isn’t. it in MMO’s (well for some people, including me btw) to go into the world, do quest, dungeons or even farm some mobs in order to get all those cool looking mini’s as special rewards for that specific content. It’s very good for the game in many ways. It sends you out into the world, it gives you goals and so on.

However this whole type of end-game (because in a way that’s what it is) does not really exist in GW2. Almost all mini’s (Tequatl is one of the few exceptions) are now only available in the gems-store and trading post. (trading post means gold and like I said, gold being very important is also good for the gem-store.. well in theory). There have also been multiple available in the living stories grinding achievements but overall the way to get mini’s is from the gem-store and trading post, not in the open world. For many the whole fun behind collection the mini’s is gone and so in fact making the game at that specific point a lesser game. (same for skins and most forms of horizontal progression)

I can understand that some people prefer to just buy the mini’s but that would even be able when they where items that dropped in the world behind specific content because people will be putting them on the AH anyway but now the only way to really get them is grinding for gold or buying gems. That simply takes away a big part of the fun and so can be seen as a direct influence of a micro-transaction based focus decision.

Another would be the hairstyles. GW2 got some new hairstyles later in the game. Now lets assume I am the developer of a game and I decide we gonna put in new hairstyles and my only motivation is making the game better. How would I do that?
Simply, I put a barber in the game where people can cut there hair for a reasonable price. I would say about 15 silver. Everybody can then change there hairstyle when they like once again adding something really nice to the game-world. It also would fit the lore. It would be really nice.
However a company needs to make money so it also has to look at other elements so if I would need to generate income with an expansion I might wait by adding those styles until the expansion or only adding in a few and adding much more with the upcoming the expansions. Current extra hairstyles would then be some sort of teaser.

But what if my main source of income would be micro-transactions? Well then I will put them effectually outside of the game in a cash-shop. Because that’s then the only way I can get money from them. It does not really add something to the world or the game but it’s then just a nice option where people once again can grind for using gold or to buy gems. GW2 at this moment focusing on micro-transactions did exactly that. So once again an example how that focus result in a decision that at lease did not improved the game while the same content could benefit the game much more when implemented in another way.

Other examples can be bugs. Many bugs have lesser priority because fixing a bug does not result directly in selling more gems.
Missing features (like guild tools) will have no priority because adding them will not directly increase gem-sales and why make chairs sittable? You can’t really ask people to pay gems for unlocking that option so those sorts of additions and fixes will have a much lower priority.

Any patch (see the living story) eventually is based around the question”how do we get people to buy more gems” and in a many ways the living story S1 usually was not more of an excuse to do exactly that. Temporary content (what so many people complained about and so by definition is bad for the game. Luckily they did see that themselves) gives also a reason to put temporary items in the gem-store what results in a sense or urgency for people to buy that item. And no time to grind the required gold. Even with season two it’s still a temporary theme that allows for temporary available items in the cash-shop.

That does not mean the whole gem-store is per-se evil. Having a gem-store as a side-income and just selling some items like extra character slots, race-changer and a name changer while keeping a decent gold to gem rate is not problem. It’s the focus that results in bad decisions that is the problem and so the game gets to suffer.

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Somebody else once put up this list talking about the same and I mostly agree:
That focus results in:

1.Speed of updates is prioritized over quality in order to get more items in the gem store
2.In-game rewards are of lower quality and are often the same item slot over and over to promote buying higher quality items in the gem store.
3. Expansions are ignored because low quality fast paced updates with no meaningful content provide the same income for a fraction of the work.
4. End-game rewards are generally grindy and shallow since they want you to get the gem store equivalent instead of earning it through skill/time.
5. RNG rules supreme because people always spend more on gambling than they do on one time purchases.

Now this whole focus on micro-transactions does work in the short run and maybe one of the problems is that many people are only looking to make money in the short run. But a MMO should be much more of a long term investment.

It works in the short run only (especially the way Anet was doing it with the living story, luckily eventually they made the same conclusion) because people get burned out much faster. In many threads months ago people have warned about this already and by now (when creating this thread) I think you can see some of the results. Incomes are dropping. If they only had listen back then. Now (when updating this thread) Anet did make a change seeing themselves how temporary content was bad for the game. However the underlying problem is still there.

We are now at a point where I am not even sure if an expansion would still work (some have left and will not come back). We might have passed that point, but maybe if they come with a really really big expansion that does not only add a new area a new race and the other normal stuff you expect in an expansion but also makes many other big changes to the core (think about making it really one big world in stead of instances, adding mounts, making chairs sittable, adding raids, promising to fix many of the issues like mobs that run back, putting a barber in the world (and the other gem-related stuff that should be in game (mini’s and so on)) and fixing guild tools (All problems I mentioned before in the 3 threads) and promising to start focusing on expansions again. Maybe that then they have a chance that an expansion will be able to turn the tight but honestly I don’t see them doing it any time soon, eventually Ncsoft will lose interest (so there will not even be the money for an expansion) and the game will keep degrading if they would go on this way to long (I think +3 years after release). I do hope they make the change else I would not create this thread but I am afraid they might not.

If they however are willing to try and turn the tide they really have to do that now (within a year we should hear about the upcoming expansion). It’s already 5 past 12.

(Some related links:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-Becoming-P2W
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-do-people-stop-playing-GW2
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Guild-System-Improvements/page/4#post1629902

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/15/guild-wars-2-to-avoid-retail-mmo-expansion-model/
http://www.videogamer.com/news/guild_wars_2_expansions_a_sure_thing_says_arenanet_2.html
)
Added: May 2014:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NcSoft-earnings-1Q-14/page/3#post4029793
Some calculations based in a chart that shows income generated by GW2 and GW1.

The chart itself: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/151443/1q14_NCSoft.jpg

It shows how the expansion-sales can keep a nice strait source of income.

Added: November 2014
A nice video I came across and perfectly fits in here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS4VRbsjZrQ

There are some really great points in here.

The kinds of questions asked that show the core motivation.
“how do we get people to buy stuff from the cash-shop” — how do we make money
“how do we make the best game” — how do we add value to our customers

I think with a lot of things that have been in the game from launch, and things that have been added after, we’ve seen a lot of the how do we make money.

This is not a problem, not by itself. But I think a lot of implementations in this game ask the how do we make money question at the expense of the how do we add value question.

With Guild Wars 1 I never felt like anything added to their cash shop was at the expense of adding value to the customer base, EVER.

However, I feel very different about that in Guild Wars 2. And the root cause is at the core of the game economy, with time/gold/gems being as intertwined as they are and a huge amount of inflation occurring.

i like many if your points and can relate ot what you say the whole how do we make them buy from the cash shop aspect
perticularly so with mini pets i love colecting minis and feel that sence of urgency you mentioned brought on by tempory content and watched them push mini set after mini set on us as i bought them all up till recently i feelt prety burned out and allmost like i was playing the game soley to buy mini pets most times 2 sets at a time to combine together for that extra 4th mini but sadly they have pushed it far with poor decisions like mini Mr sparkles (first mini i missed) and the the sheer cost of gems/for in game gold ultimately playing all week to buy a coule of mini packs we sucking the fun out the game and made me decide to stop buying them and ive been much happyer playing since

ANET should look at how Turbine encourage people to purchase their cash shop currency, by introducing more bonus (currency) for more cash shop currency purchased…

e.g .:

800gems —-— get bonus extra 10% gems —> 880 gems
1600gems --—- get bonus extra 15% gems —>1840gems
3200gems --—- get bonus extra 20% gems —→3840gems
etc
etc….

azizul.8469:

ANET should look at how Turbine encourage people to purchase their cash shop currency, by introducing more bonus (currency) for more cash shop currency purchased…

e.g .:

800gems —-— get bonus extra 10% gems —> 880 gems
1600gems --—- get bonus extra 15% gems —>1840gems
3200gems --—- get bonus extra 20% gems —->3840gems
etc
etc….

If they would do that in combination with a less focus on the cash-shop that might be a good way but that by itself would imo not solve the problem. As long as the main source of income is cash-shop they will need to make decisions based on that.

And don’t get me wrong, when you decide that you generate your main income from the cash-shop I totally understand that you will have to make design decision based on that. It’s just that those decisions effect the game in (imho) a negative way so I would much rather have them using expansions as main source of income so they are not forced to make that sort of design decision as described in my post.

@all Thanks to everybody to take the time to leave your comment. Much appreciated.

Ok, so is the issue then that the gem shop focus does little to hide the financial endeavours of the company? Getting players to pay for a game in a sustainable way is a concerted effort. Every time I hear someone bring up the argument that subscription models bring more quality, borderline altruistic gameplay choices to customers, I feel like I’m hearing people gloss over the design choices that a sub model developer has to make to keep people paying a subscription. Keep in mind a sub model doesn’t automatically force developers to squash bugs faster or make games less buggy any more than a cash shop model intrinsically devalues the necessity of fixing bugs. Every company sets internal priorities for these matters and when we as consumers aren’t privy to such information (usually on a need to know basis), it’s easy for us to assume that nothing has been done about such issues or that no conclusions have been reached. Things like adding in game furniture, yeah, you can reasonably expect their business model to affect game design decisions regarding that implementation.

Moreover, these design choices such as putting a barber in the game for hairstyles, I can assure you, serve multiple purposes (technical, creative, and financial) as do similar choices to do the opposite in cash shop games. For any game company, it’s highly unlikely your only motivation for a design choice such as implementing an in game barber is ONLY to make a game better. Your responsibilities are more likely to be to make the game better (a nebulous but multifacted goal) AND encourage player retention, improve sales, etc. When thinking about game design, you have to think in 3-dimensions. For a sub game, the end goal is to encourage you to continue paying a subscription if the company believes that they can survive off of that. That means stretching out your end game goals, creating maps that you travel over long distances in real time (mount optional), creating gear treadmills, time gating content (also exists in sub models but more pointedly), etc. Again, the aforementioned are not par the course for sub models but are design examples that have been implemented in other games to give players a reason to keep logging on. Still, what I hear people remembering the most in contrast to cash shop models is that they are only asked to pay the monthly fee and then go about their remaining time in the game without the company asking for more until the next deadline. The cash shop model is quite in your face about asking for purchases while the sub model, typically, is more subtle in what it asks of you as a consumer but always has that clock running down on your access and everything else that comes with it.

I hope no one sees this as admonishing either model really. As others have said, business have to make money somehow. This is just a call to try to keep perspective when positioning one transaction model as inherently better than the other. For some people, a cash shop model let’s them play the way they want (pit falls and all) and for sub models, the same holds true. GW2 has actually made some improvements over typical mmo cash shop models that I appreciate and is certainly not over the top in my opinion. They are making more and more quality of life changes for players but in a game as experimental as GW2, they are also toying with the business model surrounding it. I’m all for suggestions on improving their business model, maybe soften the blow of the cash shop perhaps, but I get antsy when people try to graft suggestions you would give a typical mmo onto GW2.

nightwulf.1986:

~

Moreover, these design choices such as putting a barber in the game for hairstyles, I can assure you, serve multiple purposes (technical, creative, and financial) as do similar choices to do the opposite in cash shop games. For any game company, it’s highly unlikely your only motivation for a design choice such as implementing an in game barber is ONLY to make a game better. Your responsibilities are more likely to be to make the game better (a nebulous but multifacted goal) AND encourage player retention, improve sales, etc. When thinking about game design, you have to think in 3-dimensions. For a sub game, the end goal is to encourage you to continue paying a subscription if the company believes that they can survive off of that. That means stretching out your end game goals, creating maps that you travel over long distances in real time (mount optional), creating gear treadmills, time gating content (also exists in sub models but more pointedly), etc. Again, the aforementioned are not par the course for sub models but are design examples that have been implemented in other games to give players a reason to keep logging on. Still, what I hear people remembering the most in contrast to cash shop models is that they are only asked to pay the monthly fee and then go about their remaining time in the game without the company asking for more until the next deadline. The cash shop model is quite in your face about asking for purchases while the sub model, typically, is more subtle in what it asks of you as a consumer but always has that clock running down on your access and everything else that comes with it.

I hope no one sees this as admonishing either model really. As others have said, business have to make money somehow. This is just a call to try to keep perspective when positioning one transaction model as inherently better than the other. For some people, a cash shop model let’s them play the way they want (pit falls and all) and for sub models, the same holds true. GW2 has actually made some improvements over typical mmo cash shop models that I appreciate and is certainly not over the top in my opinion. They are making more and more quality of life changes for players but in a game as experimental as GW2, they are also toying with the business model surrounding it. I’m all for suggestions on improving their business model, maybe soften the blow of the cash shop perhaps, but I get antsy when people try to graft suggestions you would give a typical mmo onto GW2.

Let me start by saying that my topic does not in any way try to promote a sub-based model. I even put in the original post that they have proven not to work anymore. If anything I am promoting a model where there is a focus on generating income from expansions but even that is not the main goal, thats more a alternative solution.

What I am pointing at are simply some to me very obvious design decisions that I (and many other players) do not like and are very obviously based on the fact that they use the micro-transactions as main source of income.

I notice that you talk about how a sub-model also makes decisions about how to keep people playing but thats the case for all of the models.

I am just pointing out the specific examples and yes while there can be multiple reasons for not putting in a barber and we are not at the table where ArenaNet makes those decisions you can still reasonably come to the conclusion that it’s mainly because this way they can make money with it.

They need to make money and if you get your money from a cash-shop but put a barber in the game where you can cut your hair for 15 silver there is no way you will get any money on those hair-styles and they need to make money.

With a sub-model you would indeed get the money and the goal for putting them is would then indeed mainly be keep people playing the game. Do you put that sort of stuff is regular (once a year / year and a half) expansions they also make you that money.
I don’t think a sub-based model works (so would go for the expansion model) but in both these examples the hair-styles are really inside the game and so improve the game while in the micro-transaction model they are in a cash-shop and so are much less improving the game itself.

Same for the mini’s and many other decisions.

So a model does effect the game in some way. I am just pointing out here that I think a big part of the ‘problems’ or dislikes people have about GW2 are directly or indirectly related to design decision based around this micro-transaction model.

Because of that it might be an idea to rethink that and maybe have a look at the model that worked so good for GW1.

Maybe, the model that ‘worked so good’ for GW1, was working because GW1 was a much smaller game, and a different kind of game. Maybe, having used that model before, ArenaNet has information (that we do not) indicating that model would not work so well with GW2. Maybe, as a compromise, they included the ‘gold-to-gem’ transaction method as a way to ‘marry’ the two. Maybe, they have a long-term plan we know nothing about. Maybe, as experienced game developers, they know more about the whole subject than we do.

Maybe, ….just maybe.

azizul.8469:

ANET should look at how Turbine encourage people to purchase their cash shop currency, by introducing more bonus (currency) for more cash shop currency purchased…

e.g .:

800gems —-— get bonus extra 10% gems —> 880 gems
1600gems --—- get bonus extra 15% gems —>1840gems
3200gems --—- get bonus extra 20% gems —->3840gems
etc
etc….

I really hope not. Ever. That punishes the people who cannot afford huge purchases and makes those who can least afford it pay more for each gem. On the other hand, it may also delay the purchase in some cases, because they cannot afford the bundle until next payday.

What I would prefer changed is the amount of gems one must purchase each time. I would love to see then go in 100 gem intervals (even if they started at 800). If I want to buy a 1000 gem thing, I really don’t like having to buy 1600 gems to get it.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe, the model that ‘worked so good’ for GW1, was working because GW1 was a much smaller game, and a different kind of game. Maybe, having used that model before, ArenaNet has information (that we do not) indicating that model would not work so well with GW2. Maybe, as a compromise, they included the ‘gold-to-gem’ transaction method as a way to ‘marry’ the two. Maybe, they have a long-term plan we know nothing about. Maybe, as experienced game developers, they know more about the whole subject than we do.

Maybe, ….just maybe.

Maybe but not likely.

The fact that GW1 is so difference does not really mean the model would not work. Look at the many non-mmo games that also do require longtime server support. They work also with such a model. If GW2 would be really one big open world (What it isn’t, but I still hope it will become) it would for sure give some extra challenges but nothing that isn’t solvable.

Still it does not take away that the current model does effect the game and sadly not only in a good way.

Devata.6589:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe, the model that ‘worked so good’ for GW1, was working because GW1 was a much smaller game, and a different kind of game. Maybe, having used that model before, ArenaNet has information (that we do not) indicating that model would not work so well with GW2. Maybe, as a compromise, they included the ‘gold-to-gem’ transaction method as a way to ‘marry’ the two. Maybe, they have a long-term plan we know nothing about. Maybe, as experienced game developers, they know more about the whole subject than we do.

Maybe, ….just maybe.

Maybe but not likely.

The fact that GW1 is so difference does not really mean the model would not work. Look at the many non-mmo games that also do require longtime server support. They work also with such a model. If GW2 would be really one big open world (What it isn’t, but I still hope it will become) it would for sure give some extra challenges but nothing that isn’t solvable.

Still it does not take away that the current model does effect the game and sadly not only in a good way.

Not likely….in your opinion. I’m not sure accusing ArenaNet of ‘being different for the sake of being different’ is very valid, especially when ArenaNet has stated the reasons they implement the various game elements as they do….and none of said reasons were: Just because we want to be different, and we don’t care if it’s good for the game, or not.

But, everyone can come up with their own theories about stuff….no matter how unlikely they might be. =)

Devata.6589:

Maybe but not likely.

The fact that GW1 is so difference does not really mean the model would not work. Look at the many non-mmo games that also do require longtime server support. They work also with such a model. If GW2 would be really one big open world (What it isn’t, but I still hope it will become) it would for sure give some extra challenges but nothing that isn’t solvable.

Still it does not take away that the current model does effect the game and sadly not only in a good way.

Why is it not likely though?
The difference between GW1 and GW2 when it comes to costs are MASSIVE, and it would most likely never work with the same model as GW1.

In what way to the current model effect the game?
I have yet to see a single situation in the game where I have somehow felt pushed towards the gemstore or anything like that.

lordkrall.7241:

Devata.6589:

Maybe but not likely.

The fact that GW1 is so difference does not really mean the model would not work. Look at the many non-mmo games that also do require longtime server support. They work also with such a model. If GW2 would be really one big open world (What it isn’t, but I still hope it will become) it would for sure give some extra challenges but nothing that isn’t solvable.

Still it does not take away that the current model does effect the game and sadly not only in a good way.

Why is it not likely though?
The difference between GW1 and GW2 when it comes to costs are MASSIVE, and it would most likely never work with the same model as GW1.

In what way to the current model effect the game?
I have yet to see a single situation in the game where I have somehow felt pushed towards the gemstore or anything like that.

You act like if GW1 was some cheap side project by some guy in a basement. That also was a big project for it’s time. The battlefield games or GTA (most expensive gamer ever and really a massive RPG game) have massive cost. And they also have to run servers for multiple years, keeping the game bug-free so they know people will also buy the next expansion or in those cases the next version of the game. (proving that such expansion-based payment model also work for big projects)

The idea that that is so different for a MMO or GW2 specifically is not true. They both need to maintain servers and fix bugs.

In the OP I give multiple examples of how the current model effects the game. So I won’t repeat that.
I did not say anything about being pushed towards the gem-store (thats most likely totally depended on what elements of the game you are most interested in) I talked about how it effects the game itself.

I came across a video that I like to add to this discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaAH-cv2ybo&list=PLjeh5MaFvzeSRylyuXowSfscHoW6eqVmn&feature=player_detailpage#t=1124

While that video is based on EA and to much on ‘well the company is trying to make money’, it does at the same time touches many of the points I al trying to refer to in this thread.

Of course it’s not a problem that a company tries to make money, thats a good thing. But as soon as game machanics get build around the idea of getting people to buy stuff it always effects the game in a negative way.

You can try to make the best game possible and then make money by selling that game and the experiance or you can try to implement something into the game that helps to fool people into buyng stuff. the last one is always bad for the game itself.

Even if it’s not P2W. P2W is only about the combat element but in a RPG game combat is not the only aspect. The example I use a lot here is mini’s because collecting them is just as wel a game-play element and that does get effected by this mechanic.

I hope this video makes some things a little more clear for some people.

Devata.6589:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

… Maybe, as experienced game developers, they know more about the whole subject than we do.

Maybe, ….just maybe.

Maybe but not likely.

I really don’t understand this attitude. This is their job, and for most of the devs I’m sure this isn’t their first ride on the merry-go-round. It’s like the football fans who talk about the game the day after and blast the coaches’ decisions, the players’ performances and so on. It’s easy to say “it should be like such-and-such” when you’re not in the middle of it, have almost nothing invested in the outcome, and can look back at the situation from a completely different perspective.

The devs’ jobs depend on the company making money, and the company makes money by making more players happy than unhappy. So when they make a decision to go a certain way, and to stay on that course or try something different, it’s usually after a lot of thought and research about what will happen if they do what they are doing, or do “such-and-such” instead. If “such-and-such” were obviously the best course of action, they would be doing it.

So when someone outside the situation says “obviously such-and-such is the best course of action” I have to wonder if they believe this because it obviously is the best course of action, or whether it seems this way because that is what the individual would like to see, not what the majority of players want. I think those who are inside the company, who deal with these decisions daily, and have a lot more information than we do about what is happening with the game, are in a better position to make that decision.

Of course, maybe I’m wrong. And maybe when you need legal advice, instead of seeing a lawyer you would be better off talking to your cousin who has every episode of “Boston Legal” on dvr. Obviously he knows what the best course of action will be.

tolunart.2095:

Devata.6589:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

~

Maybe but not likely.

I really don’t understand this attitude. This is their job, and for most of the devs I’m sure this isn’t their first ride on the merry-go-round. It’s like the football fans who talk about the game the day after and blast the coaches’ decisions, the players’ performances and so on. It’s easy to say “it should be like such-and-such” when you’re not in the middle of it, have almost nothing invested in the outcome, and can look back at the situation from a completely different perspective.

The devs’ jobs depend on the company making money, and the company makes money by making more players happy than unhappy. So when they make a decision to go a certain way, and to stay on that course or try something different, it’s usually after a lot of thought and research about what will happen if they do what they are doing, or do “such-and-such” instead. If “such-and-such” were obviously the best course of action, they would be doing it.

So when someone outside the situation says “obviously such-and-such is the best course of action” I have to wonder if they believe this because it obviously is the best course of action, or whether it seems this way because that is what the individual would like to see, not what the majority of players want. I think those who are inside the company, who deal with these decisions daily, and have a lot more information than we do about what is happening with the game, are in a better position to make that decision.

Of course, maybe I’m wrong. And maybe when you need legal advice, instead of seeing a lawyer you would be better off talking to your cousin who has every episode of “Boston Legal” on dvr. Obviously he knows what the best course of action will be.

Let me address your points.
“This is their job, and for most of the devs I’m sure this isn’t their first ride on the merry-go-round.”
It does not have a lot to do with the devs. They usually are not to decide on how to monetize the game.

“ It’s like the football fans who talk about the game the day after and blast the coaches’ decisions, the players’ performances and so on. It’s easy to say “it should be like such-and-such” when you’re not in the middle of it, have almost nothing invested in the outcome, and can look back at the situation from a completely different perspective.”

First of all, it’s not the day after. Been talking about this for a long time. It’s more like saying a couch should do something, he does something else, it fails and you see.. You see thats what I said!
And I did buy the game and put time into the game so in a way I am invested in it.

“and the company makes money by making more players happy than unhappy.”
Only partly true. There are many ways to get money from people. For example, only making money happy when they pay stuff. It’s not just about delivering a good product and then getting payed for it. If that would be the case it would be nice but sadly thats not the case.

“So when they make a decision to go a certain way, and to stay on that course or try something different, it’s usually after a lot of thought and research about what will happen if they do what they are doing, or do “such-and-such” instead. If “such-and-such” were obviously the best course of action, they would be doing it.”
Yes they have those discussion but the question is not “what is the best product” but “How can we squeeze out the most money”. I rather have them trying to make the best product and so selling more copies and making the most money.

“So when someone outside the situation says “obviously such-and-such is the best course of action” ” There is a difference. Is the best action for the game quality. I think that might also help generate a good outcome but indeed there is a different focus between what somebody like me is looking for (highest quality) and what they are looking for (highest profit). The people inside the company have a completely other focus that the consumer.

And in all honestly I think it’s foolish to say “well they know more about it so they are right and you are wrong”. The whole west has had or still has a big financial crisis and it was mainly caused by economist who where supposed to know what they here doing.

But in the end that’s does not even matter. Ncsoft might know what they are doing. They maybe want to squeeze out as much money as they ban and then move on to the next game and then they might completely succeed at that. What I want is a high quality game that will stay of high quality and a big player-base for many years to come. So the question is not even if they know better what they are doing then we do. It’s something completely else what they want and that what many of us want. Thats the problem.

Eh, you’re welcome to your opinion, as baffling and amusing as it may be. I just find it exasperating that people keep insisting that – with no real info, statistics or experience – they know more than the people who do this for a living. It’s obvious to me that you do not, but I know better than to think that I’m going to change anyone’s mind.

tolunart.2095:

Eh, you’re welcome to your opinion, as baffling and amusing as it may be. I just find it exasperating that people keep insisting that – with no real info, statistics or experience – they know more than the people who do this for a living. It’s obvious to me that you do not, but I know better than to think that I’m going to change anyone’s mind.

Just read the last paragraph again. I am saying that they might very well know what they are doing but that there goal is simply something else that what I want.

There goal is making as much profit as possible and what I want is the best possible game.

Lets just for a moment put you in there shoes. You have money on the bank and want to get the best possible profit. You then get the information that the best way to do that is to invest in some company. You don’t really care about what they produce but it’s a good way to make money so you invest money into that company.

What you then want is the best profit. You then don’t care about the product. They can be delivering an extremely bad product but if thats the way they can generate the most money you will not care about the fact the the quality of there products is not the best it can be. You just care about getting the best profit.

Welcome to real life.

Devata.6589:

You act like if GW1 was some cheap side project by some guy in a basement. That also was a big project for it’s time. The battlefield games or GTA (most expensive gamer ever and really a massive RPG game) have massive cost. And they also have to run servers for multiple years, keeping the game bug-free so they know people will also buy the next expansion or in those cases the next version of the game.

Are you referring to the GTA chapter which generated one billion dollars in sales in the first three days ?

GW2 has sold what ? Three million boxes at sixty bucks a pop ? $180 million sales in eighteen months ?

Not sure that you can compare the two. Companies that develop games like GTA5 look at GW2 money and think, “ahh, our corporate cafeteria budget.”

At the moment, there is something seriously wrong when a resource gathering pack (mining pick, harvesting sickle, etc) costs as much as the game itself (around £40 here in the UK) for what are, effectively minor convenience items.

Town clothing items cost nearly £10 for each piece and of course, should you delete a character that is wearing such items (and forget to remove those items first, like I did – luckly the Gems were bought with in-game gold) then you’ve just thrown away a lot of money for absolutely nothing at all.

There is no reason for me to spend real money on intangible, disposable fluff. There is certainly no reason for me to spend the equivalent of a new game on a handful of flashy convenience items that may be replaced by even flashier items that harvest items unobtainable through other means further down the line.

Long rant short – Gem store items are overpriced, and there’s no comeback for the player if they accidentally destroy those items. A couple of quid here and there and I could probably overlook it, but £40? I could buy a new game (or several indie games) for that!

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

You act like if GW1 was some cheap side project by some guy in a basement. That also was a big project for it’s time. The battlefield games or GTA (most expensive gamer ever and really a massive RPG game) have massive cost. And they also have to run servers for multiple years, keeping the game bug-free so they know people will also buy the next expansion or in those cases the next version of the game.

Are you referring to the GTA chapter which generated one billion dollars in sales in the first three days ?

GW2 has sold what ? Three million boxes at sixty bucks a pop ? $180 million sales in eighteen months ?

Not sure that you can compare the two. Companies that develop games like GTA5 look at GW2 money and think, “ahh, our corporate cafeteria budget.”

I referred to GW1, Battlefield and GTA partly because it are all different games but they all generated money mainly with sales of the game, not by micro-transactions. But you don’t like the GTA example because they are to big. Fine. Take Rising Storm as an example. Much smaller company only gets money from the game and maybe expansions but is also able to keep servers running and the game updated.

BTW I referred to GTA mainly because lordkrall was suggesting that maybe GW2 was to big of a project (compared to GW1) for a expansion-based model to work. That why I picked that very extremely big project as an example. And then you talk about how it works for GTA because they are so big. I guess we can conclude it can work for many projects (games) no-matter what their size is.

All I am saying there is that you can easily keep servers running until your next release (expansion release in this case) without having to get money every day from gem-sales, Some people act like if the cost of keeping servers running is so extremely big that it’s simply impossible to keep them running without getting money every day. That nonsense and thats all I am trying to say there.

GW2 most likely did make enough money on release to pay back the investment (and make money), keep the servers running for multiple years and to be interesting enough to invest money into an expansion.

That expansion should then have been released 1 year to 1,5 year later (so at latest about now)

And then that expansion would likely generate again enough money to pay back (and make money) on that investment, keep the servers running for multiple years and be interesting enough to invest money for the next expansion and so on and so on.

uknortherner.2670:

At the moment, there is something seriously wrong when a resource gathering pack (mining pick, harvesting sickle, etc) costs as much as the game itself (around £40 here in the UK) for what are, effectively minor convenience items.

Town clothing items cost nearly £10 for each piece and of course, should you delete a character that is wearing such items (and forget to remove those items first, like I did – luckly the Gems were bought with in-game gold) then you’ve just thrown away a lot of money for absolutely nothing at all.

There is no reason for me to spend real money on intangible, disposable fluff. There is certainly no reason for me to spend the equivalent of a new game on a handful of flashy convenience items that may be replaced by even flashier items that harvest items unobtainable through other means further down the line.

Long rant short – Gem store items are overpriced, and there’s no comeback for the player if they accidentally destroy those items. A couple of quid here and there and I could probably overlook it, but £40? I could buy a new game (or several indie games) for that!

True but thats not even what I am looking at. I am mainly talking about how it effects the game. The idea that if it’s not P2W it does not effect the game is totally flawed. If it’s not P2W it does not effect the combat but a RPG game is much more then just combat.

Collecting mini’s is simply not fun because of the way this game works and that has a lot to do with the fact that the game is build around the idea of trying to sell you gems. Same for getting much of the other items in the game. And getting such items is just as much of a game-play element in an RPG as combat is.

skipping all other replies, and just focussing on 1to3/3

I can follow you most of the way, but I would like to point out the following things:

1. You say focus on expansions, which may well be a good alternative, but then you also point at a negative. For as long as the expansion is due, any other update will not see the light of day. There would be no LS, no new hairstyles, no w/e intermediate update, because all dev’s focus would be on the expansion. Also, bug fixes would still have no priority. not saying one is better than the other, but are you willing to accept this trade off, waiting 1 to 1.5y for anything new.

2. You say that ‘a barbershop’ would be a better way to facilitate the hairstyles. And yes I agree with that. BUT! Adding the barbershop, and giving people a way to change their hairstyle for ‘gold’ (aka gold sink), to then offer the unlock of hairstyles in the Shop. THAT would be the correct way (in my views) to have added value of the Shop translate into the game.

You introduce an in game feature that is accessible to all, and include a SHOP feature to go along side it. In fact, if the prices for these unlocks were anything but acceptable, I would even buy this unlock…

And currently I have yet to spend any real money in the Shop simply because I think the prices (for one time created, no reproduction costs) are just way to silly. Would you pay 10$ for a song in w/e song service you prefer on the internet, NO you wouldn’t. And thus I refuse to pay 10$ for a one time created, reproduced unlimited for no extra cost, assortment of pixels.

What I do want to spend money on? Items that increase the game content, and come as a clear feature to this content to supply Anet with a return on the investment to make this content. At a reasonable price…

It is why I bought (almost) all the costumes that Anet put out in GW1, and I only stopped doing so when these updates became so frequent that it was clear the updates were no longer coming for the updates, but for the costume sales…

2 in short If done ‘right’ the gem-shop can be an excellent way to improve the game and generate sales. Even from the most conscious consumers out there (which would be me f/e).

and just so you don’t think I am a free rider, I purchased all 3 books instead of spending money in the in game shop, and yes I did get somebody else to spend money, as I did buy 2 storage panes for gold

SO I personally think it’s not the gemshop that is to blame, and you might not either, but it’s the focus on the gemshop first, instead of content first. That makes us end up with somewhat worthless conditions on both ends. As a conscious consumer I do not mind spending my money, if I see the added value of the features created with that money (even if the money comes in after the investment).

The gem-store and Monetization are strangling GW2.

People complain about “mindless zerging” of content, but it boils down to people who don’t want, or can’t, fork over cash for a paltry amount of gems needing to grind insane amounts of time just go scratch out a few silver from mountains of absolute trash loot.

Arenanet’s monetization department will apparently stop at nothing to get people to open their wallets, even if it means killing GW2 in the process.

Arghore.8340:

snap

About 1.
Well there will be room for one bigger patch (I am thinking on a fractal like patch) a LS but way way smaller then what we see now (just a small story leading up to the expansion) and they should still fix bugs else people will not even buy the expansion.

But yes, overall the content during the year will be way less then it is now. And I would be fine with that if the quality will be much better. In in my opinion the quality will be much better because it’s in game game and there is no mechanics build in just to get you to buy gems.. what also mean that is are mechanics to make it annoying to get the items in another way. That the gold-driven nature I did refer to.
Edit. Same as Neural.1824 said.

About 2.
Well in a way an expansion is exactly that what you are saying. But in stead of one smaller unlock it’s one big unlock.

@Neural.1824
Agreed.

I am starting to have a different point of view completely as to where the real problem lies. You and I were looking at the symptoms, not the cause. Gold and Gems aren’t the problem here. Lets do some comparative research…

If this was WoW on its second year, we’d be gearing up to tackle the “final boss” of this expansion after having raided through 2 or 3 additional tiers of content to get here. I feel like instead of raids that challenge us to work together in order to see content, that we’re more or less being “walked” through the content, with lots of hand holding and conciliation prizes, group effort and completion awards.

Imagine if instead of raid content and new armor sets, Blizzard walked you through each raid dungeon where you fought sometimes personal and sometimes 5 man instanced content thats… sometimes challenging… when you don’t cheat and check out Dulfy… All of those classic Naxxramus fights… the boss mechanics of Black Temple… the smorgusborg that was the Frozen Throne…. All hand held… with a few cute trinkets, achievements and zerg events to participate in that occur steadily on the hour? Then, after the show’s over, it goes away, like it was never there. Sure the scenery might have changed, but the game should have had a permanent add, not an add, then subtract… that’s just breaking even. new folks won’t even be able to tell the difference.

By the same measure as other MMOs, we should have double the number of 5 man dungeons at this point in the game (since there’s no raids), each with their own distinctive gear sets like the other current dungeons. And the dungeons should be permanent, regardless of how the story moves on. If you can kill Zaitaan over and over, you should be able to do the same with any added content. The dungeons should be where the action of the story unfolds even if you do “story parts” out and about. Hell, be real with us even by calling them Chapter 2 dungeons or Chapter 4 dungeons on where they are in the story. If there aren’t going to be “raids” in this game and hey, I’m not really that broken up about that, 5 mans aren’t that bad, just package the content up into repeatable 5 man dungeons and even story relevant zones and then KEEP THEM AROUND! Make a few dungeons easymode for speed runs and a few hard for achievers and lets call it even… THAT is what horizontal progression is all the kitten about!

Then, you can add all the freaking convenience junk you want to into the gem store and we don’t feel completely butt-kittened when you toy with our emotions by adding an item to the gemstore that gives +20% chance for a free kitten every time we mine a bit of copper. I’m not trying to be unreasonable here, but if your gemstore only model doesn’t support the kind of content that this market demands of its companies, the next best thing that DOES come close in mechanics and quality will sweep the rest of us stubborn kittens out of here.

…because it will, if we don’t lose patience first….

well, yes, there is some p2w-element in the game, was there from the very beginning. Buy win or not, your choice, it is as easy as that. And if those few dollars/euros are too much for you, well, chances are, you should be thinking about your career instead of wasting too many hours in a game anyway.

Guardian.5142:

I am starting to have a different point of view completely as to where the real problem lies. You and I were looking at the symptoms, not the cause. Gold and Gems aren’t the problem here. Lets do some comparative research…

If this was WoW on its second year, we’d be gearing up to tackle the “final boss” of this expansion after having raided through 2 or 3 additional tiers of content to get here. I feel like instead of raids that challenge us to work together in order to see content, that we’re more or less being “walked” through the content, with lots of hand holding and conciliation prizes, group effort and completion awards.

Imagine if instead of raid content and new armor sets, Blizzard walked you through each raid dungeon where you fought sometimes personal and sometimes 5 man instanced content thats… sometimes challenging… when you don’t cheat and check out Dulfy…
Snap

I never said Gold and Gems are the problem. I said a focus on micro-transaction is the problem. You talk about some of the end-game but you forget in a RPG game there is more then just this.

For example you say "If this was WoW on its second year, we’d be gearing up to tackle the “final boss”. Well maybe. But maybe I would be getting close to completing my mini-collecting. Having farmed many mobs for them, have been doing quest for them, have been doing dungeons for them, making them with crafts. Finding them while fishing (not in this game yet).

Or maybe I would be close to finally getting that awesome last item in my fun-craft after having been going all over the world to get the recipes and material you needed for all the other items from your fun-craft.. As you refer to WoW Engineering comes to mind and if I am correct the bike (mount) was the last item in WoW Vanilla you could make? Not 100% sure.

Or maybe I would have just been able to get my rainbow stones collection. (There is a shiny [color] stone] for every color of the rainbow. Totally useless but heey it’s a RPG game and collecting them can be a game-play-element for you. Or some other very rare (pretty useless) but cool item.

Just having a look here from maybe a more casual RP perspective. (RP not in being a RP-player who playes in a role but RP as in a person whole likes the RP elements of the game like collecting those mini’s or stones or whatever).

Now lets translate this to GW2.
Most mini’s have been in the gem-store. So getting them mend, buying gems or grinding gold to then buy them from the AH.
There where also some in the gem-store that where only temporary available. Might come back at some pound but if you missed them at least for now, to bad there go’s your collection (of course thats the idea, thats how they try to convince you to buy them). Another way to getting mini’s was to grind the achievements, every time again. You finally got it, two weeks later there was another achievement, you nearly did not have time to grind the gold to the the normal mini’s (oow what a fun do we have). Some of them where account-bound so you missed them once again, fat luck there go’s your collection. Some where not account bound so if you missed them grinding gold to buy them was the option.

I am looking here from a game-play element. Of course you could buy gems, convert them to gold and you got the collection much easier. But for enough people this sort of content is what they like to do.

Then crafts. Well there aren’t any fun-crafts but even leveling the normal crafts mean you can’t really farm most of the items. You can’t really go out there to get what you need. To much of it is a general world drop. So the solution.. grinding gold and buying it. Aldo crafts itself aren’t the bigest problem here tbo. Then again from a RP viewpoint thats they are also not so interesting.

Legendary weapons then.. They would something to go for but once again, it’s not a journey into the world collecting and farming the items you need. Again way to much general world loot. The way to go once again is farming gold and buying it.

Same for skins (items) and much of the other stuff. It’s just not fun the way thats implemented.

However it totally fits into the idea of “how do we get people to buy gems”. You make a task extremely boring or hard or impossible and then give an easy way out with gems. Meanwhile destroying a whole element of the game.

Algreg.3629:

well, yes, there is some p2w-element in the game, was there from the very beginning. Buy win or not, your choice, it is as easy as that. And if those few dollars/euros are too much for you, well, chances are, you should be thinking about your career instead of wasting too many hours in a game anyway.

I am not talking about P2W and it’s not about the money as I am asking for expansion.. that cost money. It’s about how the focus on selling those items effect the game in a negative way.

However if you manage to trick people (who indeed can’t handle money) into buying an ax that cost more then the whole game I can’t really blame the monetize people. Big part of it is the people buying the gems.
Watch the video and see how the EA man pretty much talks about they manage to trick people into buying that sort of stuff.

Ok, so if we’re on the same page now, you take issue with GW because the monetization model influences game design in ways that, for you, are unacceptable. I have argued, and you appear to agree, that sub model monetization also influences game design. You haven’t explicitly stated the same level of disinterest in the sub model based on our previous comments but I suppose that’s a different matter. So, what is it about this Expansion only model that precludes developers from implementing some form of coercion to get you to pay for the next expansion or in some other way you don’t agree with? With both sub and free to play models, developers don’t have to design the game in a way to move you towards either the cash shop or draw out your goals to bleed into the next subscription period. But they do, in part, because it ensures that there is an external incentive to keep supporting the game financially.

I mean, consider this, there have been arguments made against the concept of an expansion purchase only model as it separates the player base between those who were willing or able to buy the expansion and those who didn’t. Thus creating an incentive, imagined or otherwise, to shell out money for the expansion. A b2p/f2p model allows people to get that same content without having to spend a penny as they are covered by the cash shop supporting player base. Again, I hear you on making the cash shop less in your face and intrusive but it would seem that an expansion model isn’t the best option for some people either and does influence game design and player experience as well. If Anet can design a less intrusive cash shop and still deliver content found in expansions (which is a stated goal of theirs already) it seems like everyone wins.

If you read various articles around the net, you’ll generally hear that 2014 is the year of FTP- largely thanks to GW2 being so successful at it. At the same time, I see the exact opposite as being true: GW2 has NOT been successful.

Sure, it’s been a financial success; but it’s been a gaming failure. Even with the living story, it just doesn’t develop over time the way other MMO’s have. Nightwulf said that both models (f2p and sub) influence game design- this is undoubtedly true. The difference is that f2p encourages short term gimmicks, if not outright requires them. A subscription business model allows (note: “allows for.” not inevitably results in) for gradual development of a superior product that keep customers simply by being awesome. F2p is fighting an uphill battle to accomplish the same thing.

A successful game, regardless of business model, has a long term upward trajectory as it fights for subscribers. The difference is that monetizing must be included at all times with a F2P system. Quality considerations aside (even F2P has to make good content- if they don’t, noone will play and the number of shinies in the shop won’t matter), this means that the shape of content is subtly different. GW2 is full of gimmicks and doo-dads- special effect finishers, special harvesting animations, quaggan backpacks. Like a mall during christmas, it’s positively packed with stuff. The F2P shop doesn’t just distract from development, it distracts from gameplay as well.

To sum up, if GW2 is an example of F2P’s great success, then I prefer subscription development hands down. F2P is simply too intrusive.

Rhyse.8179:

If you read various articles around the net, you’ll generally hear that 2014 is the year of FTP- largely thanks to GW2 being so successful at it. At the same time, I see the exact opposite as being true: GW2 has NOT been successful.

Sure, it’s been a financial success; but it’s been a gaming failure. Even with the living story, it just doesn’t develop over time the way other MMO’s have. Nightwulf said that both models (f2p and sub) influence game design- this is undoubtedly true. The difference is that f2p encourages short term gimmicks, if not outright requires them. A subscription business model allows (note: “allows for.” not inevitably results in) for gradual development of a superior product that keep customers simply by being awesome. F2p is fighting an uphill battle to accomplish the same thing.

A successful game, regardless of business model, has a long term upward trajectory as it fights for subscribers. The difference is that monetizing must be included at all times with a F2P system. Quality considerations aside (even F2P has to make good content- if they don’t, noone will play and the number of shinies in the shop won’t matter), this means that the shape of content is subtly different. GW2 is full of gimmicks and doo-dads- special effect finishers, special harvesting animations, quaggan backpacks. Like a mall during christmas, it’s positively packed with stuff. The F2P shop doesn’t just distract from development, it distracts from gameplay as well.

To sum up, if GW2 is an example of F2P’s great success, then I prefer subscription development hands down. F2P is simply too intrusive.

This definitely highlights what I think is at the heart of a lot of people’s issues with the Cash Shop model as it’s implemented in GW2. It is an apt description of the shop as any. It’s funny though. GW1 had a cash shop as well, although it was pretty bare bones in terms of services and offerings. Anet didn’t really weave the cash shop into the atmosphere of the game as heavily. Because of this, some people heralded the GW1 cash shop as what the GW2 cash shop should have been. In light of that sentiment, it’s worth noting that Anet early in GW2’s development said that the cash shop as it was implemented in GW1 was more of an afterthought. It was an example of a cash shop service that offered some cosmetic rewards and a few convenience items without an apparent need for significant short term gains.

Clearly, between the dynamics of the GW1 cash shop and GW2, there are shades of the Cash Shop system as there is with the Sub system and how it’s implemented. But you have to think, GW1 was released almost 10 years ago. Today, we are seeing more and more games with both subscriptions and cash shops and as such, it becomes less of a free to play versus sub argument than it is an issue with the forward march of microtransactions into all mediums.

For those asking for an mmo to support an expansion only business model, do you really think it is financially stable and competitive in today’s market to do so? Are there risks involved, and if so what are they? I will say that I don’t know how financial analysts at mmo publishers do their math and help decide on a finance model but I would wager a guess that running an expansion only mmo is considered a big risk and possibly a non-starter for most companies. The one mmo that was heralded as the champion of this model abandoned it when given the chance to start over. I don’t really know what that means for that business model but I imagine it’s not what some people are hoping for.

I just wanted to add this segment of an old interview between GameSpy and one of Anet’s founders, Jeff Strain, because I found it a fascinating insight into what Anet was thinking about their business model at the time GW1 was being developed. I think it may be informative to those who wonder how Anet thinks or, at least, how they thought about business at the time.

“GameSpy: Early in the Guild Wars development process you made the decision that there would be no monthly fees. So far it’s still the only big-name MMOG to try this business model. Does this surprise you? Is the MMOG business climate today what you expected it would be when you made that decision a couple years ago?

Strain: The fact that Guild Wars is the only big-name MMOG to ditch the subscription fee does surprise us, yes. Our business model will work, and what we are doing could be done by others. We find it surprising that others have not or are not trying to do the same thing. But, at the time some of our founders developed Battle.net, no one had created a free online gaming network, either, so I guess it’s fair to say that we’re accustomed to being innovative.

The business climate is exactly what we expected it to be at this time. When we began developing Guild Wars, there were more than 80 announced MMORPG titles under development worldwide. There are far fewer now, and the fact that the numbers have dropped so dramatically proves what we have said all along: that people do not want to pay — are not willing to pay — a monthly fee for every game that they play."

nightwulf.1986:

For those asking for an mmo to support an expansion only business model, do you really think it is financially stable and competitive in today’s market to do so? Are there risks involved, and if so what are they?

Stable? Absolutely. Like any business model, it will shape development- with this one you need moderate spurts of moderate content. You can’t wait 2 years per expansion like WoW, and the average content patch won’t cut it. Let’s say one expansion a year of high enough quality to justify the box price and also high enough to carry people into purchasing the following expansion as well. That can have amazing results, but be difficult to keep up.

Look at that development cycle though and you’ll see why nobody uses it. Develop strong game > carry that strength into a strong expansion > repeat. If any of your expansions flop, thats game over. Thats a lot of risk. In addition, you’ve got one revenue stream- selling boxes. Toss in a small cash shop to offset operating costs. This means that you can’t scale up linearly as popularity increases- you have to go through a complete dev cycle to get more capital. That just won’t cut it for business types chasing WoW like fortunes, or shareholders demanding quarterly profit reports.

So the result is a system that’s great for Devs (long dev timelines on moderate amounts of deep content), is amazing for players (for obvious reasons), great for a high competition market (a one-time, low commitment purchase), and pure kryptonite for investors. So I think the model is probably ideal for an online game, but noone will back it. If the up-front cost of game development wasn’t so obscenely high, I think we’d see this model a lot.

Games like GW1 and Path of Exile have proven that making something awesome and relying on customer faith works. Unfortunately, making a great product and turning a (merely) tidy profit isn’t the goal of those who sign the checks.

Thats what makes the most sense to me anyway. I doubt that the developers are the ones that pick the business model – it’s highly unlikely that a game dev’s lifelong dream is making virtual plushies.

Do you honestly believe they start with gem shop items and then build a LS episode around it? No, they write the whole narrative first, decide where to divide the chapters, and then they either add a new skin related to the content or figure out what popular discontinued item to bring back.

You all make it sound like a development meeting starts with the Gem Shop people asking for a story built around something they can sell.

I don’t know but I don’t see a “focus on microtransactions”. I see a variety of meh items like the finger paint masks that the newb artist on the team can knock out with minimal supervision while the rest of the art team spends time mutating existing zones for LS content.

And microtransactions is what keeps the game going. They need to keep it fresh to keep income up otherwise their Seoul overlords will get all sorts of grumpy and try to micromanage even more than before.

The game still has it’s original selling point, buy once and play for free. Now if that’s for a couple of months or a couple of years that’s entirely up to the player. But the more months they are in the game, the longer the period of time that they may be tempted to buy something with gems, hopefully bought with cash ones.

As for me, I still have 3 more races and 6 more classes to try out so I’ll be here for a while.

Algreg.3629:

well, yes, there is some p2w-element in the game, was there from the very beginning. Buy win or not, your choice, it is as easy as that. And if those few dollars/euros are too much for you, well, chances are, you should be thinking about your career instead of wasting too many hours in a game anyway.

A few dollars or euros? That resource gathering set costs £40, or $80 or whatever it is in euros! There’s nothing “micro” about these transactions.

Perhaps one day you will grow up, have a family, mortgage, responsibilities, or just count yourself lucky that you were able to hold on to your job during this economic crisis which has seen many people lose their jobs and homes overnight. All of which has appeared to have completely passed you by, or you simply grew up in a privileged household where your parents never knew when to say “no”. People have financial responsibilities outside of gaming, you know. Did it ever occur to you that some people work 70-80 hour weeks for a meagre salary and resort to gaming to get their minds off things?

Show some consideration for those of us who are not as well off as you.

uknortherner.2670:

Algreg.3629:

well, yes, there is some p2w-element in the game, was there from the very beginning. Buy win or not, your choice, it is as easy as that. And if those few dollars/euros are too much for you, well, chances are, you should be thinking about your career instead of wasting too many hours in a game anyway.

A few dollars or euros? That resource gathering set costs £40, or $80 or whatever it is in euros! There’s nothing “micro” about these transactions.

Perhaps one day you will grow up, have a family, mortgage, responsibilities, or just count yourself lucky that you were able to hold on to your job during this economic crisis which has seen many people lose their jobs and homes overnight. All of which has appeared to have completely passed you by, or you simply grew up in a privileged household where your parents never knew when to say “no”. People have financial responsibilities outside of gaming, you know. Did it ever occur to you that some people work 70-80 hour weeks for a meagre salary and resort to gaming to get their minds off things?

Show some consideration for those of us who are not as well off as you.

But none of those things are required to play the game. You absolutely don’t need an unlimited mining pick to play or enjoy this game. They put something expensive in the game that you don’t need…that’s a good thing.

It would be lousy if they put stuff expensive in the game that you did need.

Reading all this, I am glad I am not in charge of making money for the game through the game store. Players are not very forgiving…one bad decision could at the least drive this poor soul into taking up sinning in a beer joint.

I do think the prices are expensive. The clothing bundles appear reasonable until you take into consideration that you have to buy another suit of armor to put under it, and, depending on your level, Transmutaton stones or crystals to stick it all together.

I think, and I am probably wrong about this, I think they should see what happens if they cut prices in the Gemstore for a month as an experiment to see how selling for less but hopefully in greater quantity might fare.

People are attracted to sales and low prices…..

Lisa-Thinking and pondering

nightwulf.1986:

Ok, so if we’re on the same page now, you take issue with GW because the monetization model influences game design in ways that, for you, are unacceptable. I have argued, and you appear to agree, that sub model monetization also influences game design. You haven’t explicitly stated the same level of disinterest in the sub model based on our previous comments but I suppose that’s a different matter. So, what is it about this Expansion only model that precludes developers from implementing some form of coercion to get you to pay for the next expansion or in some other way you don’t agree with? With both sub and free to play models, developers don’t have to design the game in a way to move you towards either the cash shop or draw out your goals to bleed into the next subscription period. But they do, in part, because it ensures that there is an external incentive to keep supporting the game financially.

I mean, consider this, there have been arguments made against the concept of an expansion purchase only model as it separates the player base between those who were willing or able to buy the expansion and those who didn’t. Thus creating an incentive, imagined or otherwise, to shell out money for the expansion. A b2p/f2p model allows people to get that same content without having to spend a penny as they are covered by the cash shop supporting player base. Again, I hear you on making the cash shop less in your face and intrusive but it would seem that an expansion model isn’t the best option for some people either and does influence game design and player experience as well. If Anet can design a less intrusive cash shop and still deliver content found in expansions (which is a stated goal of theirs already) it seems like everyone wins.

I think that in a micro-transaction-based game they have to lure you into buying because thats there way of making money and I also feel that that form of lure effects the game-play itself much more then P2P or expansion based.

Yes P2P games also effects the game (I don’t like P2P for that reason) but imho mainly by putting a timer over your head, not so much with in-game mechanics.. well maybe a gear-grind to keep you busy? But they can do many thinks to keep you busy like I did show in my previous example and when done right I like to be kept busy IN A FUN WAY. For me it might then be collecting mini’s while for somebody else it would be the gear-grind. Micro-transaction tend to become “it’s a little annoying (less fun) when you do NOT buy items”.

Yes with expansions they will still need to get you to buy an expansion. However the best way to do that imho is to release a good quality expansion with much content. Has to be of a good quality else the next expansion won’t sell and after a year / year and a half what people want is a big new chunk of content (you don’t really need to do much for that). So the game (mechanics / gameplay) will get not as badly influenced by it.

Spreading the community is partly true. Yes, people who do not have the expansion might not have access to a new continent and or specific ingame items (like those hair-styles), then again excepts for continents, micro-transactions and even P2P do also not allow access to (part of) the game so thats the same for every model. (And no converting gold to gems is not a viable option here. Then all you would be doing is farming gold, not so much playing the game).

I am not talking about an expansion like with GW1 where it’s a separate game. So they can still play together in the old area’s and then they are even more likely to be willing to buy the expansion. But yes, to be really active with everybody you should be buying the expansion. I don’t see that as a bad thing for a B2P game. You know, ‘ok I will need to buy an expansion every year / year and a half but then I do get everything ingame and there are no annoying mechanics trying to trick me into buying stuff and so making the game less fun and no timer over my head like in a sub-model game’.

All in all I personally see that as the best rade-off from a gamers viewpoint.

nightwulf.1986:

Rhyse.8179:

~

Sure, it’s been a financial success; but it’s been a gaming failure. Even with the living story, it just doesn’t develop over time the way other MMO’s have. Nightwulf said that both models (f2p and sub) influence game design- this is undoubtedly true. The difference is that f2p encourages short term gimmicks, if not outright requires them. A subscription business model allows (note: “allows for.” not inevitably results in) for gradual development of a superior product that keep customers simply by being awesome. F2p is fighting an uphill battle to accomplish the same thing.

A successful game, regardless of business model, has a long term upward trajectory as it fights for subscribers. The difference is that monetizing must be included at all times with a F2P system. Quality considerations aside (even F2P has to make good content- if they don’t, noone will play and the number of shinies in the shop won’t matter), this means that the shape of content is subtly different. GW2 is full of gimmicks and doo-dads- special effect finishers, special harvesting animations, quaggan backpacks. Like a mall during christmas, it’s positively packed with stuff. The F2P shop doesn’t just distract from development, it distracts from gameplay as well.

To sum up, if GW2 is an example of F2P’s great success, then I prefer subscription development hands down. F2P is simply too intrusive.

This definitely highlights what I think is at the heart of a lot of people’s issues with the Cash Shop model as it’s implemented in GW2. It is an apt description of the shop as any. It’s funny though. GW1 had a cash shop as well, although it was pretty bare bones in terms of services and offerings. Anet didn’t really weave the cash shop into the atmosphere of the game as heavily. Because of this, some people heralded the GW1 cash shop as what the GW2 cash shop should have been. In light of that sentiment, it’s worth noting that Anet early in GW2’s development said that the cash shop as it was implemented in GW1 was more of an afterthought. It was an example of a cash shop service that offered some cosmetic rewards and a few convenience items without an apparent need for significant short term gains.

Clearly, between the dynamics of the GW1 cash shop and GW2, there are shades of the Cash Shop system as there is with the Sub system and how it’s implemented. But you have to think, GW1 was released almost 10 years ago. Today, we are seeing more and more games with both subscriptions and cash shops and as such, it becomes less of a free to play versus sub argument than it is an issue with the forward march of microtransactions into all mediums.

For those asking for an mmo to support an expansion only business model, do you really think it is financially stable and competitive in today’s market to do so? Are there risks involved, and if so what are they? I will say that I don’t know how financial analysts at mmo publishers do their math and help decide on a finance model but I would wager a guess that running an expansion only mmo is considered a big risk and possibly a non-starter for most companies. The one mmo that was heralded as the champion of this model abandoned it when given the chance to start over. I don’t really know what that means for that business model but I imagine it’s not what some people are hoping for.

GW1 had no focus on the cash-shop because it had a focus on the expansions.

About it being viable and the risk. Yes I think it’s viable but it’s not a system where you can squeeze out money ‘fast’. It’s a system where you earn money over a long term (multiple years). A steady flow of income. The risk there is that if you don’t deliver the quality people will leave before you make the long-term money and then you where better our squeezing as much as you could in the beginning.

When squeezing out money that risk is smaller and the amount of money you can make in the short run is bigger but the people will get tired of the game sooner so the long-term is smaller. So from an inverters viewpoint I get it (squeeze out money and move to the next game). From a company that makes the game on the other hand you want a company that runs for many years so the long-term profit would be more interesting. Maybe that learns us that in the future it’s wise to go for a game that is developed and payed by it’s own company.

From a gamers viewpoint of course I wants a high-quality game for the long run. Not some squeeze out the money product.

About that GW1 did go to this cash-shop and that that maybe says something. Well it also shows that off the many MMO’s we have seen during the last 10 years that GW was one f the few that was able to make that step to the next version.. Sort of proving that expansion-based sales works great as a long-term goal.

Devata.6589:

When squeezing out money that risk is smaller and the amount of money you can make in the short run is bigger but the people will get tired of the game sooner so the long-term is smaller. So from an inverters viewpoint I get it (squeeze out money and move to the next game). From a company that makes the game on the other hand you want a company that runs for many years so the long-term profit would be more interesting. Maybe that learns us that in the future it’s wise to go for a game that is developed and payed by it’s own company.

From a gamers viewpoint of course I wants a high-quality game for the long run. Not some squeeze out the money product.

This touches on a point that I’ve wondered about regarding GW2. I’ve wondered if NCSoft never intended GW2 to be a long term game in the first place. If the financial data shows that the bulk of the consumer money moves from game to game in 1 year segments (people play the game out, then move to the next new game), it would make financial sense for a company like NCSoft to create a cycle that follows that. Pump out a new game once a year, and just sideline the previous ones. Focus on providing new games for that majority who move from game to game to game. In our case, Wildstar is the next big one. We also have no idea if NCSoft considers GW2 to be successful as a model. Sure, it’s made a bunch of money, but did it do as well as they expected?

It’s a very high level stick and carrot game, where the playerbase burns through content faster than an individual company can churn it out, so you use multiple companies to provide the carrot.

All of this depends, of course, on whether or not that sort of model recoups investment costs, but with the numbers that have been thrown about for GW2, it wouldn’t surprise me if the answer on that is “yes”.

Unfortunately, it leaves those of us who are looking for a long term “home” MMO with gimmick ridden themepark worlds where the updates are lacking somehow.

At the end of the day, and what Devata doesn’t want to acknowledge, is that expansions don’t keep a greedy company honest. Instead, you’ll just see buggy, half-developed expansions every six months to keep the money flow going. If you think they develop “quick and dirty”, eschewing quality for quantity… changing how they pursue that quantity isn’t going to fix the problem you claim.

The core of the matter really doesn’t have anything to do with the gem store. Devata wants a traditional expansion model. The rest of his/her tripe is just noise.

Neural.1824:

This touches on a point that I’ve wondered about regarding GW2. I’ve wondered if NCSoft never intended GW2 to be a long term game in the first place. If the financial data shows that the bulk of the consumer money moves from game to game in 1 year segments (people play the game out, then move to the next new game), it would make financial sense for a company like NCSoft to create a cycle that follows that. Pump out a new game once a year, and just sideline the previous ones. Focus on providing new games for that majority who move from game to game to game. In our case, Wildstar is the next big one. We also have no idea if NCSoft considers GW2 to be successful as a model. Sure, it’s made a bunch of money, but did it do as well as they expected?
.

That sort of thing works well for SP games, FPS games, football/basketball/etc seasonal games and the like. They’ll keep churning out Halos, Resident Evils, and Call of Duties until people stop buying them. But an MMO is an ongoing project, one that takes years to plan and develop, and there’s no guarantee that it will ever recover the costs, let alone show a profit in its first year.

I think Anet was caught by surprise when GW2 opened with 2 mil box sales, while TOR seemed to have been built around that expectation and crashed because the company expected people to stay with the game for the Star Wars name alone and forgot to give them compelling reasons to subscribe beyond the month or two it takes to finish the story.

Games definitely have a life expectancy, and most SP game are bargain bin candidates six months after release, but an MMO requires a much deeper commitment. In order to make a profit a company has to be prepared to spend the first year or two getting their sea legs, so to speak, before they can count on a few years of successful cruising.

@Devata, mainly a question about the mini’s you go on about. Forgoing the whole expansion as the solution. What would be acceptable to sell in regards to mini’s. I mean, these minis need to be made and at some point the code to govern them had to be created, as well as various systems and code and icon, artwork etc. to support them. So lets just assume you paid for all of this when you bought the game. Now obviously you would like to keep gathering them (and remember there is no expansion), what would you find acceptable in regards to mini’s? to ‘pay’ in order to see them expand the ‘mini collection game’…

- Put 10% of the minis in the gemshop?
- Put all the mini’s in the cash-shop as well as in the game?
- Offer a mini pet menagerie in the gemshop?
- Put ‘non-bound’ minis in an gemshop RNG item?
- Put ‘non-bound’ minis in ingame RNG items?
- Put 10% of the minis solely in the game? (and 10% in solely in the shop, with 80% in both)
- Put a 3 mini leash in the cash shop, so you can have 3 minis active instead of 1.

I mean, I am not against a cash shop, as I said earlier when the costumes came out as part of mini-expansion content in GW1 I bought a lot of them. I thought it to be a great way to stimulate ANet to make more ‘ftp’ content for all, being paid by those who (like in my case) didn’t see a problem throwing them some money for a costume. And I only stopped doing so when every tid-bit of new content came with a costume.

Similar with the ‘barbershop’ example, I wouldn’t mind buying hair unlocks to ‘repay’ ANet the time to put in the barbershops and make changing your hairstyle (the base ones) for gold available to all. What I would expect though, is that a new batch of new styles, would come with say 1(to 3) style(s) for each race for everybody, besides the new cash shop unlock.

Similar to minis, I think there is a middle ground in the cash shop items to support a feature in and on itself. The thing is that the balance between ‘value and money’ is entirely skewed. More then likely because the cash shop is handled by some hardly creative money grabbing economist, who’s idea to making money is to seduce people to spend more money on things than there is value in it. I mean, the 20% slap on the pick is by all means a clear example of trying to get more money out of a feature that has already seen it’s value return by the sales of the other picks.

That I think is also why the community (and humans in general) didn’t see that much trouble in the endless picks, there was no real added bonus (mainly convenience) the feature’s development was paid for by those using it. And we all (conscious or not) realized that part of the profits return would see its way back into the game, in the form of more content for us all. The upheaval about the pick is because now all those people that bought these picks are screwed over by a ‘better’ pick, and there was no actual added value to the game. 3 lines of code somewhere and some text, plus one model. Result all pick made obsolete, and we all know that it will lead to the other being so as well, for no extra ‘work’ or added value to the game. (now sure some of that money ‘may’ go back into the game, but there is no way to see the connection between it, and also where is the value, I mean the value to the game itself? there is none, it just screws people over that don’t have the pick)!

While there are a lot of ways to trick people into spending money, there is one thing we share even with our ape family relatives. That is a VERY STRONG feeling of ‘FAIRNESS’. And that is what is behind the feeling of ‘cash grabbing’ cash-shops. No added value, or absurd prices for items that are basically 1x created and infinitely reproduced for no extra costs. Not sure if I said it in this discussion, but would you pay 8$ for a song in w/e online-service you prefer? Or what about an App. for your mobile phone?

dinner time I have to continue this later on

chemiclord.3978:

At the end of the day, and what Devata doesn’t want to acknowledge, is that expansions don’t keep a greedy company honest. Instead, you’ll just see buggy, half-developed expansions every six months to keep the money flow going. If you think they develop “quick and dirty”, eschewing quality for quantity… changing how they pursue that quantity isn’t going to fix the problem you claim.

The core of the matter really doesn’t have anything to do with the gem store. Devata wants a traditional expansion model. The rest of his/her tripe is just noise.

Well I did say that from a financial viewpoint of an investor it could make sense to not use it but go for a F2P model. Yes I do want the expansion model because I do think it will result in a better game.

It’s not like I ‘just want it’ and make some stuff up to support it (noise as you name it). Why else would I want that model? If I didn’t honestly believe it would result in a better game then I would want a F2P model as it would not cost me anything (I never buy cash-shop items).

Devata.6589:

Well I did say that from a financial viewpoint of an investor it could make sense to not use it but go for a F2P model. Yes I do want the expansion model because I do think it will result in a better game.

It’s not like I ‘just want it’ and make some stuff up to support it (noise as you name it). Why else would I want that model? If I didn’t honestly believe it would result in a better game then I would want a F2P model as it would not cost me anything (I never buy cash-shop items).

But that’s the issue. There is NO reason to believe simply changing a financial model would change the quality of content in and of itself. If you HONESTLY think that Arena.net’s motto now is “quick and dirty…” it’ll still be “quick and dirty” with expansions shot out rapid fire. Cheap, lazy expansion content is no better than cheap, lazy F2P content.

The entire heart of your argument is that you want expansions. The “quick and dirty” is your excuse to rationalize it. You wouldn’t care one whit about “quick and dirty” if it was coming in the form of “Guild Wars 2: [insert expansion name here].”

tolunart.2095:

Neural.1824:

This touches on a point that I’ve wondered about regarding GW2. I’ve wondered if NCSoft never intended GW2 to be a long term game in the first place. If the financial data shows that the bulk of the consumer money moves from game to game in 1 year segments (people play the game out, then move to the next new game), it would make financial sense for a company like NCSoft to create a cycle that follows that. Pump out a new game once a year, and just sideline the previous ones. Focus on providing new games for that majority who move from game to game to game. In our case, Wildstar is the next big one. We also have no idea if NCSoft considers GW2 to be successful as a model. Sure, it’s made a bunch of money, but did it do as well as they expected?
.

That sort of thing works well for SP games, FPS games, football/basketball/etc seasonal games and the like. They’ll keep churning out Halos, Resident Evils, and Call of Duties until people stop buying them. But an MMO is an ongoing project, one that takes years to plan and develop, and there’s no guarantee that it will ever recover the costs, let alone show a profit in its first year.

I think Anet was caught by surprise when GW2 opened with 2 mil box sales, while TOR seemed to have been built around that expectation and crashed because the company expected people to stay with the game for the Star Wars name alone and forgot to give them compelling reasons to subscribe beyond the month or two it takes to finish the story.

Games definitely have a life expectancy, and most SP game are bargain bin candidates six months after release, but an MMO requires a much deeper commitment. In order to make a profit a company has to be prepared to spend the first year or two getting their sea legs, so to speak, before they can count on a few years of successful cruising.

Well those other games usually only sell the game and maybe one small expansion or some DLC but I did talk about how you could use an MMO to squeeze out money (using the cash-shop) in the short-run. And then I talk about 1 to 3 years where for the other game it is indeed old after 6 months.

However for an MMORPG 3 years is imo still short term. So thats why I said they might indeed not be interested in the long term. But your are correct, that is still long compared to the games you referred to. That makes up for the longer development time of an MMORPG.