Guild Wars 2

If the upvotes on the reddit thread “Don’t Pre-Purchase Heart of Thorns” are any indication, that’s a bare-minimum loss of $78k, so far, not including any upgrade packages. So the total is easily over $100,000 in lost sales, just from those who have viewed that thread and voted. It’s not a perfect metric, but people are speaking their minds and voting with their money right now.

Maybe if there was some discussion about the HoT packages and price points, this disaster could have been avoided. It’s not like we don’t want to give Anet our money, but we also want good value. If the price cannot be lowered at this point, at least pad the packages, especially the base one. It’s nickel and diming your customers, when you make them pay $50, then force them to buy a character slot for the new class.

As a player since GW1 I am not buying HOT until we see some resolve.
I would be happy with a $10 price reduction for current players and an extra character slot.

If Anet wants Loyal players to stay they need to show it.

Yup, we’re waiting with our money in-hand. I WANT to pre-purchase, badly! But I want fair price points.

I am not going to buy xpac either, and many people i know says the same – couting friends and guild thats about 213 ppl. Gl hf in empty maps

Would be nice to get a thread going with people showing in a single page that they are not buying and committing to it. That way the people who are fussing about ‘losing vets and the world being better for it,’ would realize how badly this idea of ANETS is. Also I agree that the pricing is too high and I’ve stated it before, just wanted to throw my lot in and support the entire voting with your wallet thing.

I believe that there are 2 ways to be fair here:

1. Lower the prices to the existing packages to 30, 50 and 75 euros respectively.

2. Leave the prices as they are but Standard Edition should give you at least character slot and a character customization kit, Deluxe Edition should give you also extra bang space and maybe a special head skin, and finally the Ultimate Edition all that and the Gems.

This way I could feel that the purchase is worthy.

My guild (16 people) will not buy the expansion either. Even the ones who can actually buy it (we live in Brazil, so $50 is almost 1/5 of the minimum monthly wage here. Expensive) will not do it because their guild won’t follow.

No xpac with the current informations. Anet has to change the current versions or release another HoT version only for veterans with more content (charslots/gems) or lower price.

I’m one of them, and I’ll say here what I said there: I’m not pre-purchasing, and I’m a ten-year GW player who’s bought everything since Prophecies. So far, I’ve been shown nothing that warrants $50. HoT had better include a MOUNTAIN of content for that price, and right now I’m just not seeing it. The dubious benefit of playing in beta tests will not counteract this; giving in-depth details on exactly what and how much content is included might, as well as offering a character slot to existing accounts on the $50 option.

what the kitten is wrong with people this days?
the expansion price is good and fair .
simple as that.

Hearte.6852:

If the upvotes on the reddit thread “Don’t Pre-Purchase Heart of Thorns” are any indication, that’s a bare-minimum loss of $78k, so far, not including any upgrade packages. So the total is easily over $100,000 in lost sales, just from those who have viewed that thread and voted. It’s not a perfect metric, but people are speaking their minds and voting with their money right now.

Maybe if there was some discussion about the HoT packages and price points, this disaster could have been avoided. It’s not like we don’t want to give Anet our money, but we also want good value. If the price cannot be lowered at this point, at least pad the packages, especially the base one. It’s nickel and diming your customers, when you make them pay $50, then force them to buy a character slot for the new class.

You realize this is only relevant if everyone who upvoted also didn’t and won’t pre-purchase AND intended to in the first place.

Since none of those things can be verified it’s a meaningless metric.

Am I wrong to feel the price is fair? Even though I work 15-20 hours a week at $9.00 an hour.

You’re only punishing yourselves. They aren’t going to change their prices. Get better jobs if this is too steep a price.

No pre-purchase, no more gem purchases and no more logging in for now.

jihm.2315:

what the kitten is wrong with people this days?
the expansion price is good and fair .
simple as that.

Maybe to you.
But for veteran players who have been supporting the game for years, its a slap in the face to not AT LEAST give them 1 free character slot to try out the new class…

as it stands I would have to pay 50 bucks + an extra 10 just to fit the new class…
You think thats FAIR? your definition is slightly different than most peoples…

Pimsley.6087:

You’re only punishing yourselves. They aren’t going to change their prices. Get better jobs if this is too steep a price.

I’m not paying $50 for a living story season with a few extra bells and whistles unless you can somehow prove that it is anything more than that.

Moving form GW1 to GW2 was fun. Anet rewarded loyal players with lots of fun skins and made the transition a joyful experience.

Anet has lost touch with its base in a massive money grab. Since when does an expansion cost more than the original game?

Plus lets give new plays 4 more expansion slots! Slap in the face to loyal players.

Pimsley.6087:

You’re only punishing yourselves. They aren’t going to change their prices. Get better jobs if this is too steep a price.

It has nothing to do with being too expensive to afford. $50 is basically nothing to someone with even a mediocre full time job. I have seen this faulty argument at play a ton of times over the years, and it has never made any more sense than the first time I saw it. Companies gauging their consumers and engaging in sleazy practices like that FAQ swap out should be vilified, not white knighted by people making out those who don’t bend over as stupid poor people.

From what I can tell, HoT has 20-30 dollars worth of content — probably in the lower range (not counting a character slot). If Anet has already priced it at $50, there’s little chance they’re going to lower it by much… so I’ll wait until HoT goes on sale so that I get my money’s worth. No big deal.

Pimsley.6087:

You’re only punishing yourselves. They aren’t going to change their prices. Get better jobs if this is too steep a price.

It has absolutely nothing to do with whether I have the disposable income for this. It has everything to do with whether I feel there is $50 of value in what I’ve seen of HoT. I can go out and get an entirely new game for that price.

My family with 4 accounts will not be purchasing HoT until sales bring the price down to about $30.

I’ve purchased every Arenanet product on day one, save this moment. I am committed to not purchasing HoT at all at this point. They’ve given me every reason in the past few month’s to be guarded about this Expac. The lack of content patches since HoT’s announcement, the lack of detail involved in HoT’s actual content and all the elusive PR that’s been done is really disappointing and has left me an ex-fan of the series and the company. What Heart of thorns currently has to show in way of content does NOT justify kitten price tag. Most of these expansion features are quality of life upgrades that I’m sure the base game will receive for free anyway. I can understand their reasoning for wanting to bundle the base game with the expansion but they did not consider the ramifications that would cause. Who’s responsible for that? Mike O’ Brien? NCSoft? I’d really like to hear the answer. Putting the character slot behind a more expensive edition was pretty dirty as well.

I hope they listen to reason and act effectively on this debacle. Otherwise myself, and many others may never bother to log in again.

Honestly I think its foolish to preorder it. There are no good incentives and Anet has already shown us that it is better to wait.

On the faq page for months it has said that the base game is required for the expansion, leading new players into buying the base game, only to flip flop on that issue. Leaving players who joined in the last few months out in the cold.
http://i.imgur.com/1h0wSaL.png

They seem pretty volatile to me. How do we know, they aren’t going to announce a $40 expansion that doesn’t include the base game? How do we know they aren’t going to make the $50 option include an extra character, and the $75 option include two?

$100k doesnt matter compared to $5-10m

there are like 7m accounts. if even 1% of the entire playerbase buys in to the preorder, your reddit thread is irrelevant.

I have 11 accounts and I will not buy HoT none of them.

It is not worth to buy that expansion. If there would have been even one character slot in cheapest version I would have been consider it. And those versions what have character slot, is way too expensive.

I have been loyal customer since Guild Wars 1 and I supported Anet when they made Guild Wars 2. I have support them while I have been playing this Guild Wars 2 by buying gems. But now it ends in here. I will not buy any gems either. This slap in the face was true waking call.

I am happy with core game and there is plenty of doing in there. So no HoT to any of my accounts.

insanemaniac.2456:

$100k doesnt matter compared to $5-10m

there are like 7m accounts. if even 1% of the entire playerbase buys in to the preorder, your reddit thread is irrelevant.

If 1% of your 7m buys, that’s 70,000 customers, which means $3,500,000 in sales. $100,000 is about 3% of that. That’s a lot to lose in one avoidable screw up.

After this expansion gw2 core game will be gone since it’s bundle for free in HoT. So basically new player buy the “new gw2” at 50usd while vet player will be buying………!!…

If you honest to god believe there are 7 million ACTIVE accounts ..woah.. i don’t know what to tell you…

I will not but hot because anet went in early aceess direction. This is kitten. 50euro for 3 zones and they dont give even one char slot. All Blog posts are short and about nothing. 0 updates since last LS. Overpricing and many more. Anet isnt trustable anymore.

Pimsley.6087:

You’re only punishing yourselves. They aren’t going to change their prices. Get better jobs if this is too steep a price.

It’s not the price, I can get it right now, I have put money to one side since the announcement. So i could but the ultimate edition. But I’m not going to, as I do not think it’s currently worth that price. I really want to, I do, I really do. But as I don’t see HoT having the same amount of content as the core game. I just can’t bring myself to buy it.

SkiTz.4590:

If you honest to god believe there are 7 million ACTIVE accounts ..woah.. i don’t know what to tell you…

did i say active? no i didnt kittening say active. i said entire playerbase. holy kitten.

“active” is wow losing 3m subs, 30% of their active playerbase, upon xpac release.

if your boycott can hurt that much, youll make anet stumble. some piddly 3% isnt gonna do that.

insanemaniac.2456:

“active” is wow losing 3m subs, 30% of their active playerbase, upon xpac release.

Although WoW did lose that amount of subs, it wasn’t upon expansion release. Subscriptions rose on expansion release.

insanemaniac.2456:

$100k doesnt matter compared to $5-10m

there are like 7m accounts.

Maybe, but only if you count china, which has a diferent pricing anyway. And even then it may be lower than that.

Mia Crazymike.1780:

insanemaniac.2456:

“active” is wow losing 3m subs, 30% of their active playerbase, upon xpac release.

Although WoW did lose that amount of subs, it wasn’t upon expansion release. Subscriptions rose on expansion release.

it seems to me that anything within a couple months of launch would pretty much qualify as “on release”, but ok, sure

Whoever in ArenaNet thought that this expansion is worth as the core game?

Keep in mind that this is creating a tiny portion of the map fighting a single dragon — which also at the last stretch of the story, so content-wise, there’s not much going on in this expansion.

No words about the story in this expansion so I would assume that the size of the story is just like a Living Story episode that would be consumed in less than a week.

IMHO, looking at the size of contents I can get from other games for $50, this expansion isn’t worth it.

jihm.2315:

what the kitten is wrong with people this days?
the expansion price is good and fair .
simple as that.

Looks like to me this pre-purchase of HoT is primarily targeting for new player (since the core game is included). With that, $50 is reasonable. For existing players like myself, these packages and pricing do not make sense. Advertising this in-game might not be an effective venue for new players but for sure it has already generated some criticisms from veteran players. Simple check: Who will pay for the core game when you already have it? I am for a package with only the HoT expansion with reduced price ($20-$30 range).

My wife and I will not be pre purchasing or purchasing HOT until the pricing is in line with the content released. The fact still remains the base price you still have to purchase a character slot for the new class which is garbage. so thats at least another 10 bucks in gems. So that in reality brings total cost for expansion and to be able to enjoy revenant 60 bucks. no thanks I have dumped enough money in the gem store through the past 2 years, I am just glad I bought Elder Scrolls Online the other day as it will keep me busy for at least a while.

$100,000 is a staggering loss…except that the comment is only people wont’ prepurchase, which is different from not purchasing. I’m guess most people in that thread will buy HoT, even if some don’t buy it right away. And when a company makes millions a month, a hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money, but not the end of the world. When you think in terms of quarterlies where a company makes 20-25 million dollars (and will undoubtedly make more now that preordering is open), I’m not thinking this is a huge amount of money.

It is, however, a good amount of negative publicity.

That price is way to high for what you get, the standard edition which would be the only one I would purchase is over priced. Im not pre ordering this and I will not be buying it till the price drops. Gw2 is fun but honestly I can only play so much, usually around 3 months then im gone for a few months then back again, I have not found anything worth sticking around for, I was originally going to pre purchase but not now. Ill stick with my other MMO which im enjoying immensely. And IF the price drops then ill probably pick it up.

I was going to prepurchase. Now I’m going to wait. Right now the price is either $60 for the basic expansion or I will have to delete one of my chars. Neither of these choices is palatable. (And I spend $20/month in the gem store so don’t go on to me about how I bought the game 3 years ago and got X hours of enjoyment out of it for free. And yes, it was my decision to spend $20/month).

/shrug. What I’ll probably do is grind out the gold for a character slot then withhold my gem buying for a month to bring the price down to something reasonable.

Those upvotes and people claiming they won’t pre-purchase don’t really mean anything, honestly. The Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott and Call of Duty whatever it was boycott are proof of that.

Currently at 1980, the players spoke and they are not amused.

I don’t have a problem with the price, but I have a serious problem with the fact that new customers will be getting more value, for the same price as veterans. It’s quite simply a slap in the face for veterans who have been supporting them by buying the core game (in some cases, more than one account), and purchasing gems throughout the game’s life. The bare minimum that should be included with the standard version, for any current owners, is one or two extra character slots. I get the marketing tactic, but it appears tone deaf and sleazy.

Already bought it and couldn’t be more excited about it.

People are all lying claiming that they won’t buy it and that everyone in their 250 person guild won’t buy it.. People are so sensitive and overreact to every little thing. I was hoping for 30-40 bucks tops too but 50 really isn’t bad at all.

Regular content updates since launch for free, an immense amount of new content for HoT and THIS GAME DOESN’T HAVE A MONTHLY FEE.

Everybody is more than entitled to their own opinions. However, I bought the game, I am incredibly excited to play it, and I’m sure I won’t be disappointed. Despite this argument and our differing opinions, I truly hope to see you all in game!

:D

Lampshade.7569:

Currently at 1980, the players spoke and they are not amused.

It’s already the 4th most upvoted thread of all time in the GW2 subreddit. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become #1 by the end of the day. Only a few hundred away.

not interested in buying atm

insanemaniac.2456:

$100k doesnt matter compared to $5-10m

there are like 7m accounts. if even 1% of the entire playerbase buys in to the preorder, your reddit thread is irrelevant.

And how many of these accounts are dupe accounts? 2nd account for mat storing, 2nd accounts for spare char slots, 2nd accounts for wvw tier farming?

If we’d speak about guinine (spelling?) accounts i’d say the estimated number would be far less then that total 7m.

There’s quite a few problems with this pricing.

Currently they’re selling Core Game + Xpan together for 50 dollars. That’s actually a great deal! Awesome for new players. But the problem is they said the xpan by it’s self is 50 dollars and the Core Game is Free. No, that is a lie. From what I’ve seen the xpan does not have 50 dollars worth of content to match or even come close to the amount of content the Core Game has. You can buy GW2 alone for around 20-40 dollars or cheaper all over the place, that leaves 10-30 dollars for Xpansion price. I don’t care what they say, the core game is not free in this bundle.

As an existing account, regardless of if I wanted it or not, if I buy it I’m forced to receive a second Full GW2 account. Why would I want this? It’s a waste of a digital CD key. As far as I’m concerned I should be able to get a full core game refund for the empty unused account they give me because I don’t want it. It’s a waste of both of our money to give it to me so what’s the point? The 2nd account probably doesn’t even get it’s own HoT key so even if I gave it away to someone they wouldn’t have the xpan and would have to buy it for 50 dollars and receive a 2nd account themselves when the more logical approach would be for them to just buy the core+xpan themselves.

So basically I’m gonna come right out and say it; This is the dumbest sale I ever seen~ even after seeing Rockstar’s summer sale scam on Steam. I love this game and it’s sad to see you guys hurt your own project so much with this awful decision.

Those downvoters will buy, cry as they might.

You’re sad you don’t get a discount for owning basic? Your fallacy is in comparing the value of GW2 at release with its value today. Considering the recent $10 GW2 sale, the value of GW2 in 2015 is closer to that $10.

Should it come with a slot? Yes, no, maybe, whatever, but if the price of a slot makes you sour, you have bigger problems in life.

The true value of HOT is the new content. If we are getting the same amount of content as a season pack, then I’d be unhappy paying the price tag of a true expansion for what would just be a glorified live update patch.

Also, your buying the xpac supports the game you’ve put 1000s of hours into. You may get some of this new content for free (Tuesday’s patch), but your dollar supports it all the same.

Some of you people have 5k+ hours and you don’t want to drop $50 on the game you play every day?

Haters gonna hate.

This is really expensive for HoT.
There’s not many new things, it just doesn’t worth it. And we actually don’t really know what is exactly in this expansion.
Well… And why will I need to have another core if I already have one? It makes no sense…
A little bit strange move, I think.

You could always wait 3 years and buy HOT on sale for $10.