Guild Wars 2

lordkrall.7241:

phys.7689:

your theory might be correct, if it wasnt proven wrong by almost every game made in the last 30 years, which built a product, and then sold it.

Now im not saying cash shop isnt an option, or not their chosen way to monetize, however to claim that one cant make money from selling a finished product is really unlikely since that is how most products are created.

I mean essentially the complaint is, the gem shop philosophy in its current incarnation, is effecting the games evolution in ways that dont appeal to the consumer.

And how many of those games were MMOs that got very frequent updates?

You can’t really compare lets say an single player RPG game that is released and then more or less done, with an MMO that constantly changes. The RPG studio can more or less shut down after their game is released because they no longer need to do any major work on it, whilst an MMO still need to maintain a rather large developer group in order to keep the game going.

I have never claimed they can’t make money.
I have claimed that they most likely can’t make ENOUGH money. That is a rather major difference.

You realize that after they sell a game,
they begin working on the next one. Heck even during. Game companies dont ever stop.
How do you think comic books are made? movies?
The idea behind MMOs, is instead of working on a lot of different titles, they work on the same one refining it.

anet made about 120 mil in the first two quarters, primarily from box sales, after that, they made about 110 mil in the next two quarters, probably mostly from gem store.

this suggests, that the revenue from releasing the game, is greater than the revenue from the cash shop. Hence, an expansion every year could actually be MORE profitable than the cash shop.

Call of duty comes out every year, and makes billions of dollars. are you saying billions of dollars is not enough money to run an mmo? because thats odd, since gw2 hasnt made even 1 billion dollars yet and it is fine.

The principle that you cant make enough money to pay for the interim costs, is just straight up incorrect, as proven by every successful game out there.

Now, they choose not to follow that path, maybe because it feels more risky, maybe cause they dont think they can make a hit every year, but dont claim there is not enough profit to be made from selling a box to support the company.

Any how, its their business, they can do what they want, all i can say is, whatever they are doing now, is not keeping me engaged with the game, i havent spent any money in gem store in some time, and i dont really play that much. I cant see myself being enticed to come back or spend more like i did in GW1 many times, with the past and current content models.

Essentially if they want more money from me, they will probably need some substantial content that i want to experience. living story 1 rarely made me feel more interested in playing it.

Yeah, I’m not about to start associating any sort of collection or completionist tendencies certain player have to END GAME content. That is NOT a thing.

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

phys.7689:

your theory might be correct, if it wasnt proven wrong by almost every game made in the last 30 years, which built a product, and then sold it.

Now im not saying cash shop isnt an option, or not their chosen way to monetize, however to claim that one cant make money from selling a finished product is really unlikely since that is how most products are created.

I mean essentially the complaint is, the gem shop philosophy in its current incarnation, is effecting the games evolution in ways that dont appeal to the consumer.

And how many of those games were MMOs that got very frequent updates?

You can’t really compare lets say an single player RPG game that is released and then more or less done, with an MMO that constantly changes. The RPG studio can more or less shut down after their game is released because they no longer need to do any major work on it, whilst an MMO still need to maintain a rather large developer group in order to keep the game going.

I have never claimed they can’t make money.
I have claimed that they most likely can’t make ENOUGH money. That is a rather major difference.

You realize that after they sell a game,
they begin working on the next one. Heck even during. Game companies dont ever stop.
How do you think comic books are made? movies?
The idea behind MMOs, is instead of working on a lot of different titles, they work on the same one refining it.

anet made about 120 mil in the first two quarters, primarily from box sales, after that, they made about 110 mil in the next two quarters, probably mostly from gem store.

this suggests, that the revenue from releasing the game, is greater than the revenue from the cash shop. Hence, an expansion every year could actually be MORE profitable than the cash shop.

Call of duty comes out every year, and makes billions of dollars. are you saying billions of dollars is not enough money to run an mmo? because thats odd, since gw2 hasnt made even 1 billion dollars yet and it is fine.

The principle that you cant make enough money to pay for the interim costs, is just straight up incorrect, as proven by every successful game out there.

Now, they choose not to follow that path, maybe because it feels more risky, maybe cause they dont think they can make a hit every year, but dont claim there is not enough profit to be made from selling a box to support the company.

Any how, its their business, they can do what they want, all i can say is, whatever they are doing now, is not keeping me engaged with the game, i havent spent any money in gem store in some time, and i dont really play that much. I cant see myself being enticed to come back or spend more like i did in GW1 many times, with the past and current content models.

Essentially if they want more money from me, they will probably need some substantial content that i want to experience. living story 1 rarely made me feel more interested in playing it.

You can’t look at things that way. There are tons of games that flop. Making games is a risky business. Making microtransaction items require less development and less cost compared to releasing new expansion and can potentially yield higher revenue. Gem store look fairly attractive as an revenue option compare to making new expansion.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Yeah, I’m not about to start associating any sort of collection or completionist tendencies certain player have to END GAME content. That is NOT a thing.

I think the point they are making is normally the game would take those new skins and create a story around it, or enemies that drop it.
lets take zodiac, you might find it in a new area, with new enemies, who are harder. You might have to do some interesting dynamic event chain and fight a celestial boss. Instead, you go to the cash shop.

Believe it or not endgame is mostly about picking some goal and striving to achieve it. Endgame for baseball players is playing in world series
Endgame for movie producers is making huge hit movies everyone talks about and sees.

In games, these big goals are usually tied to loot, and some grand adventure. Of course you are right, they havent added any new grand adventure to go with the loot. simply putting the loot as random drops in the game would not be any more entertaining. however, if they put the loot in a grand adventure, that would be pretty good.

I have 230G and I have no desire whatsoever to buy any of the gem store skins.
Since Gem Store is the only end game and I have no desire to buy anything, what should I do?

phys.7689:

In games, these big goals are usually tied to loot, and some grand adventure. Of course you are right, they haven’t added any new grand adventure to go with the loot. simply putting the loot as random drops in the game would not be any more entertaining. however, if they put the loot in a grand adventure, that would be pretty good.

Exactly this!
Why not have these skins tied to some event/adventure-pack? Heck, tie it to Living Story, and then after it goes away ( as it always does ;_; ), wait a month or two to release it as gem store skins. Yes, that will irk the elitist set, but they already got their skin for free and before anyone else, so nyeh.

“Endgame beeing gemstore isn’t good!”

No it’s not.

But well, I bet ANET developers think the same!

But well, NCSOFT get’s the money and makes the calls, so the developers can either implement it or leave.

And you know what, NCSOFT Managers most likely know GW2 just as a Product Name and when you tell them the game sucks and stuff should be in game and not in a store they might even agree!

But well, they just do what their shareholders tell them to do and that is increase revenue.

And you know what, if you tell those shareholders that they should not look so much at the revenue but more at a good product, they will tell you the following:

“Last week you gave me your money and said I should put it somewhere, where it get’s the most interest rate and now you tell me the opposite! So what do you want?”

Do you get the irony?

sternenstaub.8763:

“Endgame beeing gemstore isn’t good!”

No it’s not.

But well, I bet ANET developers think the same!

But well, NCSOFT get’s the money and makes the calls, so the developers can either implement it or leave.

And you know what, NCSOFT Managers most likely know GW2 just as a Product Name and when you tell them the game sucks and stuff should be in game and not in a store they might even agree!

But well, they just do what their shareholders tell them to do and that is increase revenue.

And you know what, if you tell those shareholders that they should not look so much at the revenue but more at a good product, they will tell you the following:

“Last week you gave me your money and said I should put it somewhere, where it get’s the most interest rate and now you tell me the opposite! So what do you want?”

Do you get the irony?

thing is, in GW2 in NA/EU i dont think a cash shop focus with the current implementation is going to work out. profits are going down, and only supplemented by new players, problem is every new player eventually becomes an old player.

what it boils down to is, their game design focus is on new players, old players havent really gotten much that fits into what you could sell an old player. The game has not expanded much, and definately hasnt gotten deeper. Which means, for an old player there is little reason to play.

phys.7689:

sternenstaub.8763:

“Endgame beeing gemstore isn’t good!”

No it’s not.

But well, I bet ANET developers think the same!

But well, NCSOFT get’s the money and makes the calls, so the developers can either implement it or leave.

And you know what, NCSOFT Managers most likely know GW2 just as a Product Name and when you tell them the game sucks and stuff should be in game and not in a store they might even agree!

But well, they just do what their shareholders tell them to do and that is increase revenue.

And you know what, if you tell those shareholders that they should not look so much at the revenue but more at a good product, they will tell you the following:

“Last week you gave me your money and said I should put it somewhere, where it get’s the most interest rate and now you tell me the opposite! So what do you want?”

Do you get the irony?

thing is, in GW2 in NA/EU i dont think a cash shop focus with the current implementation is going to work out. profits are going down, and only supplemented by new players, problem is every new player eventually becomes an old player.

what it boils down to is, their game design focus is on new players, old players havent really gotten much that fits into what you could sell an old player. The game has not expanded much, and definately hasnt gotten deeper. Which means, for an old player there is little reason to play.

I agree.
I loved the GW1 idea of payd expansions without a monthly fee.
I realize that GW2 is more expensive and requires more funds, but I still think that the expansion system should have been the way of choice with a Gemstore for QOL items like the mining picks and city outfits.
What I am really angry about is buying an appriced b2p game for a lot of money and then getting just the basic, buggy game while everything new added to the game is in the gemstore and on top of that there is not even an expansion on the horizon

Yes there are nice new things like fotm and well…. Aetherpath!
Living Story is a bad idea especially for a game that wants to point without a subfee where you are able to stay away for 3 weeks… I understand the busuiness point of view, I just think the current way of dealing with the customers is going to lead to disaster. Not just here, but also in other games (looking at you extra payd DLC).
There is another reason why indie games go up, not just innovative playstyle…

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

phys.7689:

your theory might be correct, if it wasnt proven wrong by almost every game made in the last 30 years, which built a product, and then sold it.

Now im not saying cash shop isnt an option, or not their chosen way to monetize, however to claim that one cant make money from selling a finished product is really unlikely since that is how most products are created.

I mean essentially the complaint is, the gem shop philosophy in its current incarnation, is effecting the games evolution in ways that dont appeal to the consumer.

And how many of those games were MMOs that got very frequent updates?

You can’t really compare lets say an single player RPG game that is released and then more or less done, with an MMO that constantly changes. The RPG studio can more or less shut down after their game is released because they no longer need to do any major work on it, whilst an MMO still need to maintain a rather large developer group in order to keep the game going.

I have never claimed they can’t make money.
I have claimed that they most likely can’t make ENOUGH money. That is a rather major difference.

You realize that after they sell a game,
they begin working on the next one. Heck even during. Game companies dont ever stop.
How do you think comic books are made? movies?
The idea behind MMOs, is instead of working on a lot of different titles, they work on the same one refining it.

anet made about 120 mil in the first two quarters, primarily from box sales, after that, they made about 110 mil in the next two quarters, probably mostly from gem store.

this suggests, that the revenue from releasing the game, is greater than the revenue from the cash shop. Hence, an expansion every year could actually be MORE profitable than the cash shop.

Call of duty comes out every year, and makes billions of dollars. are you saying billions of dollars is not enough money to run an mmo? because thats odd, since gw2 hasnt made even 1 billion dollars yet and it is fine.

The principle that you cant make enough money to pay for the interim costs, is just straight up incorrect, as proven by every successful game out there.

Now, they choose not to follow that path, maybe because it feels more risky, maybe cause they dont think they can make a hit every year, but dont claim there is not enough profit to be made from selling a box to support the company.

First starters the initial and ongoing cost are for fps, rpg, and mmorpgs are all different. The ongoing costs for a mmorpg is significantly higher than for a rpg.

Also how many mmorps have been successful from only gaining revenue through box sales?

I can see the op point, I do agree endgame in GW2 is skin collections, and since in the last 19months we have seen over 250 items in the gem store that is the end game.

Endgame in GW2 is not best in slot (stats), but best in slot (unique/new skin/item), it’s a matter of replacing stats for skins carrot on the stick.

It also doesn’t help this game has been out for 19months, if I had not played in the last year I could login and finish all permanent added content added within the last year in a weekend or two.

Rauderi.8706:

phys.7689:

In games, these big goals are usually tied to loot, and some grand adventure. Of course you are right, they haven’t added any new grand adventure to go with the loot. simply putting the loot as random drops in the game would not be any more entertaining. however, if they put the loot in a grand adventure, that would be pretty good.

Exactly this!
Why not have these skins tied to some event/adventure-pack? Heck, tie it to Living Story, and then after it goes away ( as it always does ;_; ), wait a month or two to release it as gem store skins. Yes, that will irk the elitist set, but they already got their skin for free and before anyone else, so nyeh.

Or better .. to hell with all those skins .. give us a good P2W gemshop like Runes of Magic and nobody will complain again because there doesn’t need to be a story tp bring your items to +20 for 500 bucks and do that again after each level cap.

I mean .. we see that the attempt to NOT make a P2W shop has miserably failed since the shop here is soooo evil that any P2W modell can just be better.

Beldin.5498:

Rauderi.8706:

phys.7689:

In games, these big goals are usually tied to loot, and some grand adventure. Of course you are right, they haven’t added any new grand adventure to go with the loot. simply putting the loot as random drops in the game would not be any more entertaining. however, if they put the loot in a grand adventure, that would be pretty good.

Exactly this!
Why not have these skins tied to some event/adventure-pack? Heck, tie it to Living Story, and then after it goes away ( as it always does ;_; ), wait a month or two to release it as gem store skins. Yes, that will irk the elitist set, but they already got their skin for free and before anyone else, so nyeh.

Or better .. to hell with all those skins .. give us a good P2W gemshop like Runes of Magic and nobody will complain again because there doesn’t need to be a story tp bring your items to +20 for 500 bucks and do that again after each level cap.

I mean .. we see that the attempt to NOT make a P2W shop has miserably failed since the shop here is soooo evil that any P2W modell can just be better.

Another person that misses the whole point of the discussion. It is not about “the bad and ugly gem shop”, but rather THE FOCUS on the gem shop rather than the Living Story as evidenced by terrible, quality-wise, LS updates in Season 1, which added no more than 1/50 of the gem shop items.

Seriously, people, try to see the point most of people here are making.

This was part of the reason I made this thread a while back, it didn’t get much attention though. There simply isn’t many skins to work toward. (there are a lot of skins, but not many to choose from once you filter out the ones you don’t like, or are too tedious to make)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-I-like-weapon-re-skins-and-want-more/first#post3620887

Echoing vincecontix, I offer a separate question, how many games survive their subscription model bids within the first year? Two years? Look at Rift, et. al. and how many tried to battle in the WoW subscription arena, and most fled to FreeToPlay in a short time. Those are also games I wouldn’t touch because of poor design decisions elsewhere.

I want to see GW2 get better, I really do, and I will gladly give them money when the mood strikes me. But they need to give us something, a little, in return. In the very least, talk to us again, devs. Tell us that we’re getting something new and exciting (and permanent).

Corpus Christi.2057:

Another person that misses the whole point of the discussion. It is not about “the bad and ugly gem shop”, but rather THE FOCUS on the gem shop rather than the Living Story as evidenced by terrible, quality-wise, LS updates in Season 1, which added no more than 1/50 of the gem shop items.

Seriously, people, try to see the point most of people here are making.

Just because YOU don’t liked the content doesn’t mean that the content hasn’t been created and that it tooks a lot of hours to create them, and that the creators are human beeings that need some money to pay their rent and buy something to eat.

However, i wonder really why you are all still here instead of all those other games that give you sooo much more and better content for free, since it seems there must be so much of them out there.

And of course a game like WoW with monthly subscription also stops taking money from you if they don’t bring out new content or even just content you personally don’t like … ohh .. wait .. they don’t .. while here you are free to not pay anything if your not satisfied.

Well they’ve been added non-gemstore items. They’ve added ascended armor sets recently, and usually during the LS season they added an achievement meta skin and skins from that LS section (Scarlet’s rifles, halo/horns). Also, Tequatl and Triple Wurm minipets/ascended themed gear. Additionally, they’re adding 2 sets from weapons when WvW season 2 ends(one with effects and one without).

laokoko.7403:

Only thing Anet care is how much money they make, and how many people still play their game.

Uhhhh, what else would a game developer care about? If either of those numbers are too low they are all out of jobs…so yea, they care a whole bunch about how much money they make and how many people still play their game. In fact, all companies care about how much money they make and how many people play/use their product. That’s the entire effing point of business otherwise you are a charitable organization. Can’t pay your employees with feels.

The sad thing is most players on here don’t realize that a few months ago this conversation happened on the official forums of two other popular game titles for the very same reason before they made a complete change of their rewards system and their loot system, and not their playerbase has grown tremendously. It’s history repeating itself right before our eyes.

vincecontix.1264:

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

phys.7689:

your theory might be correct, if it wasnt proven wrong by almost every game made in the last 30 years, which built a product, and then sold it.

Now im not saying cash shop isnt an option, or not their chosen way to monetize, however to claim that one cant make money from selling a finished product is really unlikely since that is how most products are created.

I mean essentially the complaint is, the gem shop philosophy in its current incarnation, is effecting the games evolution in ways that dont appeal to the consumer.

And how many of those games were MMOs that got very frequent updates?

You can’t really compare lets say an single player RPG game that is released and then more or less done, with an MMO that constantly changes. The RPG studio can more or less shut down after their game is released because they no longer need to do any major work on it, whilst an MMO still need to maintain a rather large developer group in order to keep the game going.

I have never claimed they can’t make money.
I have claimed that they most likely can’t make ENOUGH money. That is a rather major difference.

You realize that after they sell a game,
they begin working on the next one. Heck even during. Game companies dont ever stop.
How do you think comic books are made? movies?
The idea behind MMOs, is instead of working on a lot of different titles, they work on the same one refining it.

anet made about 120 mil in the first two quarters, primarily from box sales, after that, they made about 110 mil in the next two quarters, probably mostly from gem store.

this suggests, that the revenue from releasing the game, is greater than the revenue from the cash shop. Hence, an expansion every year could actually be MORE profitable than the cash shop.

Call of duty comes out every year, and makes billions of dollars. are you saying billions of dollars is not enough money to run an mmo? because thats odd, since gw2 hasnt made even 1 billion dollars yet and it is fine.

The principle that you cant make enough money to pay for the interim costs, is just straight up incorrect, as proven by every successful game out there.

Now, they choose not to follow that path, maybe because it feels more risky, maybe cause they dont think they can make a hit every year, but dont claim there is not enough profit to be made from selling a box to support the company.

First starters the initial and ongoing cost are for fps, rpg, and mmorpgs are all different. The ongoing costs for a mmorpg is significantly higher than for a rpg.

Also how many mmorps have been successful from only gaining revenue through box sales?

and regardless, good games make massive money. Thats really the point.
Even if cod costs a lot less to make.
they make more money. COD could pay for 6 or 7 gw2s
GTA5 hit 1 billion in 3 days, GW2 at current rate will need to operate for 10 years to hit that.

As far as successful MMOs with b2p model, that would be guild wars 1

heres the point, if you make really good games, you will have more than enough profit to build new games, and pay ongoing costs. you will be able to constantly redevelop, and make even more money. People have very little problem burning up their money on things they like/want/enjoy.

Now problem with cash shop isnt its existence, or the stuff in the shop, so much as the fact that having the cash shop as your primary income tends to mess up the priorities. While it appears to the company that cash shop sales are what are paying the bills, what is really paying the bills is how engaged the players are in the game itself. Its like lets say movie makers got all the money from sales in the theaters, they start making movies free, but they sell food, special seats, 3d glasses.

The problem comes when they start pouring more and more money into these things because they look it as the thing that makes them money, and stop putting money/time/etc into the movie itself. When they start designing the Movies in ways they think will improve the sales of amenities and movie foods, etc.

If the GW2 itself was very fulfilling and strong no one would be complaining about the cash shop. The problem is it is not. The initial game was strong, but over time that is waning and any energy anet spends in the shop seems like a waste to players because they arent as interested in the actual game anymore.

phys.7689:

and regardless, good games make massive money. Thats really the point.
Even if cod costs a lot less to make.
they make more money. COD could pay for 6 or 7 gw2s
GTA5 hit 1 billion in 3 days, GW2 at current rate will need to operate for 10 years to hit that.

As far as successful MMOs with b2p model, that would be guild wars 1

heres the point, if you make really good games, you will have more than enough profit to build new games, and pay ongoing costs. you will be able to constantly redevelop, and make even more money. People have very little problem burning up their money on things they like/want/enjoy.

Now problem with cash shop isnt its existence, or the stuff in the shop, so much as the fact that having the cash shop as your primary income tends to mess up the priorities. While it appears to the company that cash shop sales are what are paying the bills, what is really paying the bills is how engaged the players are in the game itself. Its like lets say movie makers got all the money from sales in the theaters, they start making movies free, but they sell food, special seats, 3d glasses.

The problem comes when they start pouring more and more money into these things because they look it as the thing that makes them money, and stop putting money/time/etc into the movie itself. When they start designing the Movies in ways they think will improve the sales of amenities and movie foods, etc.

If the GW2 itself was very fulfilling and strong no one would be complaining about the cash shop. The problem is it is not. The initial game was strong, but over time that is waning and any energy anet spends in the shop seems like a waste to players because they arent as interested in the actual game anymore.

You are being overly optimistic, they wouldn’t dump that much time and money unless they are confidence GW2 expansion not only sell but make a good profit. Games nowadays take years to develop and millions of investments. There are game companies that went bankrupt because their game doesn’t sell, you don’t realize the huge risk involved.

It has happened in many MMO. Microtransaction & cashshop shift the focus of game developers on their games to selling their virtual property. Even though I don’t like it, If that is the direction that they want to go, there is little we could do about it.

Saylu.8271:

You are being overly optimistic, they wouldn’t dump that much time and money unless they are confidence GW2 expansion not only sell but make a good profit. Games nowadays take years to develop and millions of investments. There are game companies that went bankrupt because their game doesn’t sell, you don’t realize the huge risk involved.

It has happened in many MMO. Microtransaction & cashshop shift the focus of game developers on their games to selling their virtual property. Even though I don’t like it, If that is the direction that they want to go, there is little we could do about it.

Thing is the development costs for MMOs tend to go down, because most of the content is already there. Developing new content with known engines, tools, and frameworks is a lot less expensive.

and while many a MMO and game has failed, many have failed with all sorts of different monetization plans.

I think the cash shop focus is best for a struggling game, that doesnt have start up capital, and needs to re-adjust its development based on income constantly. But Gw2 doesnt really have these concerns.

Anyhow, they can do what they want, im just saying as it currently is, the game is not the engaging for people who have been playing it for awhile. Cash shop items will never make interested in GW2, they only work when i am already engaged. I think they need to work on making the game more engaging for people who have played it a bit, since more and more of their audience is falling into that bracket.

phys.7689:

Saylu.8271:

You are being overly optimistic, they wouldn’t dump that much time and money unless they are confidence GW2 expansion not only sell but make a good profit. Games nowadays take years to develop and millions of investments. There are game companies that went bankrupt because their game doesn’t sell, you don’t realize the huge risk involved.

It has happened in many MMO. Microtransaction & cashshop shift the focus of game developers on their games to selling their virtual property. Even though I don’t like it, If that is the direction that they want to go, there is little we could do about it.

Thing is the development costs for MMOs tend to go down, because most of the content is already there. Developing new content with known engines, tools, and frameworks is a lot less expensive.

and while many a MMO and game has failed, many have failed with all sorts of different monetization plans.

I think the cash shop focus is best for a struggling game, that doesnt have start up capital, and needs to re-adjust its development based on income constantly. But Gw2 doesnt really have these concerns.

Anyhow, they can do what they want, im just saying as it currently is, the game is not the engaging for people who have been playing it for awhile. Cash shop items will never make interested in GW2, they only work when i am already engaged. I think they need to work on making the game more engaging for people who have played it a bit, since more and more of their audience is falling into that bracket.

How much do you think making a new armor skin cost compare to making new dungeons or new explorable areas? Probably less than 1/10 of the development cost for 1/3 of the price. It is an industry trend. They realize selling virtual items is a huge gold mine. Weirdly some people are willing to pay more for virtual vanity items than the game itself.

TheGaryTh.1649:

Well they’ve been added non-gemstore items. They’ve added ascended armor sets recently, and usually during the LS season they added an achievement meta skin and skins from that LS section (Scarlet’s rifles, halo/horns). Also, Tequatl and Triple Wurm minipets/ascended themed gear. Additionally, they’re adding 2 sets from weapons when WvW season 2 ends(one with effects and one without).

Also the Sovereign weapon set (which should be available again when the Pavilion comes back, actually), which everyone forgets for some reason.

Hopefully, they learn on their mistakes and introduce expansion-worthy content via Living Story rather soon.

100% agree with OP. By doing this they effectively turned the whole game into a boring gold-grind.

It’s a good example how the cash-shop focus does influences the game in a negative way.

Also have a look at these two threads:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NcSoft-earnings-1Q-14/page/3#post4030557
and
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-focus-on-micro-transactions/first

They should have gone for focusing on expansion. Releasing an expansion at least every year / year and a half and should then have put all the items (skins, mini’s, haircuts, dyes and so on) in the game as specific drops from specific content. It would have been a better game and they would earn the money with the expansion-sales and would have kept a good name for themselves.

lordkrall.7241:

How would you suggest they fill the gap in revenue from removing the skins though?

While they could keep a very limited cash-shop that only sells out of game items like a name-changer, sex-changer, race changer and that sort of stuff there would not really be a need for filling up the gap.

Have a look at your average non-mmo. They release a game.. then go build a sequel and 3 years later they release that. They simply use the money from the last sale to invest in the new one (fill up the gap) and still make a profit. Yes MMO’s do require some more running cost and maintenance but thats why they should release already after a year what should be doable because they are simply expanding the game, not building a total new one.

You always have gaps that is not really the problem.

In addition have a look at this chart: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/151443/1q14_NCSoft.jpg that somebody posted in another forum. It does show that GW1 was able to get nice incomes for it’s expansions that where about equal to it’s initial sales.

Meehael.8240:

Leeto.1570:

Gear is content, there is alot of things to do but noone cares to do them cause there is no reward.
Add timer to 6 jumping puzzles, reward with tokens for doing it so people can buy lawless set for them… BOOM people kept busy for week +
But no instead they take lawless set and split it into pieces and sell each for 300 gems cause why sell 1 set for 800 gems if you can sell it for 1800 gems…

Yes, but where is money in that for anet? Ppl just use bandwidth.

Keeping people happy to make sure they buy the upcoming expansion.

lordkrall.7241:

laokoko.7403:

Only thing Anet care is how much money they make, and how many people still play their game.

they don’t really care if forum are spam with how shallow the game, as long as those person dont’ quit (yet).

we vote with our wallet and online time. that’s apparently what anet cares.

OMG a company cares about how much money they make! How dare they?!?

Is this really a surprise for anyone?
Companies are mainly made in order to make money. Of course making money will have a high priority.

How do you think the game would survive (and develop) if they didn’t have any money to spend on it?

Nobody here says they are not allowed to earn money. And looking at the numbers they would have made about the same amount of money if they would have released 1 expansions after a year (little less) and had no cash-shop (vs what they did now). The next expansion sale would have made the expansions-based model without a cash-shop more profitable then what they are doing now over the same period of time.

As far as we can see from the numbers we have that is.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NcSoft-earnings-1Q-14/page/3#post4029793

Biohazard.7523:

lordkrall.7241:

How would you suggest they fill the gap in revenue from removing the skins though?

They can still add armor skins in gem store, and armor skins in game so you can earn them.
I dont see the problem… It doesnt mean that they need to quit putting skins in gem store..
Just add them in game..

That is one of the reasons why you should not play guild wars 2.

Would likely not work so well. Lets say they put different ones in the game and in the cash-shop. That would mean they would want to put the better looking (or more flashy) in the cash-shop, why else would people buy it. But that would just as much effect the game.

Then the complain is “I killed that dragon and was rewarded with a skin for it, however the guy that grind some gold / put in some cash did just buy one from the cash-shop and has a better one”. That takes much away from the game.

Putting the same in the game and in the cash-shop and in the game would also be a problem because then you devaluate the skin from a game-play standpoint. Same example with the boss. Well cool that you have that skin but was it’s not special because yeah it can drop from that dragon but you can just as easily buy it. And as that skin is the reward for your kill being able to buy it is like P2W).

They should have put everything in the game behind specific content. That would result in a better game, more people players, and so resulted in more expansion-sales what would eventually mean they generate more money over time.

So the whole idea that without the cash-shop they would not be able to make money is invalid.

laokoko.7403:

lordkrall.7241:

laokoko.7403:

Only thing Anet care is how much money they make, and how many people still play their game.

they don’t really care if forum are spam with how shallow the game, as long as those person dont’ quit (yet).

we vote with our wallet and online time. that’s apparently what anet cares.

OMG a company cares about how much money they make! How dare they?!?

Is this really a surprise for anyone?
Companies are mainly made in order to make money. Of course making money will have a high priority.

How do you think the game would survive (and develop) if they didn’t have any money to spend on it?

What I’m getting at is if the game is so boring or sucks, why are you still playing the game.

The only thing Anet saw is you are still playing the game. They dont’ care if players think their game is trash. If the game is trash why are you still playing.

Question is not if they are playing but if they are paying.
I may hope that nobody that feels this way will be buying gems.

ArenaNet should be thankful that at least they still hang around hoping for better times. Many likely have already moved on for good.

VampyreJack.9183:

laokoko.7403:

farm gold -> trade gold for gem-> buy skin.

there’s your endgame.

LOL, yep, this is exactly what i do. I have 12 level 80’s and all i do every day for the past 2 months now is grind dungeons for gold, convert them to gems, buy skins, and the occasional wvw (wvw is boring the past couple of weeks now because we’re guaranteed 1st place this season….so why even try now)….

Problem is that many people do not consider that fun.

lordkrall.7241:

Andred.1087:

Expansions.

And what revenue should they use in order to pay for their employees between those expansions?

A part of the profit they earned from the original sales.

That how it works. You invest, you earn, you take part of that to invest again, earn again and so on.

lordkrall.7241:

Andred.1087:

China release. Also, that expansion money will go a long way.

And between the first and second expansion?

You are aware that paying 300+ employees does tend to cost a rather massive amount of money, right?

Without ongoing income there won’t be a company to make expansions.

No company, except for about every non-mmo game-maker out there that is. They release an expansion or a squeal a few years later using the money they earned on the previous version of the game.

Yeah paying many employees does cost a lot of money but when done right selling a game / expansion will also earn a lot of money and that should cover the cost.

That model in fact made GW2 possible by applying it to GW1.

And then there are other incomes like merchandise and so on.

We would have sooo much better games out there and also so many more rich people i think, if some of you guy build up your own MMO company and create the MMOs that give us all everlasting fun without having to pay anything for it.

C’mon guys .. make it happen

lordkrall.7241:

phys.7689:

your theory might be correct, if it wasnt proven wrong by almost every game made in the last 30 years, which built a product, and then sold it.

Now im not saying cash shop isnt an option, or not their chosen way to monetize, however to claim that one cant make money from selling a finished product is really unlikely since that is how most products are created.

I mean essentially the complaint is, the gem shop philosophy in its current incarnation, is effecting the games evolution in ways that dont appeal to the consumer.

And how many of those games were MMOs that got very frequent updates?

You can’t really compare lets say an single player RPG game that is released and then more or less done, with an MMO that constantly changes. The RPG studio can more or less shut down after their game is released because they no longer need to do any major work on it, whilst an MMO still need to maintain a rather large developer group in order to keep the game going.

I have never claimed they can’t make money.
I have claimed that they most likely can’t make ENOUGH money. That is a rather major difference.

No. The non-mmo would just as well have to fix bugs and in fact you usually see at least one bigger (free) patch being released. But I agree those cost are a lower then on an running MMO.

Then there are server maintenance. Every game that has MP’s has those cost as well after release once again that might be higher for MMO’s.

That non-mmo game developer will however not shut down but start working on a sequel (a completely new game) that released about 3 years later.

The MMO can start building on an expansion that releases a year later. So those extra cost to maintain the game should not be a problem.

I have no problem if we would then not have the LS type of in-between. Maybe one bigger patch would be fine. They could also set up a very small story leading towards the next expansion (like how the LS started.. just some minor things did change). That should all the doable.

Beldin.5498:

We would have sooo much better games out there and also so many more rich people i think, if some of you guy build up your own MMO company and create the MMOs that give us all everlasting fun without having to pay anything for it.

C’mon guys .. make it happen

Some of us guys? So far I have seen nobody who said people would have not to pay for anything. In fact many people here ask for expansions (other want a mix of cash-shop / ingame) but nobody said everything should be free. Or maybe I missed a few post.

Who are you referring to? Who said everything should be free? Please in-light me.

Devata.6589:

Beldin.5498:

We would have sooo much better games out there and also so many more rich people i think, if some of you guy build up your own MMO company and create the MMOs that give us all everlasting fun without having to pay anything for it.

C’mon guys .. make it happen

Some of us guys? So far I have seen nobody who said people would have not to pay for anything. In fact many people here ask for expansions (other want a mix of cash-shop / ingame) but nobody said everything should be free. Or maybe I missed a few post.

Who are you referring two? Who said everything should be free? Please in-light me.

That guy’s posts never make sense. Just read some of them above.

I?d say end game is WvW and fractals not getting skins. In wvw and fractals you are able to test your skills and use all the gear you have grinded. In what way is obtaining skins end game?

The game offers different end games:

• Complaining on the forums
• Forum suspensions
• AFK’ing in LA or that new area
• Flipping TP
• Repeat the same PvE stuff
• Living story Gem store content
• Grind PvP for no reason
• Farm achievements
• Dream of a precursor drop
• Farm gold until the next nerf
• Hope for CDI results

There are so many different things to do as end game that honestly it is not that bad…

I would rather see new ways to play the game in the gem store (like new classes/weapons/races) instead of rewards for playing the game (like it is now). It’s a shame that most other players like it the other way around.

Well here a question i should ask why should end game “items” (not the end game it self because items in any game dose not equitable end game they are just what comes from the end game) be only obtainable though RNG from mob drops or from a added token system that is not apart of any other main token system such as GOLD and or MONEY for the game?

vincecontix.1264:

I?d say end game is WvW and fractals not getting skins. In wvw and fractals you are able to test your skills and use all the gear you have grinded. In what way is obtaining skins end game?

In an MMO there are many different type of players and everybody has it’s own preferred game-play and so it’s own preferred end-game.

In many mmo’s my end-game is usually going into the world and working towards goals like a min-collection, mounts, a cool skin, as ranger / hunter looking for rare pets, getting funny items and if available doing fun-crafts also by going into the world to get recipe’s and so on.

In GW2 it’s not btw as all those elements don’t exist or are just a boring gold-grind. Here it’s for me nor mainly doing stuff with the guild, leveling an alt, doing a JP or WvW but that has gotten old.

GW2 did focus a lot of skins (look for example at legendaries) so you could say that they mainly focus on those players. So end-content is different for everybody. Thats also why the whole P2W argument is strange because if something is P2W is also completely depended on the person. For somebody who likes to collect cosmetics, having cosmetics in the cash-shop is just as much P2W.

Jski.6180:

Well here a question i should ask why should end game “items” (not the end game it self because items in any game dose not equitable end game they are just what comes from the end game) be only obtainable though RNG from mob drops or from a added token system that is not apart of any other main token system such as GOLD and or MONEY for the game?

Working towards those items can be end-game. So because of that it’s part os the end-game. Having the activity without that reward can make the activity less interesting for people to do.

There may be many ways it can be obtainable. And some can simply be sold by NPC’s for gold. But you are playing a game and so for the best result the best stuff should drop from the highest bost basically.

Making everything a gold-grind is boring, buying it with money makes it effectively not part of the game. I buy a game to play it, not to be able to buy skins to put on my character.

Having one and the same item available in multiple ways devalues the item from a game-play element. It’s not anymore that drop you can get from that boss.

Besides, as long as you do not make it account-bound it will always be available also for gold on the TP. So for most options that will still be an option.

So most important is just that it’s in the game mainly as reward for playing the game basically. Yes some can be sold by npc’s but not so many should be a gold-grind and buying it with cash makes in no game / game-play.

Devata.6589:

Jski.6180:

Well here a question i should ask why should end game “items” (not the end game it self because items in any game dose not equitable end game they are just what comes from the end game) be only obtainable though RNG from mob drops or from a added token system that is not apart of any other main token system such as GOLD and or MONEY for the game?

Working towards those items can be end-game. So because of that it’s part os the end-game. Having the activity without that reward can make the activity less interesting for people to do.

There may be many ways it can be obtainable. And some can simply be sold by NPC’s for gold. But you are playing a game and so for the best result the best stuff should drop from the highest bost basically.

Making everything a gold-grind is boring, buying it with money makes it effectively not part of the game. I buy a game to play it, not to be able to buy skins to put on my character.

Having one and the same item available in multiple ways devalues the item from a game-play element. It’s not anymore that drop you can get from that boss.

Besides, as long as you do not make it account-bound it will always be available also for gold on the TP. So for most options that will still be an option.

So most important is just that it’s in the game mainly as reward for playing the game basically. Yes some can be sold by npc’s but not so many should be a gold-grind and buying it with cash makes in no game / game-play.

That the thing its up to you how you get this gold if it was a pure token system then you would have to do one even and only that one event over and over to get the “items” you want. If you want to get gold the fastest way then your always going to chose that way but that is YOUR chose if you find that way boring then the items you want must be worth the time you put into it or your fooling your self into thinking they are.

That the way GW2 is made you chose your own path and its not forced on you how you should go about it yes there are faster ways of doing things but they tend to be more boring not because the events them self are boring but because ppl tend to over do them. I am sry your a boring person who can only think in terms of best gold out put but that is no excuse to take it out on others who can find fun in other less productive ways of doing things.

laokoko.7403:

lordkrall.7241:

laokoko.7403:

Only thing Anet care is how much money they make, and how many people still play their game.

they don’t really care if forum are spam with how shallow the game, as long as those person dont’ quit (yet).

we vote with our wallet and online time. that’s apparently what anet cares.

OMG a company cares about how much money they make! How dare they?!?

Is this really a surprise for anyone?
Companies are mainly made in order to make money. Of course making money will have a high priority.

How do you think the game would survive (and develop) if they didn’t have any money to spend on it?

What I’m getting at is if the game is so boring or sucks, why are you still playing the game.

The only thing Anet saw is you are still playing the game. They dont’ care if players think their game is trash. If the game is trash why are you still playing.

Precisely – Adapt or leave… those are the only two options.

All GW2 needs to make is ~$5 per player per year to maintain their current position in the market (which is pretty strong right now). Every person spending more than that nullifies those who don’t.

Unless there is a mass revolt, ranting “vote with your wallets” is kinda moot and large-scale change to the existing revenue model won’t happen.

Jski.6180:

Devata.6589:

Jski.6180:

Well here a question i should ask why should end game “items” (not the end game it self because items in any game dose not equitable end game they are just what comes from the end game) be only obtainable though RNG from mob drops or from a added token system that is not apart of any other main token system such as GOLD and or MONEY for the game?

Working towards those items can be end-game. So because of that it’s part os the end-game. Having the activity without that reward can make the activity less interesting for people to do.

There may be many ways it can be obtainable. And some can simply be sold by NPC’s for gold. But you are playing a game and so for the best result the best stuff should drop from the highest bost basically.

Making everything a gold-grind is boring, buying it with money makes it effectively not part of the game. I buy a game to play it, not to be able to buy skins to put on my character.

Having one and the same item available in multiple ways devalues the item from a game-play element. It’s not anymore that drop you can get from that boss.

Besides, as long as you do not make it account-bound it will always be available also for gold on the TP. So for most options that will still be an option.

So most important is just that it’s in the game mainly as reward for playing the game basically. Yes some can be sold by npc’s but not so many should be a gold-grind and buying it with cash makes in no game / game-play.

That the thing its up to you how you get this gold if it was a pure token system then you would have to do one even and only that one event over and over to get the “items” you want. If you want to get gold the fastest way then your always going to chose that way but that is YOUR chose if you find that way boring then the items you want must be worth the time you put into it or your fooling your self into thinking they are.

That the way GW2 is made you chose your own path and its not forced on you how you should go about it yes there are faster ways of doing things but they tend to be more boring not because the events them self are boring but because ppl tend to over do them. I am sry your a boring person who can only think in terms of best gold out put but that is no excuse to take it out on others who can find fun in other less productive ways of doing things.

I am not a boring person who can only think in terms of best gold. Not sure where I said I did that. I said grinding gold for everything is boring. And so I do not do it.

I like to work towards an item. It makes content more fun. Every-time you do it the rush of getting the item. That is what is fun for me and many people. Doing some content and seeing you gold-number slowly go up is not fun. In addition it gives the item itself more value. It’s something you did especially that content for in stead of something many people might have just gotten by grinding gold with champ trains or whatever is most profitable at this time (I don’t know as that is not what I do). I simply am less interested in the items taking the game-play “working toward items” away.

I am also not sure what you mean with saying that I ‘take it out on others’? I did say, as long as items are not account bound those can still be both with gold so people who prefer to play that way can still do so.

I also said I did level an alt and do JP’s. That would then be “the way I like to play” in your explanation I guess (in reality ‘playing th way I want’ is working towards those items) but that will never get me the gold I would need for most stuff.

Devata.6589:

I am not a boring person who can only think in terms of best gold. Not sure where I said I did that. I said grinding gold for everything is boring. And so I do not do it.

I like to work towards an item. It makes content more fun. Every-time you do it the rush of getting the item. That is what is fun for me and many people. Doing some content and seeing you gold-number slowly go up is not fun. In addition it gives the item itself more value. It’s something you did especially that content for in stead of something many people might have just gotten by grinding gold with champ trains or whatever is most profitable at this time (I don’t know as that is not what I do). I simply am less interested in the items taking the game-play “working toward items” away.

I am also not sure what you mean with saying that I ‘take it out on others’? I did say, as long as items are not account bound those can still be both with gold so people who prefer to play that way can still do so.

I also said I did level an alt and do JP’s. That would then be “the way I like to play” in your explanation I guess (in reality ‘playing th way I want’ is working towards those items) but that will never get me the gold I would need for most stuff.

I think your first statement is saying that you are a boring person (if getting gold as best as you can is something you like to do but you find getting gold boring that makes you in your own view a boring person) and we can only truly judges our self.

There also more ways to get “items” then just simply gold farm but gold still needs to stay important to the system to keep gold at a high valuable. I mean how often do you want to be payed for work you have done in real life with eggs or food or any thing other then money? By keeping gold as an important part of the system for getting “items” you open up a chose for every one to do any thing they want to get to some type of “item” any item. In more of a token system like you see in dungeons you must run though dungeons over and over to get the skins or the items from it.

Its an attk on points of views every time you say i want more of a finite system to get items being that money or gold is the most open system of getting “items.” It just happens everyone can make gold in GW2 well not every one can do all the content.

Jski.6180:

Devata.6589:

I am not a boring person who can only think in terms of best gold. Not sure where I said I did that. I said grinding gold for everything is boring. And so I do not do it.

I like to work towards an item. It makes content more fun. Every-time you do it the rush of getting the item. That is what is fun for me and many people. Doing some content and seeing you gold-number slowly go up is not fun. In addition it gives the item itself more value. It’s something you did especially that content for in stead of something many people might have just gotten by grinding gold with champ trains or whatever is most profitable at this time (I don’t know as that is not what I do). I simply am less interested in the items taking the game-play “working toward items” away.

I am also not sure what you mean with saying that I ‘take it out on others’? I did say, as long as items are not account bound those can still be both with gold so people who prefer to play that way can still do so.

I also said I did level an alt and do JP’s. That would then be “the way I like to play” in your explanation I guess (in reality ‘playing th way I want’ is working towards those items) but that will never get me the gold I would need for most stuff.

I think your first statement is saying that you are a boring person (if getting gold as best as you can is something you like to do but you find getting gold boring that makes you in your own view a boring person) and we can only truly judges our self.

There also more ways to get “items” then just simply gold farm but gold still needs to stay important to the system to keep gold at a high valuable. I mean how often do you want to be payed for work you have done in real life with eggs or food or any thing other then money? By keeping gold as an important part of the system for getting “items” you open up a chose for every one to do any thing they want to get to some type of “item” any item. In more of a token system like you see in dungeons you must run though dungeons over and over to get the skins or the items from it.

Its an attk on points of views every time you say i want more of a finite system to get items being that money or gold is the most open system of getting “items.” It just happens everyone can make gold in GW2 well not every one can do all the content.

“If getting gold as best as you can is something you like to do”. I do not like to do that.

“I mean how often do you want to be payed for work you have done in real life with eggs or food or any thing other then money?” Exactly my point. This gold-grind makes it feel like work.

I don’t want it to be like real life. How often do I get to kill a dragon in real life?

I have now also said multiple times that as long as you do not make all items account-bound gold will always be an option to get those items. So I don’t take that part away.

Tokens is the same. it’s farming for an item. However the token system is not bad as an extra. If you would have specific drops from bosses in dungeons that would be great and while you do that dungeon multiple times for that item in the meanwhile you at least get the tokens and so eventually get a full dungeon-set. So it’s a nice extra but not so fun as working directly for an item.

And maybe the fact that everybody can make money and then buy everything is what devaluates all those items.

Anyway with making items drop from specific content you do not take the gold-option away. At least not for the items that are not account-bound.

The gem store has a lot of potential but unfortunately it is executed in the worst ways possible.

The store focuses too much on skins and useless stuff and also gates players to obtain those by actually playing the game. There is a big disconnect between the actual game and the gem store. The living story tried to fix the gap but instead it felt like the game contents are actually getting designed around the gems tore item (ships pass, transmutation, etc) instead of the other way around.

Someday far in the future, someone from ANet will realize how much missed potential there was in this game and how many mistakes were made.