Guild Wars 2

Hey guys

So in my last topic someone mentioned “extra credit” on youtube, so I watched a number of episodes and would now like to discuss how games make a profit.

To make things easy please watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0ljzAi5DuA for a run down on the 3 ways of funding a games development.

Now that everyones on the same page I want to get a discussion going about how companies pay for a game continuing, future games, updates, etc.

The obvious model used by numerous companies is subscription fee based, which has become very unpopular over time and Anet has set a new stand for others to follow in this regard.

However I think there are other models that are yet to be explored, rather than a Gem store (Which anet does very well, not unfair or unbalanced, just right)

So the other ways which come to mind (feel free to bring up others) would be

1: Advertising models (Think youtube, companies could place a well placed sales pitch within the game, eg Vitamin D supplements, which have been shown through A LOT of research to be very worth while taking, ESPECIALLY if your inside a lot like gamers)

2: CPU processing use, Extra credit cover this in a video as well so refer to them for more explanation.

3: The gathering of information, eg they could have well placed in game questionnaires or have them emailed to you which provide in-game benefits and allow them to sell the data to others.

I just want to get some idea of how the gaming community would react to the various forms of revenue raising. Feel free to bring up other ideas, or express your opinion on B2P, P2P, F2P, gem stores, etc.

And old F2P grinder I played once upon a time called Two Moons had a feature where you could tick a box to display onscreen ads when you go AFK for a minute or longer in exchange for a XP boost. As far as I’m aware it was never properly implemented and always just showed the name of the game itself, but in theory I was fine with it since it was just a static image that only showed if I stopped playing for awhile.

I’m saying this because even if Anet did something as unobtrusive and optional as that, I can’t begin to imagine the explosion of outrage we’d see on the forums. Being advertised to isn’t something most people are too keen on. I’m normally not someone who gives much credence to comments about things “breaking immersion,” but that would absolutely be a big one.

The most reliable and least controversial way to monetize the game is to create compelling content players want to pay for. Assuming HoT goes well, I hope we see a new expansion come out sooner than 3 more years from now.

Runescape was a totally free game when it was first released. They managed to run it from ads on the browser window. After about a year or so they added memberships and I can say the removal of those ads and soon after being able to play in full screen mode was heaven sent. Ads here would suck big time.

We have it pretty sweet here. But please give them NO ideas. The gemstore works fine and with expansions being a paid thing it gives them an incentive to keep rolling future expansions out which of course keeps us playing longer so it’s win win.

Edit:

As for doing surveys or giving out personal info, never really a good thing. It’s bad enough that there are app games that run these models. Sharing too much info about yourself is not a good thing……

Ok, before anyone else posts please keep in mind Advertising has come a long way since the 90’s…. Do you know how many movies you have probably seen which had hidden product placements? This is what I am referring to, not a slap in the face advertising slogan. Obviously everyone thinks of the worse case scenario eg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs5bbWSrzBQ Worst movie placement EVER!).

Just keep this in mind.

I just had a vision of us all wandering around the capital, McDonald’s Arch, with Nike capes, Budweiser swords and Pepsi consumables.

They should do that for April 1st….

Having played several games that tried advertising support (shadowbane, anarchy online, battlefield 2142) I can say that it’s extremely intrusive and annoying, and if faced with the option of paying a subscription (not my favorite model) or being subjected to ads, I’d choose the sub every day.

Seeing ads for outside products or services in a game rings of desperation as in every single instance (except mobile games for some reason, but that world is… strange) the developers have implemented it as a last resort effort when the game is basically on life support and they’re not prepared to invest extra effort in to updates or new things to retain players.

The microtransaction/buy to play models are far superior methods from a consumer standpoint as long as they’re done in an inobtrusive way.

GW2 does a pretty good job with this. You only see BLTC ads in the launcher, or when you open the trade post (so you’re “shopping” in way way or another already) and the expansion model is a great move as it de-emphasizes the cash shop so that they’re not pressured to keep pushing it quite as hard due to the fact it’s not their sole ongoing means of income.

Sure, the living story with themed gem store tie-ins was nice, but it also sort of sucked that that model basically forced them in to moving pretty much all cosmetic rewards to microtransactions to keep turning a profit.

For the record I think a balance between LS and the gem store could have continued to work, but hey, people wanted to wait and get big chunks of infrequent content in stead of small chunks of frequent content, so Anet gave the people what they wanted.