Guild Wars 2

maddoctor.2738:

Do we really need a festive mini Aurene in-game?
Isn’t the regular version which you get from a collection enough?

Is not, thats why the festive one its selling xd, theres a demand for this kind of things in game, so theres supply!. Now, as we know, the better a product can satisfy the users of it, the better would they like it, that been a important part of its succes. So, if no one way of another some of the items would have made their way to the game, in fact thats how most make their way in it.

maddoctor.2738:

Do you really believe that those outfits, back items and black lion weapons added would’ve been added in game if the game was using an expansion model? Because I don’t think that would make any kind of sense because they’ve added a billion skins in the game and they’d require 100+ expansions to provide all of them in-game.

No, not all of them, the gem store make so that they not need to add a context or just an npc, making it faster, however not all items need a new context or opportunity, like the aetherblades armor.

maddoctor.2738:

And the next failure is how you get those rewards you so like in other games. More often than not it requires grind and repetition, more than enough of it. Just take a look at Guild Wars 1 and how much grinding you had to do to get any of the pretty skins. With abysmal low chance of getting anything remotely interesting, you had to play the same type of content a bazillion times to get the rewards you wanted. The alternative they used in Guild Wars 1 so you wouldn’t need to bleed to death getting those rewards? They made them available with gold.

Yeah, you can choose between money or gold (grind still here for the ones that want it).

Theres a line about what should be on the gemstore (doesnt matter if is buyable with gold) , what not and one about how much the game should have in relation to the gemstore, also one about how much an expa, realease could have compared to a gemstore realease. Most problems with the gemstores come from that point, that its subjective, but has some interesting common opinions, like the aetherblades armor and weapons.

The more people see that line been crossed, once a thereshold its met, the less satisfied they feel, the less satisfied, more chances to go away, not recomend, get bad reputation, etc. In the long, maybe not so long?, run, this can make a big game a nitche one…

Pd: Not my main language!

Lucius.2140:

Theres a line about what should be on the gemstore (doesnt matter if is buyable with gold), what not and one about how much the game should have in relation to the gemstore, also one about how much an expa, realease could have compared to a gemstore realease. Most problems with the gemstores come from that point, that its subjective, but has some interesting common opinions, like the aetherblades armor and weapons.

The more people see that line been crossed, once a thereshold its met, the less satisfied they feel, the less satisfied, more chances to go away, not recomend, get bad reputation, etc. In the long, maybe not so long?, run, this can make a big game a niche one…

Sure, there’s a line, but it’s in different places for different people. Some people don’t care if ANet puts as many cosmetics as they want in the store, they just don’t want them selling power. The OP wants no store at all, thus all cosmetics would be rewards for play. So while there’s a line for each individual, across all players, there is instead a continuum. There’s no point in even trying to cater to that extreme a position.

There’s also a line below which the developer isn’t making enough money. The developer is in some ways walking a tightrope, trying to maintain profitability while alienating as few players as possible. No matter what they do, as long as there’s a store they’re going to lose people who are near where the OP is on the continuum. That’s inevitable.

Also inevitable is that some posters are going to paint the the financial ramifications of their recommendations in glowing colors, even if the reality is more likely to be much, much worse for the company. It’s true that ANet revenue has declined recently. There is, however, little to no evidence that the OP’s interpretation of why that happened is more than just one of many factors. There is also little to no evidence that an MMO can be made to work on a box-sale only model. It’s contrary to the MMO business model, which consists of regular periodic revenue fueled by retention.

The MMO player base is not that big. The market for non-MMO games that live off box sales and gain ongoing revenue via sequels is much larger. Those developers have the advantage of economies of scale on box sales. MMO developers — with maybe the exception of the MMO 500# gorilla — only enjoy economy of scale with subs or sales of virtual fluff in a store.

Obtena.7952:

Because it’s true? I mean, they have demonstrated their ability to create, develop and run a game better than any single player in this forum … so why shouldn’t I believe they don’t know better than you or anyone else posting here? If Anet isn’t doing it right, that’s not any indication that players would do it better, so that asusmption is just crap right from the outset.

Now maybe if you claimed that another game dev could do better, you would have a point … but players? That’s a ridiculous claim. You are being very audacious.

You haven’t shown your understanding in almost any post you make that this is a for-profit business and the restrictions that imposes on the concept, design and delivery of the game. Just based on that fundamental lack of understanding, I will put my money on Anet doing better than you or any other player any day.

We are not talking about running a game but about specific elements / decisions of that. Yeah they are better at creating, developing and running a game better than any single player in this forum. Then again, they are also not one person but a company. So the comparison is false.

“Just based on that fundamental lack of understanding, I will put my money on Anet doing better than you or any other player any day.” Yes I would also put my money on a company with employees and capital over any average single person.

The company however might make some bad decisions that some players would have made different. And we know they made some bad decisions else the game would not be in the down-trend it is in.

They have not demonstrated they are better in making those decisions because then the game would be doing better at this time.

But really it is a non-discussion. Believe what you want to believe. Companies can make bad decisions and that might be things any single other person would have done in another way possible resulting in a better outcome. Now you acknowledge that fact or you don’t. I do not really care to be honest. If you want to ignore any statement / idea / suggestion / theory because ‘they know better’ that is fine by me.

And maybe I should remind you that what I am suggesting is a huge part of what made GW1 big, what made it’s name big. GW1 getting that name is in turn what made GW2 possible in the first place. Without the model I am talking about here, you would not be here because GW2 would not be here. It’s also what Mike O’Brien is talking about all time time, while at the same time it’s not what his company is providing.

the cash shop lol funniest thing i read. i agree with u mate its killing the game, we had a guild of 150 players wvw all of them, disbanded, around 90 of them quit the game because of the cash shop and the insane grinding everywhere.

Vayne.8563:

@Devata

You seem to be under the impression that lack of content cant’ be the reason that the game isn’t doing well, because there’s content now and the game isn’t doing as well. This is just bad logic on your part.

Lack of content means people stop playing. Not everyone who stops playing comes back. The combination of lack of content and emphasis on specific content like raids and the PvP seasons, is what drives a lot of casuals from playing this game.

Once people saw the game was less casual, they stopped playing, which has nothing to do with cash shop and has nothing necessarily to do with grind, since many casual players will just farm or grind because it’s an easy solo activity.

It has everything to do with the image of the game and who it’s for.

There was a post on reddit, where someone said just about every post is about raids, and so me and may casual friends are scared to start playing this game. It’s a real problem. There’s evidence that people felt the game became too difficult for them.

At the end of the day, the content drought could very well have caused a downturn in sales, because people who leave games, they sometimes find other games.

Two of my guildies went to BDO and they’re still there. They didn’t come back even though the content drought ended.

Edit: You’re pretty much arguing that stuff taht has been wrong the whole time has finally., after four years, caught up with the game. My argument is that changes to the game have caused people who had been enjoying it more to become more disillusioned with it?

Which do you think is more likely and why?

“You seem to be under the impression that lack of content cant’ be the reason that the game isn’t doing well” No, obviously no content is not good. Heck my B2P model is based on the idea that people want more content.

Most people still active these days seem to believe that the main or only reasons results are down / GW2 is not doing so well is because of the lack of those big season-patches what people then refer to as ‘lack of content’.

What I am saying is that this ‘lack of content’ does not seem to be the main reason for people leaving / results going down. I based this purely on the results. Like how season 2 had lower result as during the time just after season 2 when we had a completely no content-patches. Or how last Q3 did have the lower numbers as the content-free period before.

“Edit: You’re pretty much arguing that stuff taht has been wrong the whole time has finally., after four years, caught up with the game. My argument is that changes to the game have caused people who had been enjoying it more to become more disillusioned with it?

Which do you think is more likely and why?"

If numbers where great all the time and the now suddenly did go down your argument makes more sense. But if we look at the numbers we see they have been dropping for a long time (some seem to forget that) and then this argument does not seem to make sense.

I say it again, When you look at the numbers from release until the announcement of HoT you see a down-trend (First the initial huge drop and then after the first 1,5 year). The announcement and release of HoT seem to have break that and managed to create a temporary bump. However if you would follow that down-trend from there you would end up where we are now.

That there is a bigger drop half a year after HoT is mainly because of those people that did return (because as you say, many won’t come back, but something like a first expansion will get many people back). Clearly whatever they left for before is still in HoT and so they left again. That is also why I did say ‘whatever is wrong, Anet better fix it with HoT’.

I am also not saying that now after 4 years the problem caught up with the game. I always talk about how the approach was bad in the long-term because people would get burned out by the game and then start leaving. Some people can take more grind then others. So you do see results going down over time. Exactly as we see. At some point that becomes to much.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

Yeah they also invested so much money on that game because of how well the franchise does. Obviously you make an expectation on what you expect to sell and based the investment on that. WoW Vanilla was build for 65 million (Hard to translate that to todays money, but likely under 100 million).

I happened to have taken one of the biggest games / franchises out there, simply because there is also so much information about it. And the 50 million a year for running cost is also from the biggest MMO out there. That would also be lower if you have a game with a smaller player-base.

It is just to show how it can work. I don not say a MMO should invest 256 million in their game. Only The Elder Scrolls Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic came close to that with an investment of 200 million because their investors (wrongly) figured that the IP would be strong enough to attract so many players.

Anyway, in the end you are now cherry-picking because you do indeed mention that the $800M is like huge and not comparable with most MMO’s. But you don’t mention that that also means those MMO’s will then also invest less money.

The exact GTA example would only work if you had some MMO that would sell just as well. The the formula also works with lower numbers, as long as they are all in balance.

Linear relationships in the finances of disparate business enterprises are similar only if the myriad of factors that make up the businesses are extremely similar — and often, not even then. That kind of synchronicity only happens in the pie-in-the-sky world of bad fiction.

This is simply yet another way of saying “The numbers we have are not 100% accurate”. Yes we know that by now. There is only limited information so that is what I work with. I could also just throw my theory out there without any numbers and logic. You know, like 99% of the comments on the forum.

Lucius.2140:

Hi, lts nice that you did all the excel, graphs and analysis, i think you could first improve the quality of the input you are using for analysis with three basics considerations.

Inflation:

Im not sure, but i don think, that your data its real instead of nominal. And if its real what year its based on (i will go to try to make it real with core realease date or Hot or this year date, for better significance and exposition).

This is specially important if you compare utilities over time, since you dont have rentabilities. Also for the GW vs GW2 argument, no much point if the dollars arent the same.

Trends:

For them, first eliminate all seasons effects, then jump for a trend, but i will consider check it also in a logarithmic form. The more polished the data is, the better the analysis will be.

Huge spikes:

First if you go as simply as to put it over time: Consider an interest rate, check how much you get anually for dollars in a bank, then use a geometric calculated one for Qs. Later aply, then distribute it.

However the spike can also tell you info, for instance, was a Hot spike expected?, its any correlation between the trend value and the spike?. Can spike been separeted as a different value and calculated by realese of box?.

You got the general idea, i will go to break that spike with a dummy variable, at least for a lazzy start xd.

Didnt check all of it, but yeah it needs refinment xd.

After you get good data and graphs, go to the analysis!

Pd: No my main language!.

I know I did base it on the raw data. It would be great if you find the time to make those corrections.

In that case you might also take a look at the more detailed information Behellagh.1468 provided: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/board/downloadlist.aspx?BID=ir_audit
and http://kr.ncsoft.com/korean/board/downloadlist.aspx?BID=ir_audit

IndigoSundown.5419:

Lucius.2140:

Theres a line about what should be on the gemstore (doesnt matter if is buyable with gold), what not and one about how much the game should have in relation to the gemstore, also one about how much an expa, realease could have compared to a gemstore realease. Most problems with the gemstores come from that point, that its subjective, but has some interesting common opinions, like the aetherblades armor and weapons.

The more people see that line been crossed, once a thereshold its met, the less satisfied they feel, the less satisfied, more chances to go away, not recomend, get bad reputation, etc. In the long, maybe not so long?, run, this can make a big game a niche one…

Sure, there’s a line, but it’s in different places for different people. Some people don’t care if ANet puts as many cosmetics as they want in the store, they just don’t want them selling power. The OP wants no store at all, thus all cosmetics would be rewards for play. So while there’s a line for each individual, across all players, there is instead a continuum. There’s no point in even trying to cater to that extreme a position.

There’s also a line below which the developer isn’t making enough money. The developer is in some ways walking a tightrope, trying to maintain profitability while alienating as few players as possible. No matter what they do, as long as there’s a store they’re going to lose people who are near where the OP is on the continuum. That’s inevitable.

Also inevitable is that some posters are going to paint the the financial ramifications of their recommendations in glowing colors, even if the reality is more likely to be much, much worse for the company. It’s true that ANet revenue has declined recently. There is, however, little to no evidence that the OP’s interpretation of why that happened is more than just one of many factors. There is also little to no evidence that an MMO can be made to work on a box-sale only model. It’s contrary to the MMO business model, which consists of regular periodic revenue fueled by retention.

The MMO player base is not that big. The market for non-MMO games that live off box sales and gain ongoing revenue via sequels is much larger. Those developers have the advantage of economies of scale on box sales. MMO developers — with maybe the exception of the MMO 500# gorilla — only enjoy economy of scale with subs or sales of virtual fluff in a store.

I will comment on the part that is about me.

“Sure, there’s a line, but it’s in different places for different people. Some people don’t care if ANet puts as many cosmetics as they want in the store, they just don’t want them selling power. The OP wants no store at all, thus all cosmetics would be rewards for play. So while there’s a line for each individual, across all players, there is instead a continuum. There’s no point in even trying to cater to that extreme a position.
"
First of all, I don’t want a cash-shop focus. I did not say I do not want a cash-shop at all. Preferably the cash-shop would only things like total-make-over kids, race-changers, char slots and maybe bag-slots. Heck if they sold skins I would also not complain (While I would rather not see them sell that).

I have said that many times sadly it’s one of the things that I need to keep repeating.

Now we have that out of the ways.. “Some people ~ just don’t want them selling power” > “The OP wants no store at”. Let’s turn that into “The OP won’t no cosmetics in the store”. Because that comes closer to the truth. I am also against power while it effects me personally less.

Those who care about stats don’t want them so sell stats, I care more about cosmetics (that includes things like mini’s, toys, mounts and so on) and so I do not want to sell them that. In both cases the reason is the same. We (stats and cosmetics people) don’t want it because it effects the game-play we prefer. How is that unreasonable or an extreme position. The one is not more extreme then the other.

It tool a while before P2W items got a bad name, but trust me the same will happen for cosmetics. The main difference is that with cosmetics it can be fine. For example in a pure PvP game, like shooters. But for MMO’s where both elements of the game is important for a group of the player it’s just as bad. There is nothing extreme on that.

Shaman.4513:

the cash shop lol funniest thing i read. i agree with u mate its killing the game, we had a guild of 150 players wvw all of them, disbanded, around 90 of them quit the game because of the cash shop and the insane grinding everywhere.

Nice sarcasm. I don’t blame you for not reading everything but I did mention in the thread that WvW was a part that was not effected by the cash-shop. So I am not surprised that the cash-shop was not a problem for your WvW guild. Personally I also did go to WvW simply because that part I did still like.

That WvW had other problems making people leave I am also not denying.

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

Because it’s true? I mean, they have demonstrated their ability to create, develop and run a game better than any single player in this forum … so why shouldn’t I believe they don’t know better than you or anyone else posting here? If Anet isn’t doing it right, that’s not any indication that players would do it better, so that asusmption is just crap right from the outset.

Now maybe if you claimed that another game dev could do better, you would have a point … but players? That’s a ridiculous claim. You are being very audacious.

You haven’t shown your understanding in almost any post you make that this is a for-profit business and the restrictions that imposes on the concept, design and delivery of the game. Just based on that fundamental lack of understanding, I will put my money on Anet doing better than you or any other player any day.

We are not talking about running a game but about specific elements / decisions of that.

Well, you are talking about running a game because the specific elements/decision of running a game clearly influence how well that game runs. You can’t seriously sit there, tell us you or players have better ideas than Anet to make the game run better and be more successful than they do …. then turn around and say that we aren’t talking about making a better game because your ideas are specific. I don’t think I’ve heard a more double-talked thing come from you as this. I mean, that’ sjust not being honest because your posts clearly indicate that you don’t think Anet is doing that great a job … that IS talking about how the game is managed.

At this point, I’m not even sure you know what you’re talking about. I guess as long as it pushes your ‘neutered gemstore’ agenda, you’re willing to say just about anything.

So, I’m reading all this (and it’s a lot of words and back and forth). It seems the OP wants as an ideal

1) all/most cosmetics removed from the gemstore
2) the cosmetics placed in game as (examples) dungeon rewards, quest items, mob drops, rare drops from game chests
3) all income to come from expansions and sales of non cosmetic item

If this is correct then I think it would be useful to ask what successful games that are currently played (not games from years ago, and this considers Guild Wars 1 as not current as it is no longer supported with new expansions and updates), how they successfully fund themselves from expansions and sales of non cosmetics only while at the same time having lots of cosmetics, mounts, minis etc as in game rewards. Having names of current games that do this would be helpful to see how profitable this is.

Devata.6589:

This is simply yet another way of saying “The numbers we have are not 100% accurate”. Yes we know that by now. There is only limited information so that is what I work with. I could also just throw my theory out there without any numbers and logic. You know, like 99% of the comments on the forum.

Instead, you throw your WAG (not a theory, not really even a hypothesis) out with numbers, then abandon logic by claiming that the numbers validate your “prediction.” All the numbers prove is that ANet made less money via the store. They don’t validate any position. The preponderance of forum posts suggest that some of the alternative explanations offered for the reduction are more likely, and the relative lack of support for your position suggests that the reason for your unhappiness is not shared by as widespread a population as you seem to think.

I have to wonder, what’s the point of this thread? It fails as a validation of your predictive reasoning. It’s not going to convince ANet to change to a different business model at this late date. So, what’s the point? You’d do better by preparing a comprehensive list of things you think should be in the store and a similarly comprehensive list of things you think should not be. At that point, people could agree or disagree with your personal preferences. Since that’s all that’s happening anyway, it would at least be more honest than the misrepresentation of your personal preferences as an “analysis.”

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

Because it’s true? I mean, they have demonstrated their ability to create, develop and run a game better than any single player in this forum … so why shouldn’t I believe they don’t know better than you or anyone else posting here? If Anet isn’t doing it right, that’s not any indication that players would do it better, so that asusmption is just crap right from the outset.

Now maybe if you claimed that another game dev could do better, you would have a point … but players? That’s a ridiculous claim. You are being very audacious.

You haven’t shown your understanding in almost any post you make that this is a for-profit business and the restrictions that imposes on the concept, design and delivery of the game. Just based on that fundamental lack of understanding, I will put my money on Anet doing better than you or any other player any day.

We are not talking about running a game but about specific elements / decisions of that.

Well, you are talking about running a game because the specific elements/decision of running a game clearly influence how well that game runs. You can’t seriously sit there, tell us you or players have better ideas than Anet to make the game run better and be more successful than they do …. then turn around and say that we aren’t talking about making a better game because your ideas are specific. I don’t think I’ve heard a more double-talked thing come from you as this. I mean, that’ sjust not being honest because your posts clearly indicate that you don’t think Anet is doing that great a job … that IS talking about how the game is managed.

At this point, I’m not even sure you know what you’re talking about. I guess as long as it pushes your ‘neutered gemstore’ agenda, you’re willing to say just about anything.

“Well, you are talking about running a game because the specific elements/decision of running a game clearly influence how well that game runs.” Yeah among many other things.

“You can’t seriously sit there, tell us you or players have better ideas than Anet to make the game run better and be more successful than they do” Again, you talk about the complete picture. Making and runnign a game requires money, developers and much more. Here we / I am talking about one element of that all, the payment-model.

Players can for sure have better ideas about things. Maybe suggestions made on the forum about how some content should have been made is better / would have worked better then the way ArenaNet implemented it.
Or lets take a more specific example. WoodenPatatoes (who is a lore person) did point out multiple errors where the story did not match up with the lore as it was.

That does not mean WoodenPatatoes is better at creating and running a game. But it does mean he did know that part better. If they asked him how to implement that lore part his suggested implementation would have been better then the one Anet did go for.

Sure because of the nature of the payment-model that is an essential element for the financial succes of a game. And in fact I tend to focus on things that I consider to have a big impact. But in the end it’s just one element that ArenaNet (Or Ncsoft?) made a decision while I would have made another decision. Not that different from how WoodenPatatoes would have suggested something else for the lore.

With any single decision made, it’s very possible that any random player might have made a better decision then Anet would have made. That however does not mean that that person is also better at creating a game or that because he is not able to create a game, his suggestion is also not better then that of Anet.

The difference is huge, so not sure why you have trouble seeing the difference.

We aren’t really discussing the idea that some random player somewhere has a good idea. If that’s your game here, you can wax on academic all you like. I’m not really sure what the point is to doing that. You’re woodenpotatoes example is simply pointing out a factual discrepancy … that’s not what you are doing here, so that example is a bad one.

All this stuff you are talking about is past. OK, Woodenpotates pointed out a story/lore mismatch … who cares? You’re suggesting that Anet should go back and fix it? As a business decision, why would they bother? What is the return on the investment on that activity? Everything we are talking about here impacts this as a business and if you aren’t prepared to recognize that, there is little point to any of this discussion.

The same applies to how they implement the gemstore … you think they did it wrong so you have a whole new idea on how that should work with subscriptions and less gemstore content … so what? You think Anet should give your idea a try based on an admittedly very shallow assessment of revenue over time? That’s nonsense; why would they even consider that high risk proposition … Even your hypothesis is completely out to lunch. You haven’t given Anet any reason to listen to you whatsoever other than ‘random players can have better ideas’. That’s not how successful business works.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So, I’m reading all this (and it’s a lot of words and back and forth). It seems the OP wants as an ideal

1) all/most cosmetics removed from the gemstore
2) the cosmetics placed in game as (examples) dungeon rewards, quest items, mob drops, rare drops from game chests
3) all income to come from expansions and sales of non cosmetic item

If this is correct then I think it would be useful to ask what successful games that are currently played (not games from years ago, and this considers Guild Wars 1 as not current as it is no longer supported with new expansions and updates), how they successfully fund themselves from expansions and sales of non cosmetics only while at the same time having lots of cosmetics, mounts, minis etc as in game rewards. Having names of current games that do this would be helpful to see how profitable this is.

In the MMO Genre this would be pretty unique. Ojutside of the MMO-genre it’s probably the most-used model.

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then. And there was a time that no company wanted to use the F2P model and now they all seem to want to use it.

There will always be one company first.

Being the only one aly gives opurtinity. They would be first to market with that model for this gerne. That alone has a big advantege. The simple question would then be ‘is it a viable option to earn money’. That is what we / I am trying to figure out / proof with the information we have. While it is indeed limited information.

If there must be somebody else ‘who already did it’ before you are willing to give it a try, there would be no progress in the world.

Devata.6589:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So, I’m reading all this (and it’s a lot of words and back and forth). It seems the OP wants as an ideal

1) all/most cosmetics removed from the gemstore
2) the cosmetics placed in game as (examples) dungeon rewards, quest items, mob drops, rare drops from game chests
3) all income to come from expansions and sales of non cosmetic item

If this is correct then I think it would be useful to ask what successful games that are currently played (not games from years ago, and this considers Guild Wars 1 as not current as it is no longer supported with new expansions and updates), how they successfully fund themselves from expansions and sales of non cosmetics only while at the same time having lots of cosmetics, mounts, minis etc as in game rewards. Having names of current games that do this would be helpful to see how profitable this is.

In the MMO Genre this would be pretty unique. Ojutside of the MMO-genre it’s probably the most-used model.

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then. And there was a time that no company wanted to use the F2P model and now they all seem to want to use it.

There will always be one company first.

Being the only one aly gives opurtinity. They would be first to market with that model for this gerne. That alone has a big advantege. The simple question would then be ‘is it a viable option to earn money’. That is what we / I am trying to figure out / proof with the information we have. While it is indeed limited information.

If there must be somebody else ‘who already did it’ before you are willing to give it a try, there would be no progress in the world.

In other words, no MMO successfully uses the model you’re saying would be so profitable. None of the people who design or build MMOs or the ones who design the business models have looked at the numbers and seen they could make more money and pull in more people using your suggested business model.

About what I figured. Thanks for the clarification.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

This is simply yet another way of saying “The numbers we have are not 100% accurate”. Yes we know that by now. There is only limited information so that is what I work with. I could also just throw my theory out there without any numbers and logic. You know, like 99% of the comments on the forum.

Instead, you throw your WAG (not a theory, not really even a hypothesis) out with numbers, then abandon logic by claiming that the numbers validate your “prediction.” All the numbers prove is that ANet made less money via the store. They don’t validate any position. The preponderance of forum posts suggest that some of the alternative explanations offered for the reduction are more likely, and the relative lack of support for your position suggests that the reason for your unhappiness is not shared by as widespread a population as you seem to think.

I have to wonder, what’s the point of this thread? It fails as a validation of your predictive reasoning. It’s not going to convince ANet to change to a different business model at this late date. So, what’s the point? You’d do better by preparing a comprehensive list of things you think should be in the store and a similarly comprehensive list of things you think should not be. At that point, people could agree or disagree with your personal preferences. Since that’s all that’s happening anyway, it would at least be more honest than the misrepresentation of your personal preferences as an “analysis.”

What logic am I abandoning?

“The preponderance of forum posts suggest that some of the alternative explanations” Yeah sure.. You know, complains about grind used to be a big returning subject on this forum. I might be looking at the possible cause for it while most post did not go much further then complaining about the grind itself.

Of course with so many people having left the game (you know, like those who disliked the grind) mainly the die-hard fans are here. Funny thing is, many of those people (including you) were also here back when more people were still active. And many of those people would back then say ‘It’s just a vocal minority’. And now that most of them have gone and only this selection of HC players / fans are left suddenly the preponderance of forum posts is what we should look at.

Well yes, we should look at what people complained about. But not now that they left but in the time they were leaving. So let’s say starting 2 years ago and then grind is a big returning thread and so a preponderance of forum posts.

Those complains did not go away because Anet solved the problem but because the people with those complains left.

Or is the problem that I try to find the underlying reason for a problem instead of keeping it shallow?

“and the relative lack of support for your position suggests that the reason for your unhappiness is not shared by as widespread a population as you seem to think.” Based on the dropping results and more empty LA, and seeing how this trend had been in the game pretty much from the start.. At the very least we can concluse that many people (who are not here anymore (to agree or disagree)) have something they are unhappy about. Let’s say it’s not what I am saying the question remains.. why do people leave? What do they not enjoy, why do they not enjoy it and why it is in the game as it is.

“what’s the point of this thread?” In the past all my threads had the point of trying to prevend where we are now, so feedback to help the game. At this moment I think it will be very hard for Anet to recover so the main reason for this thread is because I want to take responsibility for the claims / predictions I had made.

I would have been here if my predictions would have been wrong and I am here now that my prediction did become true. Why? Well I am not the type of hit and run person. When I make a claim I am also willing to stand by it. Secondly it’s just decent. I was very active for 3 years on this forum always talk about the long-term. It would be stupid to now that time is finally here, I would be nowhere to be find. Lastly people directly or indirectly ask me to stand by these numbers. So here I am.

So the thread is not really about the cash-shop focus itself. It’s more about the results, what we know now that we did not know 2 years ago, but also the stuff we still do not know.

Btw, I also answer the question what imho should be in the shop. Things like additional char-slots, total-make-over, race change. That sort of services. Perferably no cosmetics, no power, no gold, nothing that interfers with the game-play itself.

Devata.6589:

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then.

And you seem to forget that according to data the GW1 model wasn’t profitable and that’s why they changed it. Now you are asking them to go back to a model that wasn’t successful? What’s the point?

Also you are saying that the cash shop focus leads to grind but GW1 is the prime example of expansions being all about endless grind. Or you forgot how every worth getting skin in GW1 was behind an excessive grind? A grind that you could skip with gold by playing what you liked btw, similar to how you get gems in GW2

Obtena.7952:

We aren’t really discussing the idea that some random player somewhere has a good idea. If that’s your game here, you can wax on academic all you like. I’m not really sure what the point is to doing that. You’re woodenpotatoes example is simply pointing out a factual discrepancy … that’s not what you are doing here, so that example is a bad one.

All this stuff you are talking about is past. OK, Woodenpotates pointed out a story/lore mismatch … who cares? You’re suggesting that Anet should go back and fix it? As a business decision, why would they bother? What is the return on the investment on that activity? Everything we are talking about here impacts this as a business and if you aren’t prepared to recognize that, there is little point to any of this discussion.

The same applies to how they implement the gemstore … you think they did it wrong so you have a whole new idea on how that should work with subscriptions and less gemstore content … so what? You think Anet should give your idea a try based on an admittedly very shallow assessment of revenue over time? That’s nonsense; why would they even consider that high risk proposition … Even your hypothesis is completely out to lunch. You haven’t given Anet any reason to listen to you whatsoever other than ‘random players can have better ideas’. That’s not how successful business works.

“If that’s your game here, you can wax on academic all you like.” You know, when you have a discussion people ask about examples, numbers and so on. So you try to provide anything as good as possible.

It’s funny, the one person wants more data, and the other complains you come with data.

“You’re woodenpotatoes example is simply pointing out a factual discrepancy … that’s not what you are doing here, so that example is a bad one.” OMG really, not even sure why I would go into this. Anyway, Obviously I take an example of something that can be proven (factual discrepancy) because if I took an example of a player’s suggestion that I could not prove it was right, you would say.. ‘Well you can’t prove Anet was wrong, they might also be right with that as well.’

The WoodenPatatoes example is perfect because it’s a factual discrepancy. Because it proves Anet was wrong and WoodenPatatoes was right. Because you can prove a player was right and they were wrong, because it proves that players can be right while they can be wrong.

Simply the fact that you cannot prove all ideas of players to be right or wrong does not mean they can’t be right.

“You’re suggesting that Anet should go back and fix it?” No I am not. I am proving that they can be wrong while a player can be right. If anything, I think Anet might have sometimes listen a little bit to much to him. You are completing moving away from the subject here. Maybe because it proof your idea about how Anet by definition knows better is proven wrong with this example?

“you think they did it wrong so you have a whole new idea on how that should work with subscriptions and less gemstore content … so what?”
Are you just here to complain? Because you clearly have not been paying attention.. Subscription.. WHAT???

“You haven’t given Anet any reason to listen to you whatsoever other than ‘random players can have better ideas’. That’s not how successful business works.” At this moment I am not trying to get them to listen to me anymore. It’s most likely to late anyway. I did try them to pay attention the first 3 years of the game. And I am not telling them a player knows better as a reason. I tell (proof) people like you that players can have betters idea when you act as if Anet knows better simply because they are Anet. When you try to use that false argument in a way to dismiss an idea. Now that is some false logic and can be proven wrong. Sometimes players know better, simply because Anet is Anet does not mean all their decisions are better then what a player should have made.

So no I am not telling them that, or trying to proof anything to them by saying them. I am simply telling you that to show you that your argument for dismissing an idea is wrong.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Devata.6589:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So, I’m reading all this (and it’s a lot of words and back and forth). It seems the OP wants as an ideal

1) all/most cosmetics removed from the gemstore
2) the cosmetics placed in game as (examples) dungeon rewards, quest items, mob drops, rare drops from game chests
3) all income to come from expansions and sales of non cosmetic item

If this is correct then I think it would be useful to ask what successful games that are currently played (not games from years ago, and this considers Guild Wars 1 as not current as it is no longer supported with new expansions and updates), how they successfully fund themselves from expansions and sales of non cosmetics only while at the same time having lots of cosmetics, mounts, minis etc as in game rewards. Having names of current games that do this would be helpful to see how profitable this is.

In the MMO Genre this would be pretty unique. Ojutside of the MMO-genre it’s probably the most-used model.

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then. And there was a time that no company wanted to use the F2P model and now they all seem to want to use it.

There will always be one company first.

Being the only one aly gives opurtinity. They would be first to market with that model for this gerne. That alone has a big advantege. The simple question would then be ‘is it a viable option to earn money’. That is what we / I am trying to figure out / proof with the information we have. While it is indeed limited information.

If there must be somebody else ‘who already did it’ before you are willing to give it a try, there would be no progress in the world.

In other words, no MMO successfully uses the model you’re saying would be so profitable. None of the people who design or build MMOs or the ones who design the business models have looked at the numbers and seen they could make more money and pull in more people using your suggested business model.

About what I figured. Thanks for the clarification.

Indeed. Just as no company did do anything to be successful with it, before the first one did and got successful with it. And then many followed.

Of course for the model we are talking about that is not even true. GW2 did get big with it, because Anet got big with it with GW1. This model made GW2 possible. But you did not want to take GW1 into the pool. With your way of thinking (never go for something new) we would still be living in the Stone Age. But I understand how you think this proves that it cannot work.

Of course it does not. But if it makes you feel better.

And then just one last thing… Anet did try to implement a lot of new things. Like the event-system (to just name one). You must have been also against all those implementations right? Because you know, before Anet did it, nobody did so it must be bad! Here I was thinking so much of you loved this daring approach of Anet. Silly me.

No problem, it’s always good to clarify things.

Devata.6589:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Devata.6589:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So, I’m reading all this (and it’s a lot of words and back and forth). It seems the OP wants as an ideal

1) all/most cosmetics removed from the gemstore
2) the cosmetics placed in game as (examples) dungeon rewards, quest items, mob drops, rare drops from game chests
3) all income to come from expansions and sales of non cosmetic item

If this is correct then I think it would be useful to ask what successful games that are currently played (not games from years ago, and this considers Guild Wars 1 as not current as it is no longer supported with new expansions and updates), how they successfully fund themselves from expansions and sales of non cosmetics only while at the same time having lots of cosmetics, mounts, minis etc as in game rewards. Having names of current games that do this would be helpful to see how profitable this is.

In the MMO Genre this would be pretty unique. Ojutside of the MMO-genre it’s probably the most-used model.

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then. And there was a time that no company wanted to use the F2P model and now they all seem to want to use it.

There will always be one company first.

Being the only one aly gives opurtinity. They would be first to market with that model for this gerne. That alone has a big advantege. The simple question would then be ‘is it a viable option to earn money’. That is what we / I am trying to figure out / proof with the information we have. While it is indeed limited information.

If there must be somebody else ‘who already did it’ before you are willing to give it a try, there would be no progress in the world.

In other words, no MMO successfully uses the model you’re saying would be so profitable. None of the people who design or build MMOs or the ones who design the business models have looked at the numbers and seen they could make more money and pull in more people using your suggested business model.

About what I figured. Thanks for the clarification.

Indeed. Just as no company did do anything to be successful with it, before the first one did and got successful with it. And then many followed.

Of course for the model we are talking about that is not even true. GW2 did get big with it, because Anet got big with it with GW1. This model made GW2 possible. But you did not want to take GW1 into the pool. With your way of thinking (never go for something new) we would still be living in the Stone Age. But I understand how you think this proof your idea that it cannot work.

Ofcourse it does not. But if it makes you feel better.

And then just one last thing… Anet did try to implement a lot of new things. Like the event-system (to just name one). You must have been also against all those implementations right? Because you know, before Anet did it, nobody did so it must be bad! Here I was thinking so much of you loved this daring approach of Anet. Silly me.

No problem, I have no problem, it’s always good to clarify things.

If it was so very successful in making them money they wouldn’t have switched to a gem store model.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then.

And you seem to forget that according to data the GW1 model wasn’t profitable and that’s why they changed it. Now you are asking them to go back to a model that wasn’t successful? What’s the point?

Also you are saying that the cash shop focus leads to grind but GW1 is the prime example of expansions being all about endless grind. Or you forgot how every worth getting skin in GW1 was behind an excessive grind? A grind that you could skip with gold by playing what you liked btw, similar to how you get gems in GW2

Did you already dive into those numbers? Just wondering. I still have to look into them deeper. But a quick look for example shows there are 3 tables. Only one shows the negative numbers that where posted in here. I still have to look into the complete numbers.

If a company is not profitable, why do you think investors would put more money in it? Again, I have to still dive into the numbers but I wonder if you did.

Also, even if they were not profitable it does not mean GW2 could not be profitable with the same model. What we did see was that GW1 was able to keep a more steady income over its life-spawn that GW2 did. So if the raw numbers of GW2 (with the B2P model) would be enough to make a profit, then it is very possible that over a longer period the B2P model would be more profitable. Sadly we do miss the numbers to make those more exact calculations.

I am not going into to GW1 discussion because that will create yet another new branch. But let’s keep it at a good model does not mean a good game. And no, I am not saying that GW1 was a good game or s grind. If you want to have that discussion, make a ‘GW1 was a grind’ thread to discuss that with the true GW1 vets.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Devata.6589:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Devata.6589:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So, I’m reading all this (and it’s a lot of words and back and forth). It seems the OP wants as an ideal

1) all/most cosmetics removed from the gemstore
2) the cosmetics placed in game as (examples) dungeon rewards, quest items, mob drops, rare drops from game chests
3) all income to come from expansions and sales of non cosmetic item

If this is correct then I think it would be useful to ask what successful games that are currently played (not games from years ago, and this considers Guild Wars 1 as not current as it is no longer supported with new expansions and updates), how they successfully fund themselves from expansions and sales of non cosmetics only while at the same time having lots of cosmetics, mounts, minis etc as in game rewards. Having names of current games that do this would be helpful to see how profitable this is.

In the MMO Genre this would be pretty unique. Ojutside of the MMO-genre it’s probably the most-used model.

Some people see the fact that ‘nobody’ uses it, as proof that it would not work. But then they forget that indeed GW1 used it as the only one back then. And there was a time that no company wanted to use the F2P model and now they all seem to want to use it.

There will always be one company first.

Being the only one aly gives opurtinity. They would be first to market with that model for this gerne. That alone has a big advantege. The simple question would then be ‘is it a viable option to earn money’. That is what we / I am trying to figure out / proof with the information we have. While it is indeed limited information.

If there must be somebody else ‘who already did it’ before you are willing to give it a try, there would be no progress in the world.

In other words, no MMO successfully uses the model you’re saying would be so profitable. None of the people who design or build MMOs or the ones who design the business models have looked at the numbers and seen they could make more money and pull in more people using your suggested business model.

About what I figured. Thanks for the clarification.

Indeed. Just as no company did do anything to be successful with it, before the first one did and got successful with it. And then many followed.

Of course for the model we are talking about that is not even true. GW2 did get big with it, because Anet got big with it with GW1. This model made GW2 possible. But you did not want to take GW1 into the pool. With your way of thinking (never go for something new) we would still be living in the Stone Age. But I understand how you think this proof your idea that it cannot work.

Ofcourse it does not. But if it makes you feel better.

And then just one last thing… Anet did try to implement a lot of new things. Like the event-system (to just name one). You must have been also against all those implementations right? Because you know, before Anet did it, nobody did so it must be bad! Here I was thinking so much of you loved this daring approach of Anet. Silly me.

No problem, I have no problem, it’s always good to clarify things.

If it was so very successful in making them money they wouldn’t have switched to a gem store model.

A cash-shop is easy and low-risk way to generate money. From a company perspective there are many obvious reasons to go for a cash-shop model (again something I acknowledged many times in this thread). That does not mean other models cannot work, other models cannot be even more successful and other models are better for the game / the player while also supporting the company.

Simply because one model is easy and low-risk and so favorable with companies, does not mean other models are bad. Yes, I am also looking at the perspective of the player. How rude of me.

Devata.6589:

What logic am I abandoning? … snip …

1. Failure to address the possibility of confirmation bias on your part.
2. Failure to address other possible causes for the decline in performance while claiming pseudo-objectivity for your opinion by citing numbers, and claiming your predictions came true. While revenue has indeed gotten lower, you have not established that the cause you predicted is the cause.
3. Attributing a reduction in revenue over time to a condition that has actually gotten better (percentage of items to be sought available in the store v. in-game) because you do not care for the rewards that can be earned in game.
4. Assuming that posts against grind mean that the poster agrees with you about “cash shop focus.”
5. Failure to look for recent changes in conditions that would account for a recent sharp drop in performance. You instead chose to posit a “last straw” scenario wherein an assumed demographic that hated the “cash shop focus” gave up hope when HoT did not address their concerns. That’s not just a logic failure, it’s sloppy analysis.
6. Failure to address the glaring discrepancy between HoT’s performance and your claims that an XPac-dominant B2P model would be more profitable for ANet.
7. Assuming that changed market conditions are irrelevant when trying to predict the profitability of an old business model when applied to a current product.

You can try to hide behind, “It’s my opinion.” but if that’s all this thread is you should stop touting the accuracy of your prediction and stop calling your opinion a thesis. Anyone who bothered to think at all could have predicted that MMO quarterly revenue would drop over a four year period. In the current MMO market, that would be as close as you’ll get to a safe bet.

I think ANet should avoid another expansion, at least until farther down the road. It just costs a lot of money and creates a lot of expectations that may or may not pay off. It’s a gamble. ANet gambled on HoT and didn’t really pay off.

HoT was ok, I liked it, but it BROKE PvP and WvW. Post-HoT, there is still a lot that needs to be fixed in this game.

I truly think these steady content releases are just what the game needs. It’s a more secure way of releasing stuff.

Devata.6589:

Did you already dive into those numbers?

Not me. But I’m waiting to see if you confirm or deny what Behellagh.1468 said.

I am not going into to GW1 discussion because that will create yet another new branch.

You hate the cash shop because it causes grind. You love an expansion model because you believe it has less grind. I point out that a game with expansions (GW1) had more than enough grind, in many cases worse than GW2. Expansions don’t equal less grind, and cash shop doesn’t equal more grind.

Devata.6589:

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

And since the expansion wasn’t well received by Anet’s own admission,. that doesn’t mean anything at all.

Again you repeat something that has been proven wrong. Most active players did buy the expansion. (And likely many old) So the expansion itself did fine.

Erm… Yes, most of current active non-f2p players have HoT. That’s not because the expansion did good. That’s because a lot of players that didn’t like it stopped playing and are active no longer.

The sale estimation for HoT from around year ago was around 300-400k boxes sold. That wasn’t good numbers for a game that, at some point during first year, boasted of greater concurrent usage numbers and managed to sell over 5 million of core boxes.

Additionally, both Anet devs and NCsoft management have flat out admitted that the HoT sales weren’t that good.

No, the ones that where active around the release of HoT.

Oh, do you have any data supporting that?

Some of the originally active players bought HoT. Some of them didn’t. Some of the players inactive then came back. Some of them bought HoT, and again, some didn’t.
There were also some new players that started the game with HoT and never played core.
From all those groups, some of those players are active now, and some stopped playing since then.

Any useful informations however, including the numbers on all those groups, are known to Anet only. We do not have them.

So, the best we can safely say today is that most of the currently active non-f2p players own HoT. Unless of course you have access to some info that is not widely available.

Devata.6589:

But is that because of HoT of because how GW2 performed right after those initial huge sales?

Income decline got stalled by the mere information that an expansion is coming, but started declining again after that expansion hit. So, at the very least, the expansion itself didn’t help any.

There were also some moves that clearly shown that Anet was not satisfied with how the expansion was received (redoing the HoT areas was a clear indication. Game director leaving around the same time, and having Mo himself taking up the reins could be seen as another).

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

What logic am I abandoning? … snip …

~
You can try to hide behind, “It’s my opinion.” but if that’s all this thread is you should stop touting the accuracy of your prediction and stop calling your opinion a thesis. Anyone who bothered to think at all could have predicted that MMO quarterly revenue would drop over a four year period. In the current MMO market, that would be as close as you’ll get to a safe bet.

1 I did mention that this problem that the cash-shop focus creates depends on your preferred game-play / or your point of view. That indeed in a way is a type of confirmation bias because it might be true for me but not true for you. So I see it as correct while you don’t.
Other than that, I look indeed for data that supports my theory. But I do also look at alternatives. No confirmation bias there. The problem on this part simply is that we have limited information.
2 This is just false. I did mention multiple other factors. I do believe that the issue I mention here is the big underlying problem that has been in the game from the beginning and that should have been fixed if you wanted to really get that big MMO GW2 could be. But I also mention the lack of quest and no seamless zones. I also think those two are huge and essential issues as well, especially the lack of tradition quest, but you really should also notunderestimate the impact of having no seamless zones. That are just two that I even mentioned in the OP. During the thread some other issues have been addressed as well, like how WvW has some problems. So it’s simply false to state that I ignore other possible causes for the decline.
“you have not established that the cause you predicted is the cause.” And I never stated that I did as that is impossible to prove.
3 You do understand that that possibility would be in favor of what I am saying here? You see, I am saying that the cash-shop focus is bad because it reduces the (value of) in game rewards. It makes collecting cosmetics a grind. You say, the results are lower because people have better ways of getting those rewards in game. It’s exactly the same but looked at from exactly the other perspective.
I say, the game gets effected because they try to make money with the cash-shop. You say, they might be making less money because the game does not get effected enough.
No matter how you look at it, it shows that the two conflict with each other. In both cases I am against it as a game that does not earn money is also against my best interest. I want them to make money but not have the game effected negatively by it.
So if anything this scenario you describe here is not false logic but proves the logic.
Now I do not think this is happening simply because while it indeed did get better, for the more casual player this problem still exist. But if you happen to be a raider (as an example) you are now in a pretty good place if it comes to cosmetics by content. While you then still have to grind armor. But your die-hard raider does not seem to mind that so much.
4 It does not matter if they agree. They complain about (cosmetic) grind, I try to find a reason for it. Whether they agree that what I say is or is not the reason is not relevant.
5 Again, I don’t claim people hate ‘the cash-shop focus’. I say people clearly dislike something. Many probably simply get bored by the game and don’t even try to figure out why, they simply move on. I am trying to find reason why they leave and then what might be the result for that. That ‘sudden’ drop, is after the first half year of HoT. Always an important time for a game or an MMO.
“gave up hope when HoT did not address their concerns.” How is that false logic or sloppy analysis? It might also be one of those things that cannot be proven but does makes the most sense. Let’s again look back at what happened. Numbers did go down, then HoT was announced and later release resulting in a bump again. Is it really so strange to think that a big part of this was also because of returning players? Then after half a year most left again. So mayne the problems they had with the game why they did leave before, made them leave again? Honestly, this seems to be a very logic scenario.
6 “Failure to address the glaring discrepancy between HoT’s performance and your claims that an XPac-dominant B2P model would be more profitable for ANet.” It’s still is no B2P game. It still has the cash-shop focus and the grind. Not mutch changed on that part with HoT. I did not expect HoT to perform well (after the first half year) if they did not change this.
7 I am not saying they are irrelevant. I am saying that simply saying that the fact that things have changed does also not mean it cannot work.
“In the current MMO market, that would be as close as you’ll get to a safe bet.” In the current market where they almost all use the cash-shop approach.. hmm, makes your wonder right?

JTGuevara.9018:

I think ANet should avoid another expansion, at least until farther down the road. It just costs a lot of money and creates a lot of expectations that may or may not pay off. It’s a gamble. ANet gambled on HoT and didn’t really pay off.

HoT was ok, I liked it, but it BROKE PvP and WvW. Post-HoT, there is still a lot that needs to be fixed in this game.

I truly think these steady content releases are just what the game needs. It’s a more secure way of releasing stuff.

Anet first also believed that the steady content-releases where the best. But that did also not work out. It’s true that they broke WvW with the expansion. On the other hand, that is expansions in general. That type of mistakes can also be made with non-expansion content-releases.

It’s also true that there are things that should be fix before an expansion. However HoT came 3 years after the initial release. That is already very late and should have given them plenty of time to have fixed what needed to be fixed.

To be honest, the gameplay itself does not need that much fixing. Whether regular patches were absent or present, the game roughly performed the same, even in financial quarters, where little to no content was offered.

If you want to make it a problem that people quit playing GW2, then the issue is not the fact that they are quitting, but the average emotional state they are in when doing so.

You can quit a game happily and most $60 games that take 20h to complete have trained you to quit a game while being happy. “Congratulations, you have seen most of the content, the aliens are defeated, see you for the sequel in 2-3 years.” That is a normal thing for a consumer to experience. To a degree, the game throws the player out in a happy state in hopes, the customer will return for a sequel.

Judging from a lot of forum threads and posts, this is not a stunt GW2 pulls off well. Sure, you could just play the campaign and call it a day, but we know that MMOs do not work that way. GW2 does not try to kick you out happy in order to re-monetize you later. GW2 wants to be played now and it wants to monetize you now. GW2 does not want to be that annual big $60 experience you have, it wants to hook you on systems attempting to lock down GW2 as the only game you will ever have time for or feel like investing in.

If people quit while still being happy, you can retain your brand and re-monetize them. If people leave due to being angry and frustrated, the brand dies little by little. This idea has gained popularity to a degree that companies such as EA and Ubisoft consider moving away from season passes and paid DLC. Happy quitters monetize better in the long run is the new mantra.

Look no further than the biggest MMO of them all. It established its brand in a huge way, when the game was a novel experience for the average gamer. It had its long period of struggle when it hovered around 10 million subscribers, but only because it was able to replace its player base as fast as it was dwindling. Even this game has 9 inactive players for each active one. All the billions of Dollars in revenue aside, this game decided to shift its groundwork psychology. Increase the chances of players quitting whilst being happy. Do not optimize every angle to draw people into year long grinds. Most off all, do big annual releases aimed not just at the current player base, but even more angled at the happy quitters.

This is what Heart of Thorns has shown us. The active players will certainly buy the game, but there is not a big pool of happy quitters. The revenue was nowhere near the numbers of the original launch. Worse still, Heart of Thorns itself did not produce happy quitters, it mentally broke a lot of people who rather decided to quit than submit to the game. Sure, a lot of grinds were significantly scaled down later, but by then players were happily quitting the next game and not looking back. Regardless of that, GW2 has a fighting chance, since it still has enough loyalist who are dialed into the GW2 way of things, that ArenaNet can stay in operation.

More than meaningless changes to numbers on sub-menus the next expansion has to be fun to play and the moments where you can call it quits need to be positive ones. You need to have reach something and decide to quit on the next big thing, instead of quitting in anger due to a series of unattainable goals you went after because they were cleverly interlaced and you did not notice when things got out of hand.

Personally, I completed the open world Mordremoth event and noticed the moment. I knew, if I break now, I quit happy, because that was an awesome bossfight. But had I played on, there would have been nothing but the misery of completing mastery after mastery and grinding the map to unlock more elite specs. That move kept my perspective on GW2 intact for another sequel. A lot of people I played with called me nuts, played on until they quit out of frustration and now claim they would never consider buying the next expansion, nor buy GW2 in the first place if they traveled back in time to 2012. This is where a fix is in need, the gameplay is fine by comparison. You can improve on that after the reasons for quitting are addressed.

I prefer monthly sub model used in WoW with cash shop containing cosmetic items and some services (realm switch etc.). But even WoW sub model went wrong with selling in-game currency with cash.

I do not mind cash shop in-game in general – I really like that they sell cosmetics in it (I own and happily use some) and the reason behind this is very simple – I´m yet to know any MMO which would allow me to get what you want in a way you want. I do not wish to raid. I do not wish to do dungeons. I might grind some zone for a limited time but not too long and only if I like it. I like to do WvW or if we look on MMOs in general, I like mostly randomized PvP (from WoW perspective random BGs and queueing into it solo). No developer so far seems to grasp the idea, that I want the same rewards for time spent in-game as other players get (and I generally spent more time playing than your average player) – rewards should not be locked behind types of content (nor primarily it´s difficulty, especially cosmetically wise) but they should require some time investment no matter the content you do (same rewards possible for instanced or open world PvE and PvP). Because no developer grasps that, I really like to have the option to buy decent looks (cosmetics) for my character in cash shop instead of my character looking like a crap because I do not wish to do certain kind of content.

What I do not like is the need to buy bag space etc. and this part of the cash store is what kept most of the MMO people I knew from trying GW 2 (what, we buy the game and we must still buy basic stuff like bag space?). This part is in my opinion worse than buying in-game currency, especially since in-game currency doesn´t mean that much in this game (it´s not EVE online where having or not having cash to spare makes a huge difference).

I have always argued against adding content through updates (another example of this is EVE online where they used expansion model, then they switched to “update often” model to lately switch into a clone of both, keeping updates going through the year but keeping the “next big thing” for the yearly expansion). I think business wise it´s much better to create expansions = create the hype around them, add more content at once and preferably that content should be more tested and polished. :-)

Looking at current GW 2 business model it´s hard to offer any real change which would not hurt current player base. I just wish there would be good sub based only MMO coming to the market anytime soon which would allow me to get the rewards I want for playing the way I want to play. And last but not least – I want PvP with character collision detection, we can probably say a lot of bad things about abandoned Warhammer Online, but the collision detection there was awesome, I kind of miss it…

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Did you already dive into those numbers?

Not me. But I’m waiting to see if you confirm or deny what Behellagh.1468 said.

I am not going into to GW1 discussion because that will create yet another new branch.

You hate the cash shop because it causes grind. You love an expansion model because you believe it has less grind. I point out that a game with expansions (GW1) had more than enough grind, in many cases worse than GW2. Expansions don’t equal less grind, and cash shop doesn’t equal more grind.

Well I made a start with the numbers Behellagh provided. But it is complex. For example I wanted to also compare 2013 with 2014 and 2015. But then in those years ArenaNet does not show up in the table that shows the net income.

I wanted to see that because it is interesting to see how GW2 did after the first 1,5 year. And why is the net income for 2012 and 2013 exactly the same? Is that the max profit ArenaNet is allowed to make and the rest needs to be paid as dividends / goes to NCSOFT? I don’t know what their agreement with NCSOFT is.

I also tried to see where the results (See my sheet) fitted into the NCSOFT Audit Reports what is also hard to do. For example, 2006 shows in total a result of 52600 (KRW Mn) while the report (and specifically the table Behellagh refers to) states that sales where 13400 (KRW Mn).
The tables are condensed what makes it harder to see where what money comes from or go’s to.
Interesting to note is that in the first table it says there is a surplus, so they did make a profit?
What I cannot figure out yet is where the difference is between the results and the sales and where is the dividend paid and does the sales contain the actual money people paid when buying the game, or is the part that goes to NCSOFT (including the dividend) already subtracted from that?
I find it interesting to have a look at those numbers but this is more something for a financial person to have a look at.
However, what you should consider is that results might not be bad and money was made, but the net income was negative (That is possible when I know where they subtract the dividend).
You see, when I give you one million as an investment. You then create a company with that money and pay me money back (dividend), it might be so that after 2 years your capital is 0, and your income was negative all the time. However if that included you paying me and I earned 2 million in those two years you were profitable (to me) and I might be interested in paying you another million so you could also turn that million into 2 million.
I think that is what we might be seeing here, but that is a guess. I really have to dive into the numbers more to really make such statements as facts. This is just a possible scenario. Best would be if anybody who is in finance would look at the numbers and explain it here.
Btw, here are some definition explanations required to start and understand all the numbers:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/accumulated-deficit-balance-sheet-43886.html
http://www.accountingtools.com/selling-administrative-budget
http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-surplus-and-vs-profit/

The expansion-model does not automatically equal less grind or guarantees a good game. It simply allows a game to be developed without having to make compromises for the payment-model. Well, you have a deadline (You need to make / earn money, because you run out of the money you have for development), but every model has that.

Devata.6589:

… snip …

1 If you were addressing your confirmation bias you would not only look at alternatives, you’d be trying to show why your guess as to causes is superior to the alternatives.

3 You failed to understand what I stated if you think it supports your position.
4 “It does not matter if they agree.” Oh, the hubris! Devata the all-father knows what people want better than they do.
5 Do you know what the increases in revenue in Q4 15 and Q1 16 represent? I don’t think you do. Hint: NCSoft stated in the Q4 15 report that other sales (i.e., not HoT boxes, remained stable.
6 “It’s still is no B2P game.” GW2 is a B2P MMO. There are no B2P MMO’s that follow the box/DLC or Box/Sequel w/out stores selling cosmetics model that is used by SPRPG’s.
7 You are stating your belief that the business model you’d prefer would be more profitable for ANet than the current model. “Simply saying” that model could work when there is zero evidence that it could is in fact ignoring the ramifications of the changing market conditions.

‘In the current MMO market, that would be as close as you’ll get to a safe bet.’

“In the current market where they almost all use the cash-shop approach.. hmm, makes your wonder right?”

Again, you ignore the facts. Several MMO’s failed as box/sub games. Stores plus “optional” subs made keeping the servers open worth doing. That’s the reality, not your insinuation that they’d have done better with a box/sequel model. If you look at the business models of SP games vs MMO’s, you’ll see that both make money by appealing to large numbers. SP and similar games that use a box/sequel model are appealing to much greater numbers of players. MMO’s tend to resort to multiple revenue sources (i.e., box plus sub or store) because they don’t appeal to that wider audience of gamers.