Guild Wars 2

Again, sorry for the late reaction. Have been busy.

1/2

maddoctor.2738:

Please don’t tell me that you like Season Passes. Just don’t. The worst thing that has ever happened in gaming is the Season Pass where you pre-buy a bunch of random DLCs together, a bunch of DLCs that you don’t even know what they will contain or if they will interest you. Paid Season Passes and DLC need to die. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone say that they like Season Passes.

I did say before that for multiple reasons I would prefer a normal expansion. However from pure technical standpoint a season pass and an expansion are similar. You pay one price for a bulk of content.

Yes a big negative about a season pass is that you usually see what you buy after you did buy it, however as far as I know you can also buy the season pass once all DLC is released or just buy the DLC.

The problem that you talk about is not just related to season-passes. Preordering (being promoted) simply exist in the game-genre as total.

Nonetheless, if I had to pick between a game that sells content (With the option for a season pass) or a game that earns money with a cash-shop focus I would go for the season-pass just so I know the content is not being compromised for cash-shop sales. Being it by being P2W or by being grindy or boring or in any other way that they can come up with.

But obviously I would still prefer the normal expansion. I would also still prefer the availability of demo’s to know what you are buying.

maddoctor.2738:

Remove cosmetics, not content, that’s the best for the quality of a game. With an expansion you remove content, with a cosmetic cash shop you remove some cosmetics. It’s an easy choice for me.

Cosmetics can be content.. Or at least collecting them. By taking out those cosmetics you do remove that content. With an expansion you add content, you don’t remove it.

It’s an easy choice if the hunt for those cosmetics is not something you are interested in.

A good example in GW2 are the Molten Facility dungeon back in Flame and Frost. That was a great fun mini-dungeon. Remember that once it was gone people did keep asking for it to return. And then when it returned nobody really seem to care about it anymore.

That is imho because MF did something many content in GW2 was missing. It added a great fun reward (just cosmetic). The backpack and the mini. Those cosmetic items did give you an extra reason and goal to do the dungeon. Once it was placed back it the game it was without those drops.

It;s that sort of rewards that is so lacking in GW2 and that has everything to do with the cash-shop focus. So yes, the removal of cosmetics do effect the game / game-play.

It’s not just a cosmetic, not in an MMORPG, it’s an element of the game. An element if you building up your character. the RPG in RPGMMMO.

And like I said before it obviously depends on your preferred game-play. PvE very soon became boring for me (because of the lack of this hunt for items). What was the reason for doing anything. However I was lucky enough to also enjoy WvW, an element where you are not busy with cosmetics. So for anybody who is mainly interested in those things this is fine. Then again, he would likely be much more stile towards items with stats then somebody who prefers cosmetics.

In an MMORPG cosmetics and stats are really the same. They both build your character. Of that is bad for you depends on your preferred game-play. G

maddoctor.2738:

And being forced to buy an expansion to get access to higher level caps, better/different gear stats, more powerful skills and abilities is not frustrating?

Which one is more frustrating?
a) You cannot compete with others because they have the expansion and are objectively better than you at beating the game, and they have access to more content than you do.
b) They have a shinny that you don’t have.

I’d take b) any time. Not to mention how expensive expansions are and you can only get the complete package. For example, let’s say I want the elite specs to compete in PVP but don’t give a kitten about Raids or the Hot zones. I can’t buy just the elite specs. Expansions are expensive and limit your choice, they are all or nothing packages.

I my comment above this one I mentioned that it depends on the player perspective. This comment of you shows clearly what your perspective is. You prefer the stats, that is fine but please try to understand that some people don’t care so much about stats and builds but more about the fun items, mini’s, mounts, skins, pets, toys and so on. This is also the reason why so many people ask for home instances. That is also all about cosmetics most of the time.

2/2
Now about what you are saying:
“And being forced to buy an expansion to get access to higher level caps, better/different gear stats, more powerful skills and abilities is not frustrating?”

I would like to add:
And new quest, and cosmetics

Because honestly, “higher level caps, better/different gear stats, more powerful skills” I could not care about that. New skills yes, but that there are more powerful, it are just numbers. A new race is nice as well, but a more powerful race. That is just fake. You get a new area with mobs that have higher numbers, and then you can increase your own numbers and so you get ‘better’. They could do away with levels all together I guess. OR do it completely different. In fact HoT did give that a good try, it’s just that how they implemented it was really bad. If you where able to unlock those abilities with special quests that would have been awesome.

Yeah I do not mind paying for a game. I can still play the original game, just this new part of the game means I would need to buy the expansion. No problem, I still get a full experience for the part that I already have. Once I buy the next part I also get that full experience. I do not find that frustrating at all. Again, I am fine with paying for a game.

"
Which one is more frustrating?
a) You cannot compete with others because they have the expansion and are objectively better than you at beating the game, and they have access to more content than you do.
b) They have a shinny that you don’t have.
"
If you are putting this question from the perspective of somebody who likes to go earn cosmetics it’s more like.

a) For as long as you do not buy the expansion you cannot compete with others because they have the expansion and are objectively better than you at beating the game, and they have access to more content than you do.
b) The content feels boring, you can do things but there are no real goals. Must fun items you could go after you need to buy or grind gold for.

And then yes B is clearly more frustrating. Buying the skins does not solve the problem. The hunt for them is still gone, the game-value of them is still zero. With a, I can simply buy the expansion and get the full experience.

maddoctor.2738:

Note that expansions bring new skills (elite specs for example in GW2), you should know how FRUSTRATING it is to get killed in PVP by a Druid, a Tempest, and so on, while you don’t have access to those. The power creep is real with expansions and it’s not that bad in GW2 because at least here they don’t increase level caps here. But even here, expansions ARE a source of P2W frustration. Expansions are P2W by definition, a cash shop doesn’t need to be P2W.

Depends on the design right? Usually the new abilities are only useful in the new area. In PvP you get the same numbers. Maybe he has another spell, but if it is balanced correctly that should not make him stronger. You could even make it so that PvP area’s from before the expansion don’t allow spells / items from the new map. Really all what you say here really depends on how you design the game. It’s not a fact of life.

An Expansion don’t has to be P2W.

maddoctor.2738:

And with an expansion model you don’t even have access to the content of the expansion to get the items you want. Without HoT I wouldn’t even dream of getting the rewards from the Raid, or the Bladed/Leystone armor skins for example.

So if you want to play that expansion, you buy it. And then get the full experience. While if you use the cash-shop focus method you can play the game but never get the full experience you might be after. Again, it’s not only about having the cosmetics, but also about the value of them (he did x to get y) and the hunt for those items.

That is something that you clearly do not want to see or are not able to see because of you perspective of the game. However, it is how many people play MMO’s. It is why home-instances are so loved, it is why mounts, and mini’s and skins are also so loved. Not just for the skin. But also for the hunt. Obviously the two need to compliment each other. Doing a lot of work to get a kittenty skin is still frustrating.

Vayne.8563:

Behellagh.1468:

Vayne.8563:

You say having a less intrusive cash shop is the answer, so if expansions cant’ be made as quickly, how are you planning on paying rent, insurance, electricity and 300 plus employees?

That’s because @Devata believes at the core of his being that ANet “could” do it.

Yeah, i know he/she does, but Anet has said they can’t. Devata’s reasoning is they did it before, but for all sorts of reasons, a modern day expansion is going to take a lot longer and cost much more money. That’s the long and short of it.

Vayne, you are the one trying to dismiss any comment with the argument that they can not factually proof it. They might have data suggesting it but they can not proof it.

In this thread you have made multiple claims, some what could be proven wrong, some that the data suggest are wrong and some that can not be proven wrong or correct.

Now again you make some claim. Where did Anet say that this was not possible.

You ask people to proof there claims. I have ask you to proof multiple of your claims but are still waiting for you to do so.

Honestly, you live in your own dream world. That is fine. But then or proof your dream world is reality or don’t complain that other peoples ideas, even supported with data, can not be factually proven correct and so should be dismissed.

You really got exposed in this thread.

When are you going to wake up from this dream and try to see what could and could not work? Your mostly defensive approach did not work out that great, did it?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Someone should tell Devata that long-term goals are a staple of the MMO genre. It’s against MMO developers’ interests to give players the shiny as fast as they want. At least with cosmetics, the grind is a choice. I’ll settle for that over RNG-based grind, even in sub games. I remember trying for a tanking sword in a WotLK dungeon in order to be an off-tank as a secondary build. Despite ~40 runs, the thing dropped once and the drop was ninja’d. I’d much rather farm gold by doing whatever the kitten I want in GW2 to that.

Then there’s the thing where developers determine how much effort is cost-effective. The OP seems to believe that all of the cosmetics that are in the store would be in the game under his model. I’m considerably more realistic. I doubt (very much) an XPac-only business model would offer any more items via play than we currently see, and that’s even if XPac-only would generate comparable revenue, which I doubt.

“It’s against MMO developers’ interests to give players the shiny as fast as they want.”
I did not ask for that.

“At least with cosmetics, the grind is a choice.” The game is a choice, not wanting a disadvantage in an P2W game is a choice.

No interesting rewards to go for is not a choice.

“I’ll settle for that over RNG-based grind,” Depends on how hard the RNG is.

“I’d much rather farm gold by doing whatever the kitten I want in GW2 to that.”"If you enjoy grind that is fine. I guess I would rather do the dungeon 40 times for item x and another dungeon 40 times for item y and another dungeon 40 times for item z then grinding even more hours in total, doing whatever earns the best gold to buy the 3 items. And of-course it’s not so that it would all have to require you to do a dungeon 40 times. Maybe the more rare stuff does. Other items could require you to complete it once or do a quest-line and so on.
Looking at the results of GW2 and the population during WotLK. The first has mainly been losing people (or income?), the second had mainly been gaining people. That might say something about approach is best.

“The OP seems to believe that all of the cosmetics that are in the store would be in the game under his model.” That does not have to be the case. But more cosmetics would be in the world and the most interesting would be in the game.

" I doubt (very much) an XPac-only business model would offer any more items via play than we currently see, and that’s even if XPac-only would generate comparable revenue, which I doubt." Why do you doubt that? Good game-play also means good rewards. If you want to keep people happy and playing you will put them in there. Of course GW2 CAN NOT put most and best cosmetics in the game because then people had no reason to buy them and they would not earn any money.

Basically what you are saying is this.. An expansion-based model does not grantee a good game. And you are right in that. But a cash-shop based game does grantee some mechanic that interferes with the game trying to get you to buy items from the cash-shop. If there is no good reason for you to buy anything from the cash-shop, you don’t buy anything and so the cash-shop model does not work. So it has an impact on the game.

Is it so strange to want to buy and play a game that does not have any strings attach? Where you don’t have something you like replaced by ‘optional grind’. Where you can do your build-based stuff (what you like) without any strings attached and somebody else can do his cosmetic based stuff without any strings attached? Just, a game without any compromises.

In the end, all you have been saying here is that (in your perspective) this compromise is not that bad. Well, I just do not want a compromise. I am willing to buy the game and expansion, but I do not want any compromise.

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Someone should tell Devata that long-term goals are a staple of the MMO genre. It’s against MMO developers’ interests to give players the shiny as fast as they want. At least with cosmetics, the grind is a choice. I’ll settle for that over RNG-based grind, even in sub games. I remember trying for a tanking sword in a WotLK dungeon in order to be an off-tank as a secondary build. Despite ~40 runs, the thing dropped once and the drop was ninja’d. I’d much rather farm gold by doing whatever the kitten I want in GW2 to that.

Then there’s the thing where developers determine how much effort is cost-effective. The OP seems to believe that all of the cosmetics that are in the store would be in the game under his model. I’m considerably more realistic. I doubt (very much) an XPac-only business model would offer any more items via play than we currently see, and that’s even if XPac-only would generate comparable revenue, which I doubt.

It’s not just Devata, really. People who feel really strongly about something, often inflate in their mind how many people feel the same. It’s why hard core players believe the game can’t survive without them. It’s why casual players believe HOT had lackluster sales because of them, it’s why dungeon runners think that things went south because they weren’t catered to, and it’s why Devata, who has very strong feelings about grind and cash shops, believes this game isn’t doing well. The stronger you believe something the more likely you are to believe that others must feel the same way. That’s just human nature.

I’ve made that mistake myself many times in the past, but I’ve learned from it. I now realize for every person who feels like I do, there are at least half a dozen who feel differently.

Devata feels strongly so the people who dislike the grind and gem store are obviously going to cause the game to take in his/her mind. But this isn’t about one person. It’s about human nature.

The odds are the lackluster numbers of the last two quarters has less to do with any one reason, and more to do with a myriad of reasons. Those who think like Devata, whatever percentage that is, will have some affect. Dungeon Runners who left when HoT launched, will have some affect. Small guilds who can’t afford to upgrade guild halls will have some affect. People who think HoT is too hard or too grindy will have some affect.

All together, those groups have a tremendous affect. It’s not any one thing. It’s that Anet managed to alienate large swathes of people, combined with a content drought, combined with pricing the expansion too high, combined with not giving an extra character slot.

No one thing is the reason HoT didn’t do as well as expected. They are contribute.

Yes Vayne you are right. You want what is important for you. And you might focus more on what fits in your personal ideas. We see the same in your comment.

However, I do try to look beyond that.

You see, from a cosmetics perspective I care less about stats. However, you do not see me asking for a P2W cash-shop instead of a cosmetic cash-shop.

While some people here are basically saying ‘Well the cosmetic grind is ’optional’, and there is no stats in the cash-shop, so all is fine’ (What would be the same as from my perspective asking for a P2W cash-shop instead of a cosmetic one) I am looking for a way that gives a company the means to build a game without any compromises and so is able to at least have the ability to make all the groups happy. (Have quality content for all of them)

If you want a healthy MMO where many people can feel at home you need to try to cater to most of them. The HC players, the dungeon-runners, the casual players, the cosmetic players, the solo-players, the adventurers and so on. Because together they make up the MMO-community.

And we already concluded that most of the active players did buy the expansion, and content drought does not seem the main issue. Based on data. But I guess you will keep repeating this anyway. Because it is something you feel strongly about?

Adry.7512:

Well….this game is by no means a money milking game….seriously these guys make no attempts at draining our money. That being said, yes sometimes they annual can go to the lower millions, but thats fine. As for the future of the game….its very very bright. This game will go on for many years to come. The potential is very big.

Sometimes? Looks like you have been missing the bigger picture. GW2 has pretty much been getting lower and lower results form the beginning (especially after the first +-1,5 year). HoT did increase the income again, but now we are back where we would be if we followed the down-trend before HoT was announced. What will Q1 do? How will the next expansion do?

We do not know. Yes this game had a lot of potential. However if you don’t make use of the potential by your first expansion that potential is basically lost. Simply because many people won’t return anymore. It;s an old game for them. There is no reason for them to return.

I think the game might be running for many years to come, but I am afraid things will not get much better. A shrink of the development-team is more likely looking at the numbers.

And that is really a shame because like you say, this game did have that potential. Just look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQcgSg5DJhg It shows much of the potential, it shows some of the old stuff that makes you wanna get back to that time. But is also shows you some of the negatives.

He does not complain about the cash-shop, but does complain about PvE being boring. I connect the two but whatever. It does show the goods and the bads and it’s top bad that Anet did not manage to turn this game into what it could have become.

voltaicbore.8012:

Devata, this is what you should have said at the beginning if you wanted to be taken seriously on an empirical level (which you so deeply appear to want). You noted somewhere, “why should I have to summarize other opinions?” – to me that indicates that you’re simply ignoring potentially confounding variables. Vayne pretty much did it here without taking too long or overselling a single point.

A few people have touched on this, but I think it merits greater discussion: NCSoft/ANet seem uninterested in marketing this game. Granted, I got into GW2 after HoT launched, so I have completely missed out on whatever advertising blitz that may have occurred. I also acknowledge that the game is old, and conventional wisdom might say that we’re past the point of a sincere marketing strategy now. That being said, this game is still moving forward, and I believe what I love about it still distinguishes it from every other game out there. There’s still something to market if you still want to sell more of this game.

I heard nothing – absolutely nothing – in the US about GW2 outside of Dulfy when I decided to try the free core game a few months ago, and then bought into HoT shortly thereafter. I wouldn’t have even considered GW2 if I wasn’t so sorely disappointed in SWtoR at the time.

I did start seeing some banner ads for GW2 after I actually bought HoT and ran a ton of GW2 google searches and wiki browsing. What I saw was utterly dumbfounding: you all remember this ad for GW2? There’s a thread on this ad already, with its detractors and defenders.

I think this ad is terribly, terribly misguided. Sadly, I also think it’s emblematic of how those at the helm of this game see their own product. The non-game footage part is just…. dramatic-type music with a voiceover trying to make these disparate scenes seem epic. GW2’s particular artistic look and dynamic game world, which I believe set it apart from other products, are not meaningfully revealed in the brief moment of game-like scenery we see at the end. And instead of the Pact, the Legions, or even the Orders, all we get in that scene is this huge melee of all this hodgepodge happening. It looks like any other shiny/nonsensical/Asia-Pacific moneygrabber out there, and the ad itself displays that region of the world’s unfortunate mass-media habit of preferring spectacle at the expense of telling a compelling and coherent narrative.

If this is pretty much the perspective from which they plan on selling GW2, I fear for the future of the game. I’d have to find advertising records and try to match them with the ups and downs in the data provided, but as any marketer will tell you, ROI on advertising is notoriously slippery to observe with certainty. That being said, I just wonder if the marketing for GW2 contributed meaningfully to the declines in numbers.

I feel that those people should speak up and give there opinion from there viewpoint. Vayne simply says that they all might have a problem. But that still does not say much. If you really want to understand them, they have to speak up. Also what I have been suggesting was simply a way to have a game without any compromises. No matter what type of player you are. I said something about that in my last comment.

Marketing has indeed been bad from the beginning. And you have not even seen the worse.. watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk717LQnpVE (It’s really hard to watch.. While it’s nice that they acknowledge the grind on 1:35) But the bad marketing was not the main problem knowing that the initial game sold great. Fastest selling MMO at the time.

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

Vayne.8563:

You say having a less intrusive cash shop is the answer, so if expansions cant’ be made as quickly, how are you planning on paying rent, insurance, electricity and 300 plus employees?

That’s because @Devata believes at the core of his being that ANet “could” do it.

I might be wrong. We do however know that their current approach was good for the first 1,5 year or so and then started to drop off more thenthey had hoped.

Didn’t want to resort to this. Air the dark dirty secrets of ArenaNet but if this doesn’t change your mind I don’t know what will. All you have to do is examine the audited annual reports from NCSOFT which breaks out the income and profit of their subsidiaries including ArenaNet.

Looking at the audited annual reports reveals an ugly truth. ArenaNet as an entity never made a profit from Guild Wars.

In 2005 GW sold 41,308 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 10,608 million KrW of that and almost made a profit, their loss was only 168 million KrW.

In 2006 GW sold 52,560 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 13,400 million KrW of that and their loss was 2,022 million KrW.

In 2007 GW sold 42,058 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 12,020 million KrW of that and their loss was 2,975 million KrW.

In 2008 GW sold 26,228 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 8,131 million KrW of that and their loss was 10,148 million KrW.

In 2009 GW sold 17,127 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 5,254 million KrW of that and their loss was 21,658 million KrW.

ArenaNet had to pay off the development cost of GW just like an author or a band paying off their advance. And in 2009 they announced work on GW2. [sarcasm]It sure looks like that box expansion plan for GW really worked out for them.[/sarcasm] By the end of 2012, the last time ANet was broken out as it was “absorbed” into NC West Holdings along with NC Interactive and Carbine, ANet had liabilities, aka debt, of 128,000 million KrW. That’s the year GW2 sold 164,854 million KrW and ANet saw 68,000 million of that and actually had a profit of 28,000 million KrW.

This is part of the reason they decided that to maintain their B2P/no subscription approach, went with the cash shop.

Edit: This also makes the taking over of distribution by ANet for HoT a lot of sense so they could book more of that income without letting NC Interactive suck up a sizable cut.

You have a source for that? While it’s mainly interesting to see the development-cost vs the profit. You want to know the nett profit, not what part did go to NCsoft or what part did go to ArenaNet. Was the model profitable or not is the question. As far as I know development-cost have never been disclosed. So I wonder what you base your numbers on.

Like where in those reports. I would like to have a look at it.

It would also be interesting to see those numbers with all the results. Just to see how well the game is really doing.. or not doing. How do these dropping results really effect the game / ArenaNet. Maybe they are losing money right now as well?

Killthehealersffs.8940:

~

The people you talk about (F2P players) simply did not buy the game. If you look back in the thread you would see that those playing the game already did buy the expansion.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

They should hire you to work for them ….
you know a lot better than the rest of them or their readers…
Why you limit yourself here 17 months now and you dont spread your wings to create a game ?

I am comfused….
How much round conversation you will do ?
You where saying in Vayne that the company was OK with the x-packs sold and that why they will aim to releases them in shorter period …
Should they sold more x-packs or not ….why you make a comment on Flesh that the data shows that it doesnt work , while you claim in Vayne thateverything is ok?

The ’’plans’’ of yours …a game that sells only x-packs and not a gemstore …..STILL HAVENT CONCUDE ABOUT HOW WE CAN PURSADE THE 3 MILLION F2P ACCOUNTS TO BUY THE X-PACKS …

Dont worry i will make these thread , so the rest of the community see your ‘’true self’’ :P
I will be your short verion ‘’into the depth of Devata mind’’
(wanna work as a security guard at a lesser madhouse with me … its fun :P
If you behave them with gently way , they will boot you from the child hospital to join them 24/7 )

Nah, don’t think it would work out. The stuff I would like to create (like quest-lines) would not be allowed or would not be able.

Also, next to my job I am working on stuff, just not a game.

Devata.6589:

Nonetheless, if I had to pick between a game that sells content (With the option for a season pass) or a game that earns money with a cash-shop focus I would go for the season-pass just so I know the content is not being compromised for cash-shop sales.

Content is not compromised by cash shop sales. You are saying that all the items offered in a game’s cash shop, like the gem store of GW2, would be in the game if the gem store didn’t exist. That’s a lie, without the cash shop most of those items wouldn’t even exist in the game. You are mistaken if you think otherwise and that’s the major flaw in your reasoning. We get so many black lion weapon sets and outfits because we have them inside black lion chests, if there were no chests/gem store, we wouldn’t get so many black lion weapon sets/outfits.

You are also saying that there are no things to hunt in game in GW2 which shows that you aren’t even playing the game. There are a lot of minis and skins to collect in the game, especially in LS3 there is some good variety added, and those who are available in the gem store I honestly wouldn’t want them to be in-game items. It’s one thing to break immersion from the gem store and another one completely if you make those skins available through actual in-game content. A lot of the gem store items are not suitable as in-game rewards and I’m really glad they are on the gem store and not in-game.

In addition, with an expansion you add absolutely no content for those who don’t actually buy it. With a cash shop you get the items you want, when you want them and IF you want them. With an expansion you can’t pick and choose what you want. It’s either you get the whole thing (and pay a premium) or you get nothing. And with the gem store you don’t even have to pay because you can use gold.

An Expansion don’t has to be P2W.

No they don’t have to be, but they always are.

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t surprise me that Guild Wars 1 wasn’t particularly profitable. First game from a new start up that was always considered a niche game is unlikely to drive any real profits. I didn’t have the numbers and I wasn’t going to look for them.

But as someone who spent many years researching, it was easy to spot the flaws in the argument that if Guild Wars 2 did what Guild Wars 1 did it would be more successful. It was always possibly something that could happen but there was no real case for it.

It’s just a pet theory that one person feels so strongly about that it seemed self-evident. Unfortunately my history with research left me more doubtful. A good percentage of things most of us believe to be true really aren’t.

The thing is. The comparison I made still go’s up. If GW2 was able to keep people / income less dropping, while total income would be lower. Over a period of 3 years they would have earned more money then they did not.

It’s not really hard to understand. I can put it in very easy language here:
Let’s say we have 6 periods. And we earn the following in different models: (each number a period) 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1 or we earn 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2.

In the first example we earn a total of: 16. In the second we earn a total of 17. The highest numbers where in the first model, and for the first 4 periods the first model was in the lead. In the 5th model both where even and only in the 6th period the second model was better.

That is in short the comparison of GW1 vs GW2. The cost is a second variable I do not have but if a game is earns money or cost money has to do with the earning vs the cost.

My theory is that the expansion-based model could achieve exactly that. But if they failed to set up a good game it would results in lower numbers. I always said it was a more risky model, but better for the long-term.

In the numbers Behellagh has he talks about how Anet finally get a a profit with GW1, but you then forget that that is based on the initial sales. By then the effects of the cash-shop focus did not even exist.

That some people think these numbers proof that that model does not work mainly shows they do not understand the numbers.

It’s a trend (That I am talking about) versus raw numbers.

Nonetheless I would love to have those numbers. I would also like to know how much of the earnings come from game-sales, how much from gem-store and from what items (remember, I am fine with selling things like character slots).

So in that perspective nothing changes. I would still see those numbers to see how it would effect the netto-income.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Nonetheless, if I had to pick between a game that sells content (With the option for a season pass) or a game that earns money with a cash-shop focus I would go for the season-pass just so I know the content is not being compromised for cash-shop sales.

Content is not compromised by cash shop sales. You are saying that all the items offered in a game’s cash shop, like the gem store of GW2, would be in the game if the gem store didn’t exist. That’s a lie, without the cash shop most of those items wouldn’t even exist in the game. You are mistaken if you think otherwise and that’s the major flaw in your reasoning. We get so many black lion weapon sets and outfits because we have them inside black lion chests, if there were no chests/gem store, we wouldn’t get so many black lion weapon sets/outfits.

You are also saying that there are no things to hunt in game in GW2 which shows that you aren’t even playing the game. There are a lot of minis and skins to collect in the game, especially in LS3 there is some good variety added, and those who are available in the gem store I honestly wouldn’t want them to be in-game items. It’s one thing to break immersion from the gem store and another one completely if you make those skins available through actual in-game content. A lot of the gem store items are not suitable as in-game rewards and I’m really glad they are on the gem store and not in-game.

In addition, with an expansion you add absolutely no content for those who don’t actually buy it. With a cash shop you get the items you want, when you want them and IF you want them. With an expansion you can’t pick and choose what you want. It’s either you get the whole thing (and pay a premium) or you get nothing. And with the gem store you don’t even have to pay because you can use gold.

An Expansion don’t has to be P2W.

No they don’t have to be, but they always are.

“You are saying that all the items offered in a game’s cash shop, like the gem store of GW2” No I do not say that. I say that most (well all) and best items would be in the game. It would make sense to have good looking skins in the game. That there might be more of those items now (just not in the game, but in the cash-shop) can be very true.

“We get so many black lion weapon sets and outfits because we have them inside black lion chests, if there were no chests/gem store, we wouldn’t get so many black lion weapon sets/outfits.” It’s indeed very likely there are more items now. But how does that change anything of what I am saying?

“with an expansion you add absolutely no content for those who don’t actually buy it.” While that is usually not true (it usually also adds stuff to existing content) it’s true that most of the content is indeed not accessible to those who do not buy the new expansion. Maybe you have a problem with buying things you want. I do not and I think enough people do not meaning you have enough people to keep going.

As we have already seen, most active players of GW2 did buy HoT, so also they do not have a problem with buying that content. Many non-mmo’s are using the model very successfully for years.

“It’s either you get the whole thing (and pay a premium) or you get nothing.” Yeah, and I want to get the whole thing and am willing to pay for it (I don’t even mind to pay a premium over the premium, own multiple CE of games). However, I do not want to get a compromised item / game.

“And with the gem store you don’t even have to pay because you can use gold.” And grinding that gold is not fun. I want to buy that game so I can have fun playing it. I don’t want to get the game for free so I am able to do something I do not like (grinding).

@Devata

Now if only your simple modelling took into effect things like the lack of competition Guild Wars 1 had in the non-subscription multiplayer market. It was alone. By itself. It had no competition, so there really can’t be a comparison or at least any comparison is likely to be deeply flawed.

What you have is a theory and at best extremely incomplete evidence. That’s all you have. It’s all you’ve ever had. Nothing has changed except that there have been two slow quarters.

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

For all we know, had Anet priced the expansion differently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

It’s a fact that there’s not enough information out there to draw the conclusions you’ve drawn. You could be right, you could be wrong. Either way, the evidence isn’t there.s

The difference between what I’m saying and what you’re saying is that I didn’t come to the forums and try to use a very small set of data points to prove anything because I know it’s not possible to prove anything from the data points we have.

You keep insisting with no evidence. I can play devil’s advocate without proof, showing where your logic doesn’t make sense in the big picture because I didn’t make a statement in the first place.

The conversation goes something like this.

Person 1: I know for a fact that the yankees would have won the world series if they’d traded Player A earlier, because his stats are lower.

Person 2: But we don’t know who would have replaced him or what their stats would have been if they replaced them. There’s no evidence.

Person 1: You have no evidence.

You don’t need evidence to back up what person 2 is saying. All he’s really saying is there’s not enough evidence to draw the conclusions person 1 is drawing and that’s ALL I’m saying.

But yes, if you do a bit of research you’d say that Guild Wars 1 had a LOT less competition than Guild Wars 2 does. Do you really need me to find evidence to suppor that, or are you finally going to accept it.

Unless you can prove that competition doesn’t change the big picture, this whole conversation loses any kind of meaning.

You don’t have the evidence to back up your point. I don’t need to prove it, because it’s obvious. You’re making the statement you need to back it up. Lower sales for two quarters without knowing why those sales are lower does not cut it. Again, a statement I don’t need proof for.

Devata.6589:

“It’s against MMO developers’ interests to give players the shiny as fast as they want.”

I did not ask for that.

You cited the complaints about grind as evidence that there’s support for your position. Your assertion ignores the fact that most of the complaints about grind in GW2 come from people who want rewards with less time spent.

“I’d much rather farm gold by doing whatever the kitten I want in GW2 to that.”

If you enjoy grind that is fine. I guess I would rather do the dungeon 40 times for item x and another dungeon 40 times for item y and another dungeon 40 times for item z then grinding even more hours in total, doing whatever earns the best gold to buy the 3 items. And of-course it’s not so that it would all have to require you to do a dungeon 40 times. Maybe the more rare stuff does. Other items could require you to complete it once or do a quest-line and so on.

The majority of earn-able rewards in HoT were not that hard to get, and the XPac did not hold peoples’ attention long enough for Anet to ramp up LS3.

Looking at the results of GW2 and the population during WotLK. The first has mainly been losing people (or income?), the second had mainly been gaining people. That might say something about approach is best.

WoW is an aberration in the industry. It was a game that got into the market at the perfect time with a developed IP, and developed a following. Despite that, its population crested during Wrath and by late 2015 was around half of its peak. It gains players after XPacs, and loses them in the valleys between. All WoW numbers prove is that it’s the right business model for that game.

“The OP seems to believe that all of the cosmetics that are in the store would be in the game under his model.”

That does not have to be the case. But more cosmetics would be in the world and the most interesting would be in the game.

… Good game-play also means good rewards. If you want to keep people happy and playing you will put them in there. Of course GW2 CAN NOT put most and best cosmetics in the game because then people had no reason to buy them and they would not earn any money.

You propose a business model in which ANet would cut its revenue stream. So where are they going to get the funds to create those rewards? All MMO’s make the minimal number of rewards they think they can get away with when its one price buys all — even WoW. The only reason ANet cranks out more than that minimum is precisely because they produce a revenue stream.

Basically what you are saying is this.. An expansion-based model does not grantee a good game. And you are right in that. But a cash-shop based game does grantee some mechanic that interferes with the game trying to get you to buy items from the cash-shop. If there is no good reason for you to buy anything from the cash-shop, you don’t buy anything and so the cash-shop model does not work. So it has an impact on the game.

I assume you mean guarantee. If you genuinely believe that the ANet cash shop is intrusive, then I invite you to go try games by GPotato, Aeria, Nexon, or Perfect World. The Anet store is nearly invisible by comparison.

Is it so strange to want to buy and play a game that does not have any strings attach? Where you don’t have something you like replaced by ‘optional grind’. Where you can do your build-based stuff (what you like) without any strings attached and somebody else can do his cosmetic based stuff without any strings attached? Just, a game without any compromises.

In the end, all you have been saying here is that (in your perspective) this compromise is not that bad. Well, I just do not want a compromise. I am willing to buy the game and expansion, but I do not want any compromise.

You’re dreaming. It’s fine to want what you want, but you’re not going to see it from any MMO.

1/2

@Devata
Now if only your simple modelling took into effect things like the lack of competition Guild Wars 1 had in the non-subscription multiplayer market. It was alone. By itself. It had no competition, so there really can’t be a comparison or at least any comparison is likely to be deeply flawed.

How so? It would have no competition in the B2P market right now as well. So that is a perfect comparison. I also mentioned this multiple times and it is also one of those things you keep repeating without once saying what is wrong about my statement. Simply because you can’t. It correct. GW1 had no competition with it’s B2P model back then, and it would not have any competition with it B2P model now. Then again, with the cash-shop model it uses now it has a lot of competition.

I am not sure why I even keep answering these comments of you. I have been doing that for years and you keep repeating the same for years. Without once explaining why my comment is false. You simply ignore it and repeat it again a few days later and that year after year.

It’s useless. In your dream you are right and you refuse to wake up.

Vayne.8563:

What you have is a theory and at best extremely incomplete evidence. That’s all you have. It’s all you’ve ever had. Nothing has changed except that there have been two slow quarters.

With Q2 you said the same about 1 bad quarter and then we should look at Q3, as that would likely be better. Now suddenly Q3 is also not interesting. As long as numbers don’t fit you, it is not interesting is it? What if Q1 is bad as well. Or do you want to base your ideas on Q4?

And you are right. I have a theory. I have minor data to proof it. I can’t help that I have no better data. Then again, the theory by itself is correct in that lower but more steady income means more income over a longer term. And a game that does not have to be compromised can be better what might help to retain more players overtime.

That is the theory is it’s most basic logical form.

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. The F2P approach did not work out. You try to squeeze that problem into the expansion-sales.

2/2

For all we know, had Anet priced the expansion differently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

You mean because more of the F2P players would have purchased the game? I don’t think it would have make a big difference. You see, as we already did see many of the active players did buy the game. The likely reason we see the numbers drop so much, is because GW2 is not able to retain players.

That problem would still be there even if the F2P people did buy the game. A drop of players can not be blamed on the fact that people had to pay to much. Or how do you see that? People did by the expansion, but then half a year later got mad because they payed to much and left because of that? Really, The drop is the problem and that can not be blamed on the price as we know most active players did buy it.

Vayne.8563:

It’s a fact that there’s not enough information out there to draw the conclusions you’ve drawn. You could be right, you could be wrong. Either way, the evidence isn’t there.s

I agree. I work with what I have. Can’t do more then that can I?

Vayne.8563:

The difference between what I’m saying and what you’re saying is that I didn’t come to the forums and try to use a very small set of data points to prove anything because I know it’s not possible to prove anything from the data points we have.

I did never say the data proofed anything. That is something you made up. And no you come to the forum and make claims based on no data, that go against the data or can even be proven wrong. Anyway, are you now saying I should not have used any data to look at what is happening?

All I wanted to show with the data is how the game preformed over-time. Yes I also mentioned that it did as I predicted and tried to make a comparison with GW1. But thats about it.

Vayne.8563:

You keep insisting with no evidence. I can play devil’s advocate without proof, showing where your logic doesn’t make sense in the big picture because I didn’t make a statement in the first place.

You have made multiple statements on these forums. Like how the expansions did sell bad, how that was because of the price, how content drought was to blame for the drop in people and so on.

Vayne.8563:

But yes, if you do a bit of research you’d say that Guild Wars 1 had a LOT less competition than Guild Wars 2 does. Do you really need me to find evidence to suppor that, or are you finally going to accept it.

In raw numbers you mean? Yes, while at the same time the potential player-base also got bigger. Looking at the B2P model then no. But really, you make the statement that GW2 has more com,petition with a B2P model these days. So should not not proof it? Why should I have to proof / disprove your statement?

Vayne.8563:

You don’t have the evidence to back up your point. I don’t need to prove it, because it’s obvious.

This just made me laugh and really says everything about all your comments that we need to know. This proof the dream-world you live in. You are right because you are right. I need factual proof that is unavailable, but you can make your statements just because.. well it;s obvious that you are right. Oke, if that is what you want. I will not try to wake you up anymore. Sweat dreams.

IndigoSundown.5419:

You cited the complaints about grind as evidence that there’s support for your position. Your assertion ignores the fact that most of the complaints about grind in GW2 come from people who want rewards with less time spent.

The majority of earn-able rewards in HoT were not that hard to get, and the XPac did not hold peoples’ attention long enough for Anet to ramp up LS3.

WoW is an aberration in the industry. It was a game that got into the market at the perfect time with a developed IP, and developed a following. Despite that, its population crested during Wrath and by late 2015 was around half of its peak. It gains players after XPacs, and loses them in the valleys between. All WoW numbers prove is that it’s the right business model for that game.

You propose a business model in which ANet would cut its revenue stream. So where are they going to get the funds to create those rewards? All MMO’s make the minimal number of rewards they think they can get away with when its one price buys all — even WoW. The only reason ANet cranks out more than that minimum is precisely because they produce a revenue stream.

I assume you mean guarantee. If you genuinely believe that the ANet cash shop is intrusive, then I invite you to go try games by GPotato, Aeria, Nexon, or Perfect World. The Anet store is nearly invisible by comparison.

You’re dreaming. It’s fine to want what you want, but you’re not going to see it from any MMO.

“Your assertion ignores the fact that most of the complaints about grind in GW2 come from people who want rewards with less time spent.”
No, that is an assertion you are making. In any thread about grind I always did see people comming in talking about how people wanted things for free. Of course that never was what most of the people complaining about grind asked for.

HoT did have much of the same problems. It did try to do better. Raid rewards are good and the new legendary system is partly better (while it still contains the grind part what also destroys it again)

But other then that? What rewards? I can’t say I was able to go on a hunt for interesting rewards in HoT.

Ah, I am sure there will be an MMO that will have this at some point.

“You propose a business model in which ANet would cut its revenue stream. So where are they going to get the funds to create those rewards? "
It’s more like spreading the revenue out over a bigger period. Less in the beginning more overtime. Less in the beginning still does not mean ‘not enough’. It could still be enough to develop the next expansion and so that is when rewards get put in. You know, as part of the content. You seem to already separate the two.

“The Anet store is nearly invisible by comparison.” The fact that some do worse does not makes this good. Anyway this is again just based on the perspective you are looking from. For anybody who likes the hunt for these type of items, the GW2 cash-shop is extremely intrusive because it effectively destroys that part of the game.

Devata.6589:

No, that is an assertion you are making. In any thread about grind I always did see people coming in talking about how people wanted things for free. Of course that never was what most of the people complaining about grind asked for.

HoT did have much of the same problems. It did try to do better. Raid rewards are good and the new legendary system is partly better (while it still contains the grind part what also destroys it again)

But other then that? What rewards? I can’t say I was able to go on a hunt for interesting rewards in HoT.

Ah, I am sure there will be an MMO that will have this at some point.

It’s more like spreading the revenue out over a bigger period. Less in the beginning more overtime. Less in the beginning still does not mean ‘not enough’. It could still be enough to develop the next expansion and so that is when rewards get put in. You know, as part of the content. You seem to already separate the two.

The fact that some do worse does not makes this good. Anyway this is again just based on the perspective you are looking from. For anybody who likes the hunt for these type of items, the GW2 cash-shop is extremely intrusive because it effectively destroys that part of the game.

Again, you have nothing except your pie-in-the-sky hope that ANet would continue to add cosmetics/rewards to pursue in game at any rate higher than they are already doing. The standard in the industry does not support that hope. Rewards come in with new content, and except very infrequently, that’s that until the next new content. A new outfit or new weapon skins biweekly/monthly is purely an artifact of the store.

You say that if they went full B2P as you prefer they would have no competition. That’s correct. The other two B2P MMO’s have stores modeled to some degree after ANet’s because they though it was a successful model. Just why is that? Maybe the GW model was not as successful as you want to believe. No one seems to be emulating it, after all.

You can say that most of the stuff in WoW is earned in game and that you don’t want the stuff in their store enough to complain about it. From my time there, I’d say their XPac rewards consisted of an armor tier or two (three weights), some mounts and maybe a few other things. Of course, a lot of that was hidden behind RNG grind (drops in raids/dungeons) or rep grinds (OIHWD "Oh I hated WoW dailies). The kittens had their hands on my credit card every month in addition to the XPac fee and they didn’t really add a lot more stuff to pursue in game than ANet has.

Looking at gw2 results as a whole, PvE is doing well. PvP and WvW are not.

PvE has steady content, fractals, raids, gem store, etc. I find that PvE players are more satisfied overall with the game. With PvP and WvW players it’s the exact opposite.
ANet does PvE best. They just have no idea what to do with PvP and WvW.

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

Vayne.8563:

You say having a less intrusive cash shop is the answer, so if expansions cant’ be made as quickly, how are you planning on paying rent, insurance, electricity and 300 plus employees?

That’s because @Devata believes at the core of his being that ANet “could” do it.

I might be wrong. We do however know that their current approach was good for the first 1,5 year or so and then started to drop off more thenthey had hoped.

Didn’t want to resort to this. Air the dark dirty secrets of ArenaNet but if this doesn’t change your mind I don’t know what will. All you have to do is examine the audited annual reports from NCSOFT which breaks out the income and profit of their subsidiaries including ArenaNet.

Looking at the audited annual reports reveals an ugly truth. ArenaNet as an entity never made a profit from Guild Wars.

In 2005 GW sold 41,308 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 10,608 million KrW of that and almost made a profit, their loss was only 168 million KrW.

In 2006 GW sold 52,560 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 13,400 million KrW of that and their loss was 2,022 million KrW.

In 2007 GW sold 42,058 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 12,020 million KrW of that and their loss was 2,975 million KrW.

In 2008 GW sold 26,228 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 8,131 million KrW of that and their loss was 10,148 million KrW.

In 2009 GW sold 17,127 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 5,254 million KrW of that and their loss was 21,658 million KrW.

ArenaNet had to pay off the development cost of GW just like an author or a band paying off their advance. And in 2009 they announced work on GW2. [sarcasm]It sure looks like that box expansion plan for GW really worked out for them.[/sarcasm] By the end of 2012, the last time ANet was broken out as it was “absorbed” into NC West Holdings along with NC Interactive and Carbine, ANet had liabilities, aka debt, of 128,000 million KrW. That’s the year GW2 sold 164,854 million KrW and ANet saw 68,000 million of that and actually had a profit of 28,000 million KrW.

This is part of the reason they decided that to maintain their B2P/no subscription approach, went with the cash shop.

Edit: This also makes the taking over of distribution by ANet for HoT a lot of sense so they could book more of that income without letting NC Interactive suck up a sizable cut.

You have a source for that? While it’s mainly interesting to see the development-cost vs the profit. You want to know the nett profit, not what part did go to NCsoft or what part did go to ArenaNet. Was the model profitable or not is the question. As far as I know development-cost have never been disclosed. So I wonder what you base your numbers on.

Like where in those reports. I would like to have a look at it.

It would also be interesting to see those numbers with all the results. Just to see how well the game is really doing.. or not doing. How do these dropping results really effect the game / ArenaNet. Maybe they are losing money right now as well?

How good is your Korean? I’ve been following NCSOFT since 2004 and they use to have the audit reports on the global site in English but now they only exist on the Korean site in Korean, in a PDF so even Google Translate can’t “read” them for you".

http://kr.ncsoft.com/korean/board/downloadlist.aspx?BID=ir_audit

EDIT: —-————————————

Well look at that, NCSOFT’s global site no longer has a navigational link to audit reports in English in the menu but they did leave the location to the English versions in the sitemap.

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/board/downloadlist.aspx?BID=ir_audit

The numbers I used were the sales income that ArenaNet got to book as income in comparison to the income NCSOFT stated the game made that year, and the profit/loss after expenses on the condensed income statement. Overall debt can be seen in the condensed balance sheet. As the years go by, the format and data required to be reported about the subsidiaries got more and more condensed. Last few years before the folding into NC West Holdings was pretty much bottom lining assets, debts, sales and profits.

Devata.6589:

1/2

@Devata
Now if only your simple modelling took into effect things like the lack of competition Guild Wars 1 had in the non-subscription multiplayer market. It was alone. By itself. It had no competition, so there really can’t be a comparison or at least any comparison is likely to be deeply flawed.

How so? It would have no competition in the B2P market right now as well. So that is a perfect comparison. I also mentioned this multiple times and it is also one of those things you keep repeating without once saying what is wrong about my statement. Simply because you can’t. It correct. GW1 had no competition with it’s B2P model back then, and it would not have any competition with it B2P model now. Then again, with the cash-shop model it uses now it has a lot of competition.

I am not sure why I even keep answering these comments of you. I have been doing that for years and you keep repeating the same for years. Without once explaining why my comment is false. You simply ignore it and repeat it again a few days later and that year after year.

It’s useless. In your dream you are right and you refuse to wake up.

Vayne.8563:

What you have is a theory and at best extremely incomplete evidence. That’s all you have. It’s all you’ve ever had. Nothing has changed except that there have been two slow quarters.

With Q2 you said the same about 1 bad quarter and then we should look at Q3, as that would likely be better. Now suddenly Q3 is also not interesting. As long as numbers don’t fit you, it is not interesting is it? What if Q1 is bad as well. Or do you want to base your ideas on Q4?

And you are right. I have a theory. I have minor data to proof it. I can’t help that I have no better data. Then again, the theory by itself is correct in that lower but more steady income means more income over a longer term. And a game that does not have to be compromised can be better what might help to retain more players overtime.

That is the theory is it’s most basic logical form.

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. The F2P approach did not work out. You try to squeeze that problem into the expansion-sales.

You’re really stretching what was said. I said that one bad quarter does not represent a trend, two bad quarters would certainly start to represent a trend. I stand by that. I see a trend. I see that this game isn’t doing as well now as it was a year ago.

Now, it just so happens that that tiny little bit of information that supports what you believe exists. But it’s only a tiny bit of information. You can see elsehwhere where I’ve complained about the image of the game which used to be casual, becoming harder and harder core due to the focus or seeming focus on raids and PvP. The most visible parts of the game.

What you’re doing here is completely misrepresenting something I said to try to prove a point, I now agree the game has issues with either player retention or getting people to spend money in the gem store compared to a year ago. That’s obvious.

That has nothing at all to do with this argument and trying to make it so makes you look terribly desperate. How does that one fact even begin to prove what caused it?

You’re stretching it. Guild Wars 1 didn’t make the money you think it did, that’s one of your biggest sources of evidence and it turns out you were incorrect. How are you even still arguing this?

Here’s my take on why we had two crumby quarters, a lot of skillless casuals that were used to facetanking Core Tyria mobs/events/World Bosses got angry and quit the game after Heart of Thorns was released. Granted all I have is assumptions but let’s think about this here, Season 3 was delayed because a ton of man power went into the April Duct Tape patch which made major corrections to experience gains for Masteries and major difficulty reductions for open world Maguuma content ( you can’t tell me they did this and delayed Season 3 for laughs), why nerf your expansion content if your cash shop is making money and people are playing it, then the other quarter was crumby because again Season 3 was delayed for almost a year. I have talked to a fair amount of former GW2 players through MassivelyOP a lot of them quit because they felt GW2 had turned their backs on them in favor of a Hard Core minority due to harder Open World, less maneuverability dictated by masteries and convoluted path ways (think Moria expansion), and Raids which were the only new content for almost a year.

Money Talks,
Yours truly the Gray Knight (meaning I’m a fanboy but I won’t blow smoke up any ones *).

@Devata

Nope, working with no information and drawing conclusions isn’t the best you can do. That’s literally the worst thing you can do.

All you can do when given not enough information, really all you can do, is say I don’t have enough information. You don’t have enough information period. Not a guessing game. Not a theory. Not an opinion. Enough information to draw your conclusions doesn’t exist outside Anet themselves, and maybe not even there. It’s entirely possible that even with their information they don’t know what went wrong.

But since you’re only guessing and since you came back here with a clear I told you so post, when you did no such thing…basically I’ve not seen many arguments stated as strongly as yours with less evidence on these forums.

You lack evidence. The conversation is over.

I’m not making any kind of definitive statement except for the fact that you lack the evidence you need to support your pet theory, a theory you espoused long before any evidence at all back you up.

In thread after thread in this conversation people have given you alternate ideas that would explain the sales downturn just as well, but you continue to ignore all those people.

What you have here is a pet theory, very little to back it up that you’re treating as fact, because you believe in it.

But what actually backs it up besides a sales downturn? That’s surely not enough.

Particularly when it seems your entire theory about how successful Guild Wars 1 was is now questionable. Surely if Guild Wars 1 wasn’t that profitable or wasn’t particularly profitable, this game has already done better than that for four years, with a different model.\

How can you not acknowledge this?

The only consolation … Anet ignores this kind of nonsense. If they were to take business advice from players, the game would try to be everything to everyone, becoming nothing to no one. Thankfully, Anet’s acumen doesn’t come from gleaning the forums for armchair business analyst ‘conclusions’. Thank goodness some people still believe in the scientific method.

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.

1/2

IndigoSundown.5419:

Again, you have nothing except your pie-in-the-sky hope that ANet would continue to add cosmetics/rewards to pursue in game at any rate higher than they are already doing. The standard in the industry does not support that hope. Rewards come in with new content, and except very infrequently, that’s that until the next new content. A new outfit or new weapon skins biweekly/monthly is purely an artifact of the store.

You say that if they went full B2P as you prefer they would have no competition. That’s correct. The other two B2P MMO’s have stores modeled to some degree after ANet’s because they though it was a successful model. Just why is that? Maybe the GW model was not as successful as you want to believe. No one seems to be emulating it, after all.

You can say that most of the stuff in WoW is earned in game and that you don’t want the stuff in their store enough to complain about it. From my time there, I’d say their XPac rewards consisted of an armor tier or two (three weights), some mounts and maybe a few other things. Of course, a lot of that was hidden behind RNG grind (drops in raids/dungeons) or rep grinds (OIHWD "Oh I hated WoW dailies). The kittens had their hands on my credit card every month in addition to the XPac fee and they didn’t really add a lot more stuff to pursue in game than ANet has.

Sure, it is not a fact that they would add them in. But it would make perfect sense. It’s what MMO’s do. It’s how rewards work in an MMO. But this comes back to what I said before. A B2P model allows for a good game, it indeed does not guarantee one. The cash-shop model on the other hand at least grantees that compromises in the content had to be made.

“The standard in the industry does not support that hope.”? Your average P2P MMO game does that. So I would say the standard in the industry does support it.

“Rewards come in with new content, and except very infrequently” Are we going to do another straw-man? Now suddenly we are talking about when it comes in? Yes it would indeed come in with the new content, that would then come in with the expansions. I never said it would come in at any other point. I always said it belongs to or is part of the content. So yes, it comes in with the content (In the case of a B2P model).

“A new outfit or new weapon skins biweekly/monthly is purely an artifact of the store.” It is. That however does not mean that is does not undermine the content-rewards. Because it does.
The reward-system in GW2 is boring to say the least, and that simply is because most nice items are behind a grind-wall, not behind interesting content. All rewards and the best rewards should come from the content. But with this current model, most and some of the best come from the cash-shop. That completely undermines all other rewards and so makes the content feel unrewarding and so boring. Want to go for rewards? Well then buy them or grind for them what in total makes the game boring. And that is just sad for a game that had so much potential.
Now it does not matter a lot anymore. People already lest and it;s not likely they will come back. So believe what you want to believe. I think this is a big reason for the people to leave. Fact is, many left.

2/2

“The other two B2P MMO’s have stores modeled to some degree after ANet’s because they though it was a successful model. Just why is that?”
Lol, now GW2 was the first with this cash-shop model? No GW2 did copy it from others as well. Anyway, from a financial viewpoint the cash-shop-model is indeed great because it is low risk and high return. Even if the game fails, you will usually have some player-base. You can then leave a few devs behind to only make some items for the cash-shop and so squeeze the last money out of the game.

It however might not be so great if you look at the longer-term. But also that is not a problem for many companies. They put up their game, earns their money and move to the next project. However, from a gamer-perspective the model is better and if you do manage to get a good game out with a B2P model it will be better over the longer term. Simply because it is better for your customer and so you will keep more customers over a longer period. You might have a problem with it, but as a customer I do not only look at it from the perspective of the company, but also from the customer.

But that means you need a very successful game and keep that running over a longer period. With all the games failing that is a very high rist and maybe even a higher return but over a longer period. That is why companies are more likely to go for the cash-shop approach. Low risk and high return over a shorter period.

“Just why is that? Maybe the GW model was not as successful as you want to believe. No one seems to be emulating it, after all.” Because they found out the low-risk cash-shop model. Also GW1 was not big enough to get companies attention. You need one huge success with a model and then suddenly companies are massively going to jump into that model. That is how P2P and later the cash-shop became so popular.
At that point it does not even matter if it is still a good idea (look at the many P2P fails) but once those companies see that one big success they all jump on it.

“From my time there, I’d say their XPac rewards consisted of an armor tier or two (three weights), some mounts and maybe a few other things. Of course, a lot of that was hidden behind RNG grind (drops in raids/dungeons) or rep grinds (OIHWD “Oh I hated WoW dailies).” Some where indeed grindy, many where not. You say there are some. But there was enough to keep you busy for a long time. There was one profession / craft dedicated to it (Engineering) and later a second craft that also did go for many of that type of rewards (Archeology). There where many ‘toys’ or special items you could go for. They even had a collection of pet-stones. Just useless items but for people who like something like that it was great. Many, many mounts. You talk about a few but there are like 65 mounts per expansion you could get. Some easy, some hard, some as a quest-reward some as behind grind, some as a dungeon-reward, some you had to craft and so on. There are like 100 companions / mini’s per expansion. For rangers / hunters there are special beast to catch.

There are lot of these types of items. In WoW it was basically what I played. I did the quest and hunted for such items. The fact that you think there are not so much is because you clearly don’t care much for such items. And that is exactly why you have no problem with the cash-shop model and why you defend the current model and can not see that this is a problem for many people. Fact is, especially because GW2 focuses so much on cosmetics the absence of that (other then from grind) is even worse then it would be if it was not in a game like WoW. It’s part of what made that game such a success.

You say that there would be no reason for Anet to put them in. But tell me, if people are not interested in them, why do you think Anet uses such items to try and earn there money. They know people are interested in them, and so it makes perfect sense to give them as rewards for content… If you are not selling them for money that is. Now they sell them for money but get content that feels unrewarded and will bore people out over time. Maybe you had to do a dungeon x times in WoW to get an item. In GW2 if that dungeon does not reward enough gold there is no reason at all. So you jump to what ears the most money and will do that 1000 times. Way better :S

JTGuevara.9018:

Looking at gw2 results as a whole, PvE is doing well. PvP and WvW are not.

PvE has steady content, fractals, raids, gem store, etc. I find that PvE players are more satisfied overall with the game. With PvP and WvW players it’s the exact opposite.
ANet does PvE best. They just have no idea what to do with PvP and WvW.

As in the content they keep adding you are right. Nonetheless we do see a down-trend in the results and likely in the number of players. So they are still losing players.

And if you are not really into cosmetics or have no problem with grinding but do like the story then PvE also is really good. However in that case Anet is not likely to earn a lot of money from you.

With the model they used, those that they potentially earned the money from also got bored of the game the fastest I think. Simply because the cash-shop focus on the people who like cosmetics, but did not like grind. But if that is what you like, the content does not have much to offer.

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

Behellagh.1468:

Vayne.8563:

You say having a less intrusive cash shop is the answer, so if expansions cant’ be made as quickly, how are you planning on paying rent, insurance, electricity and 300 plus employees?

That’s because @Devata believes at the core of his being that ANet “could” do it.

I might be wrong. We do however know that their current approach was good for the first 1,5 year or so and then started to drop off more thenthey had hoped.

Didn’t want to resort to this. Air the dark dirty secrets of ArenaNet but if this doesn’t change your mind I don’t know what will. All you have to do is examine the audited annual reports from NCSOFT which breaks out the income and profit of their subsidiaries including ArenaNet.

Looking at the audited annual reports reveals an ugly truth. ArenaNet as an entity never made a profit from Guild Wars.

In 2005 GW sold 41,308 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 10,608 million KrW of that and almost made a profit, their loss was only 168 million KrW.

In 2006 GW sold 52,560 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 13,400 million KrW of that and their loss was 2,022 million KrW.

In 2007 GW sold 42,058 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 12,020 million KrW of that and their loss was 2,975 million KrW.

In 2008 GW sold 26,228 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 8,131 million KrW of that and their loss was 10,148 million KrW.

In 2009 GW sold 17,127 million KrW. ArenaNet only saw 5,254 million KrW of that and their loss was 21,658 million KrW.

ArenaNet had to pay off the development cost of GW just like an author or a band paying off their advance. And in 2009 they announced work on GW2. [sarcasm]It sure looks like that box expansion plan for GW really worked out for them.[/sarcasm] By the end of 2012, the last time ANet was broken out as it was “absorbed” into NC West Holdings along with NC Interactive and Carbine, ANet had liabilities, aka debt, of 128,000 million KrW. That’s the year GW2 sold 164,854 million KrW and ANet saw 68,000 million of that and actually had a profit of 28,000 million KrW.

This is part of the reason they decided that to maintain their B2P/no subscription approach, went with the cash shop.

Edit: This also makes the taking over of distribution by ANet for HoT a lot of sense so they could book more of that income without letting NC Interactive suck up a sizable cut.

You have a source for that? While it’s mainly interesting to see the development-cost vs the profit. You want to know the nett profit, not what part did go to NCsoft or what part did go to ArenaNet. Was the model profitable or not is the question. As far as I know development-cost have never been disclosed. So I wonder what you base your numbers on.

Like where in those reports. I would like to have a look at it.

It would also be interesting to see those numbers with all the results. Just to see how well the game is really doing.. or not doing. How do these dropping results really effect the game / ArenaNet. Maybe they are losing money right now as well?

How good is your Korean? I’ve been following NCSOFT since 2004 and they use to have the audit reports on the global site in English but now they only exist on the Korean site in Korean, in a PDF so even Google Translate can’t “read” them for you".

http://kr.ncsoft.com/korean/board/downloadlist.aspx?BID=ir_audit

EDIT: —-————————————

Well look at that, NCSOFT’s global site no longer has a navigational link to audit reports in English in the menu but they did leave the location to the English versions in the sitemap.

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/board/downloadlist.aspx?BID=ir_audit

The numbers I used were the sales income that ArenaNet got to book as income in comparison to the income NCSOFT stated the game made that year, and the profit/loss after expenses on the condensed income statement. Overall debt can be seen in the condensed balance sheet. As the years go by, the format and data required to be reported about the subsidiaries got more and more condensed. Last few years before the folding into NC West Holdings was pretty much bottom lining assets, debts, sales and profits.

Thanks a lot! I will look into those numbers one I have the time. I think it’s just interesting to see what more I can extract from that.

Any idea what is all part of “Selling and administrative expenses”. Because the part you are taking these numbers from (Condensed Income Statement) where you see the negative, I do miss a few things like running / development cost. Or is that part of the administrative expenses. I am also missing the investments and paying off the investments.

It’s probably all there, but under what name.

Devata.6589:

The cash-shop model on the other hand at least grantees that compromises in the content had to be made.

This is what you fail to understand. The cash shop model adds extra items that wouldn’t exist in game otherwise there is no reason to believe that without the cash shop those items would’ve been given inside the game. They wouldn’t even exist.

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

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.

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.

1/2

Vayne.8563:

You’re really stretching what was said. I said that one bad quarter does not represent a trend, two bad quarters would certainly start to represent a trend. I stand by that. I see a trend. I see that this game isn’t doing as well now as it was a year ago.

Now, it just so happens that that tiny little bit of information that supports what you believe exists. But it’s only a tiny bit of information. You can see elsehwhere where I’ve complained about the image of the game which used to be casual, becoming harder and harder core due to the focus or seeming focus on raids and PvP. The most visible parts of the game.

What you’re doing here is completely misrepresenting something I said to try to prove a point, I now agree the game has issues with either player retention or getting people to spend money in the gem store compared to a year ago. That’s obvious.

That has nothing at all to do with this argument and trying to make it so makes you look terribly desperate. How does that one fact even begin to prove what caused it?

You’re stretching it. Guild Wars 1 didn’t make the money you think it did, that’s one of your biggest sources of evidence and it turns out you were incorrect. How are you even still arguing this?

“What you’re doing here is completely misrepresenting something I said to try to prove a point” I did not mention that to proof a point. I mentioned that because you expected the these quarters to do better (in a way that was your prediction) based on the idea that the ‘lack of content’ was the problem.

And obviously additional content is good. It’s not like I think added content does not help (More content is also part of why I expect Q4 to do better, next to it being Q4). I just don’t think it’s the big issue. It’s also not strange that most active happy players want that content and so see lack of it as the big problem. But that does not seem to be the thing that is in the end driving people away so much.

What I am saying here is that you talk about that quarter, then your ‘prediction’ is false, the numbers go down and you are still blaming lack of content as one of the biggest reasons. However at the same time when I have a theory you complain that I can not factually proof it. That is also why I talk about you living in a dream-world. You only see what you want to see.

“Now, it just so happens that that tiny little bit of information that supports what you believe exists.” Well the thing is, what many people here seem to misunderstand is that I am saying “Look my prediction is correct, so that proof my theory was correct.” That is false. I might be saying.. My prediction was right and it was based on that theory but I do not claim that that proofs the theory. I do ask you all to please wake up and at least look at other possibilities.

I mean, look at this thread. You see all the same arguments being used that have been used over the 3 years I was active here. Most have validity to them but are not 100% correct or ar just minning the point. Like ‘cosmetic in the cash-shop makes for optional grind what is fine’. Well, you see how the results are doing. So maybe people should start to consider the option that ‘optional’ cosmetic grind is nog a good thing? Maybe people should finally be able to look outside of their own ideas. Because what they have been defending all those years has been getting lower and lower results.

Many of those where against the expansion while that was the only time we did see the results go up again.

I know you all love this game, but maybe it’s time (and to late imho) to set of the pink glasses and look at the things for what they are. Don’t dismiss every complain. Something is wrong ant the lack of content does not seem to be the main thing that is wrong. So you should try to remove the pink glasses and be open for other possibilities that can be reason for the dropping results.

2/2
“Guild Wars 1 didn’t make the money you think it did, that’s one of your biggest sources of evidence and it turns out you were incorrect. How are you even still arguing this?” If you lose money that means your expenses are higher then your income. What I have been looking at is how good both games where able at retaining people / income. GW1 was way better at that. Now if GW2 was as good at that as GW1, GW2 would have made more money then it did now.

The part I can not answer is how much less would it make without the cash-shop. But if a game is able to keep income more stable over a longer term it will also earn more money over a longer term. So as long as the earning are still enough to be higher as the cost (per quarter) you are fine. GW1 actual cost do not say much about that. Sadly I do not have the data to make that final calculation.

We can look at other non-MMO games to also get an idea. For example GTA cost €256 million to build. It earned about €800 million in the first 24 hours, Running the servers of WoW cost about 50 million per year (Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.288735-This-WoW-Infographic-Presents-Quite-a-Few-Really-Big-Numbers ) So lets do the following. 800 – development-cost of initial game. 800 – 256 = 544. You know what, they make an expansion 2 years later and it’s an big MMO so have two years of server cost. So lets subtract the development-cost for the next expansion from the money we have left. 544 – 256 = 288. Then let’s subtract the running-cost of the servers. 288 – 100 = 180 million. So with that model you would have the money to pay the development of the first expansion, pay of the investment of the last one and keep the servers running until the next expansion and still have a profit on 180 million just from what you earned in the first 24 hours.

That is really the most simply way of explaining my proposed model. But it only works if your game is a huge success (Like GW2 was), and that is why it is a high risk model.

If GW1 lost money it’s likely that it’s initial cost where higher then it’s income. (I really have to go over the numbers). But that is a separate issue. What is interesting to see about GW1 is that is was able to retain similar results over a longer time (Unlike GW2). With other words. Going back to GTA 5 and applying the GW1 model, the next expansion would also make about the same amount of money as the initial game. With the GW2 model you did see numbers going down overtime.

Hope this explains to you why the model is still viable, even if GW1 would nett have not made any money. Still have to dive into those numbers btw, only had a fast look at what Behellagh linked.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Here’s my take on why we had two crumby quarters, a lot of skillless casuals that were used to facetanking Core Tyria mobs/events/World Bosses got angry and quit the game after Heart of Thorns was released. Granted all I have is assumptions but let’s think about this here, Season 3 was delayed because a ton of man power went into the April Duct Tape patch which made major corrections to experience gains for Masteries and major difficulty reductions for open world Maguuma content ( you can’t tell me they did this and delayed Season 3 for laughs), why nerf your expansion content if your cash shop is making money and people are playing it, then the other quarter was crumby because again Season 3 was delayed for almost a year. I have talked to a fair amount of former GW2 players through MassivelyOP a lot of them quit because they felt GW2 had turned their backs on them in favor of a Hard Core minority due to harder Open World, less maneuverability dictated by masteries and convoluted path ways (think Moria expansion), and Raids which were the only new content for almost a year.

Money Talks,
Yours truly the Gray Knight (meaning I’m a fanboy but I won’t blow smoke up any ones *).

It might be part of it, but is PvE really more HC? It was mainly focused around group-content. That was my main problem with it, and that after completing a map I had not unlocked everything I needed to explore the next map, and even after completing all I could explore I still had not unlocked the abilities needed to unlock the part that I could not get to. So the only way to do that was to join up with the group events (that spawned once every 2 hours or so?) then be in there for a full hour and do that multiple times. That I did not like (And so did not do) but it was not really hard content. It just took look, was not that fun and you needed a lot of people to complete it with success.

Also this ignores the fact that results where dropping before HoT. Like I mentioned multiple times before. When you would follow the down-trend the results where in before the announcement of HoT, you would now be at similar results as you are now. In fact I believe that the dropping results where one of the reasons Anet did go for an expansion.

But it might be true that the direction Anet did go in with HoT was not great, while HoT does have some great additions.

Vayne.8563:

Nope, working with no information and drawing conclusions isn’t the best you can do. That’s literally the worst thing you can do.

All you can do when given not enough information, really all you can do, is say I don’t have enough information. You don’t have enough information period. Not a guessing game. Not a theory. Not an opinion. Enough information to draw your conclusions doesn’t exist outside Anet themselves, and maybe not even there. It’s entirely possible that even with their information they don’t know what went wrong.

Here we go again. Yeah then nobody on this forum should make any suggestion or put up any theory again (including you) because they can never proof a 100% that what they suggest / say / claim is correct simply because we all do not have all the numbers.

And of-course all companies should stop doing what they do because they all make decisions based on the limited (almost never 100%) information they have.

I can keep repeating this. But the whole economy and almost everything we do is based on partial information, on theories, on ideas and so on.

Obtena.7952:

The only consolation … Anet ignores this kind of nonsense. If they were to take business advice from players, the game would try to be everything to everyone, becoming nothing to no one. Thankfully, Anet’s acumen doesn’t come from gleaning the forums for armchair business analyst ‘conclusions’. Thank goodness some people still believe in the scientific method.

Well I try to do it as scientific as I can with the limited information I have.

Anyway.. Anet indeed does not take this advice. And where are we now… With lower results then ever. So one thing that we know for a fact: What they do is not working out. And who knows, maybe some of the ideas that where on the forum would have worked out. Maybe not. Again, we do not know that we only know that what they are doing now (not based on the forum) is not working out.

I am not sure why you are thankfully for that. But that is fine by me. I guess dropping results make you happy.

——

I keep finding it interesting to see how some people so strongly believe that all those companies know better because they are companies. They don’t see so many companies fail? Heck, they don’t even see the current results drop? It is really amazing. They are cheering for the people who are messing up.

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.

“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.”
Now that is completely true. But then you again forget that results dropped very fast in the beginning. Many players where long gone even before HoT came back. And it came to late to get them all back. It did manage to get a lot of old players back but by far all.
But is that because of HoT of because how GW2 performed right after those initial huge sales?

“Additionally, both Anet devs and NCsoft management have flat out admitted that the HoT sales weren’t that good.” You have a source for that? All I did see is the statement that the numbers of F2P players buying the game / expansion where much lower then they had expected.

GW2 just alienated a lot of people over the first 1,5 year and then took another 1,5 year before it came with it’s first expansion. That was the problem. But looking at where the game was before the announcement of HoT, HoT still did pretty well.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

The cash-shop model on the other hand at least grantees that compromises in the content had to be made.

This is what you fail to understand. The cash shop model adds extra items that wouldn’t exist in game otherwise there is no reason to believe that without the cash shop those items would’ve been given inside the game. They wouldn’t even exist.

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

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.

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.

“This is what you fail to understand. The cash shop model adds extra items that wouldn’t exist in game otherwise” I already acknowledged that fact multiple times. So not sure why you still say I do not understand that? Do I have to acknowledge it 10 times before you accept it? Ok, here we you.

“The cash shop model adds extra items that wouldn’t exist in game otherwise” correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct.
Now happy?

All I am saying is that without a cash-shop you would still want such items in the game and have them as rewards. Maybe instead of 150 skins we only would have 100 or 50. But at least those would be cool rewards to go after in the game. That is what I am saying.

Now if you selling such items you better make sure that most of the good looking ones are in the cash-shop. That however removes the game-play value of them and undermines the few that you can get in-game.

"
Do we really need a festive mini Aurene in-game?
Isn’t the regular version which you get from a collection enough?
"
Nice that you take this example. No, this is exactly how it should be. The regular version that you earn by doing content. Perfect. Now if all the cosmetics (even if ‘all’ is then a lower number) would be in-game in a similar way, so as a reward for completing content. That would make a huge positive difference.

And I must say GW2 did make progression with this over the years. (adding more of these rewards in-game). But overall, collecting such items still is a grind.

“They made them available with gold.” What results in people doing the most gold-rewarding content to get all the items they want and so they get burned out. Because doing one dungeon many times for one reward might get boring indeed. But then once you get it you can go do another dungeon for another reward. In fact, you might be mixing both dungeons up (as you want both rewards) and also go for a few that do not require doing a dungeon many times but completing a quest-chain. Once you have the reward there is other content for other rewards.

Now with the gold-approach there are maybe 5 best ways to get the gold and so people will go do that over and over again. What in the end means more grind because you keep doing the same thing for everything instead of doing one thing a lot for one item and then another thing a lot for another items and so on. And then there is the fact that is removes the value of those items. The item does not say you completed x or y. It just means you spend a lot of money on the game or grinded a lot. Nothing to really be proud of.

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

The only consolation … Anet ignores this kind of nonsense. If they were to take business advice from players, the game would try to be everything to everyone, becoming nothing to no one. Thankfully, Anet’s acumen doesn’t come from gleaning the forums for armchair business analyst ‘conclusions’. Thank goodness some people still believe in the scientific method.

Well I try to do it as scientific as I can with the limited information I have.

Anyway.. Anet indeed does not take this advice. And where are we now… With lower results then ever.

Again, assuming that we are at this position because Anet doesn’t take players advice is exactly what you don’t understand the nonsense approach of your argument. There is nothing that would ever tell you they would be better off listening to players because it requires the assumption that players know better than Anet does … and they don’t. The only thing players know is what they want. Very few players know what is required for Anet to give that to them. Therefore, the assumption is poor.

Calling what you have done here as anything close to having scientific rigor is simply ridiculous.

Devata.6589:

That however removes the game-play value of them and undermines the few that you can get in-game.

Since we agree that cash shop games get way more skins than non-cash shop games, the real question then is:
“Do we have too few items available in-game compared to expansion-based games?”

If the amount of items we get in-game in GW2 is similar to the amount of items you get in an expansion-based game then the cash shop isn’t exactly hurting the game compared to an expansion. If the amount of skins we get in-game in GW2 is way lower than the amount of skins expansion-based games give then yes the cash shop does indeed detract from the game in terms of shinny reward choice.

It’s really hard to make such a comparison though

Devata.6589:

We can look at other non-MMO games to also get an idea. For example GTA cost €256 million to build. It earned about €800 million in the first 24 hours…

Self-serving cherry-picking at work.

At $60 per that $800M revenue represents 13,333,333 sales. To put that in perspective, WoW’s high-water mark for subs was ~12,000,000. All that proves is that a lot more people buy and play non-MMO’s than buy/play MMO’s.

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

The only consolation … Anet ignores this kind of nonsense. If they were to take business advice from players, the game would try to be everything to everyone, becoming nothing to no one. Thankfully, Anet’s acumen doesn’t come from gleaning the forums for armchair business analyst ‘conclusions’. Thank goodness some people still believe in the scientific method.

Well I try to do it as scientific as I can with the limited information I have.

Anyway.. Anet indeed does not take this advice. And where are we now… With lower results then ever.

Again, assuming that we are at this position because Anet doesn’t take players advice is exactly what you don’t understand the nonsense approach of your argument. There is nothing that would ever tell you they would be better off listening to players because it requires the assumption that players know better than Anet does … and they don’t. The only thing players know is what they want. Very few players know what is required for Anet to give that to them. Therefore, the assumption is poor.

Calling what you have done here as anything close to having scientific rigor is simply ridiculous.

Maybe, but companies do the same, with more information that is but they are still working based on assumptions. And as you can see by the many failures or now in case of dropping results with GW2 they are not always doing a very good job at it. All I am saying is that you should not always think they know better because time has proved they do not.

As you say “The only thing players know is what they want.” (while some might not even know what they want) this is the basis of what you need to know. You want to sell a product so you better make sure you make something they want.

Knowing what players want might be the most important part of the puzzle. Sure a kittenty game with good marketing can still sell good and the other way around. But especially when you want to keep things going over a longer period this is the key information you need.

And in a way those monetize people at Anet know that, because that is why they are selling these items right? But they seem to forget (or don’t care) then they then also end up with a game that a lot of people do not want.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

That however removes the game-play value of them and undermines the few that you can get in-game.

Since we agree that cash shop games get way more skins than non-cash shop games, the real question then is:
“Do we have too few items available in-game compared to expansion-based games?”

If the amount of items we get in-game in GW2 is similar to the amount of items you get in an expansion-based game then the cash shop isn’t exactly hurting the game compared to an expansion. If the amount of skins we get in-game in GW2 is way lower than the amount of skins expansion-based games give then yes the cash shop does indeed detract from the game in terms of shinny reward choice.

It’s really hard to make such a comparison though

I think we do indeed have to few, while the distribution is also hard because of the way the game is build. Only one new dungeon since the beginning, no traditional quest and so on.

That leaves achievements as primary way to reward such items. That works but is just a little less interesting as getting it for completing something / as a drop.

Nonetheless. Even if a game would have enough. If at the same time there are so many, and maybe even better ones available for grind then that undermines the ones that are in the game.

If you had a few in the cash-shop that would not yet be a huge problem. But with so many it is.

Just look back at content that was well received and see how their rewards where.

A lot of the time the combination of good content and good rewards is what you need. It is in my opinion why the Molten Facility dungeon was so well received at the time. Just as Aetherblade Retreat.

For the people who like a challenge the raids are well received. Just as the Aetherpath and The Queen’s Gauntlet.

That where all examples of good content with good rewards. You need both. Just good rewards with bad content does not work but in many cases good content without good rewards will also not work. (This is mainly true for PvE where people can usually eventually learn how to outsmart the AI. With PvP that is not so much of a problem. People fighting people is less likely to get boring.)

Nonetheless, even if you have a lot of that in-game, when at the same time you can simply buy even better looking stuff for gold / cash that completely undermines the ones you get in-game. While it would be less of a problem as when you have to few in-game and a lot for sale (what is now the case imho).

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

The only consolation … Anet ignores this kind of nonsense. If they were to take business advice from players, the game would try to be everything to everyone, becoming nothing to no one. Thankfully, Anet’s acumen doesn’t come from gleaning the forums for armchair business analyst ‘conclusions’. Thank goodness some people still believe in the scientific method.

Well I try to do it as scientific as I can with the limited information I have.

Anyway.. Anet indeed does not take this advice. And where are we now… With lower results then ever.

Again, assuming that we are at this position because Anet doesn’t take players advice is exactly what you don’t understand the nonsense approach of your argument. There is nothing that would ever tell you they would be better off listening to players because it requires the assumption that players know better than Anet does … and they don’t. The only thing players know is what they want. Very few players know what is required for Anet to give that to them. Therefore, the assumption is poor.

Calling what you have done here as anything close to having scientific rigor is simply ridiculous.

Maybe, but companies do the same, with more information that is but they are still working based on assumptions. And as you can see by the many failures or now in case of dropping results with GW2 they are not always doing a very good job at it.

That might be so, but to think that players would do better with even less understanding of the business and information than Anet has is just pure nonsense. Essentially you’re telling us that people guessing could do better than Anet does … I mean, that’s just silly.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Devata.6589:

We can look at other non-MMO games to also get an idea. For example GTA cost €256 million to build. It earned about €800 million in the first 24 hours…

Self-serving cherry-picking at work.

At $60 per that $800M revenue represents 13,333,333 sales. To put that in perspective, WoW’s high-water mark for subs was ~12,000,000. All that proves is that a lot more people buy and play non-MMO’s than buy/play MMO’s.

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.

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

The only consolation … Anet ignores this kind of nonsense. If they were to take business advice from players, the game would try to be everything to everyone, becoming nothing to no one. Thankfully, Anet’s acumen doesn’t come from gleaning the forums for armchair business analyst ‘conclusions’. Thank goodness some people still believe in the scientific method.

Well I try to do it as scientific as I can with the limited information I have.

Anyway.. Anet indeed does not take this advice. And where are we now… With lower results then ever.

Again, assuming that we are at this position because Anet doesn’t take players advice is exactly what you don’t understand the nonsense approach of your argument. There is nothing that would ever tell you they would be better off listening to players because it requires the assumption that players know better than Anet does … and they don’t. The only thing players know is what they want. Very few players know what is required for Anet to give that to them. Therefore, the assumption is poor.

Calling what you have done here as anything close to having scientific rigor is simply ridiculous.

Maybe, but companies do the same, with more information that is but they are still working based on assumptions. And as you can see by the many failures or now in case of dropping results with GW2 they are not always doing a very good job at it.

That might be so, but to think that players would do better with even less understanding of the business and information than Anet has is just pure nonsense. Essentially you’re telling us that people guessing could do better than Anet does … I mean, that’s just silly.

The way you put it now is as if I say that your average person will know better then your average company. And that is not what I am saying or trying to say. I am just saying that just because your average person is just an average person, does not mean he can be correct and a company can be wrong. Because that clearly can be the case.

And the way you put it, that is the case. You dismiss the arguments on the forum because Anet knows better. That is not by definition true. In fact we see that Anet is struggling to do it right.

So why believe so strongly that they know better and be so happy that they don’t listen to people on the forum (If it comes to these kinds of things)?

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.

@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?

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.

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!.