Guild Wars 2

laokoko.7403:

This is the report I get from the internet. Don’t know how accurate it is.

http://news.mmosite.com/content/sharing/2013-05-13/ncsoft_released_q1_earning_report.kittenml

The report says 32.8 million USD in Q1 2013. I dont’ even know how GW2 make that much. Either the report is wrong or GW2 is still making good money from boxsale or gemstore.

Hey I was close with my $33 million guesstimate. The game is reported to have sale of roughly 36.4 billion South Korean Won last quarter. This is just from the US and EU as the game isn’t officially available in Korea, Japan or China yet.

Now don’t forget the game made something over 3x that last quarter of 2012. Obviously the bulk of that was game sales. So either naysayers here are totally wrong about the number of people leaving or are wrong about how many gems the remaining players are buying. Yes they had a couple of sales for the game recently but additional people playing may translate into additional people buying gems. More so as the exchange rate is going up and desirable items are popping up more frequently or on sale at the Gem store.

Wait… did other companies actually fool people into thinking they needed subscription fees because it was comparatively expensive to run the servers?

Bravo marketing teams.

Lots of people have put in hundreds of dollars for gems. This more than covers a subscription fee.

Q2 is going to be interesting. Since the box sale will continue dropping and we’ll see more of what the gem store can make. That is presuming korea,japan,china didn’t release GW2 in Q2.

All one needs to do is remember there is a GuildWars 1 out there and to look at it and see how their business model works.

Here’s the sales from the NCsoft May 10th earning call . As you can see, GW 2 is almost making the same amount of money than Aion, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul reunited .

Gwaiyn.4395:

tigirius.9014:

While I agree that sub games are overpriced, they are so not doing something magical, let me tell you. In other games that are not sub based which I will call F2P those companies make more permanent content and they do it often. There are boxes in those games (with far less RNG mind you) which means they keep more of their players for longer.

There’s also one other thing those other titles have the Anet does not, and that is the non-manipulated means of getting loot/cosmetics/pets etc in the content with far less pain and struggle making the acquisition alot more fun. (you actually get what you want without the content disappearing or it taking months upon months to get to your goals or buying into the RNG game with RL money).

PWE has miles of better benefits to their gameplay even with the concerns over the prices of their store items in the beta NWO, and they have a better economic model then Anet’s highly manipulated and over iniflated TP.

i’d say give it time, NWO’s cash shop will probably turn into something like GW2’s cash shop over the span of like, 4 months

remember, GW2’s cash shop started out like that too, with just exp boosters, a few skins that weren’t in the black lion box and nothing noteworthy inside the box themselves

and over time, the price of gems gradually went up from the previous 30s per 100 gems to the current price of 4g per 100 gems, as well as tickets for untradable skins in the box themselves

i personally don’t mind GW2’s current cash shop model since nothing in the cash shop as of right now gives a clear and distinct advantage over players who don’t pay with real money, although the molten pickaxe did make me raise an eyebrow for a brief moment

exaggerate much 4g per 100…. try 2g 57s as the 5 day high loll…

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Every subscription based MMO was overcharging.

Exactly..and everyone was falling for it,they must have liked how their money was getting stolen.I never used a p2p model,never will..Always said it’s a principle thing,and people called me cheap..i called them kitten.

Namu.5712:

exaggerate much 4g per 100…. try 2g 57s as the 5 day high loll…

He’s talking Gold to Gems rate not the Gems to Gold rate. It’ll hit 4g per 100 just as soon as they release the unlimited use axe and sickle in the gem store. Currently it’s 3g24s with a 24hr high of 3g53s.

Tomoyo.3482:

You would be surprised at how much money some people throw at the gem shop.

Guilty as charged. I’ve spent a stupid amount on gems. So it’s idjits like me keeping the lights on. I just spent $60 so I could be Ironman in Marvel Heroes. Meh. You can’t take it with ya.

GavinGoodrich.1382:

Just wondering—they pretty much are redefining the mold of MMORPG the way they’re doing it, and with no subscription fee and consantly new events how do you think they’re making enough money? The game itself is getting cheaper, too (sales n’ such) are they just doing THAT well that I shouldn’t be concerned for the company?

Yeah, never before have I felt a game was so good that I’d be concerned they weren’t charging enough. I just don’t want this to go away, lol

RNG chests.

There are some people who spend 2x-200x more per month on this game than they would if they just paid a sub.

Back during the Halloween event, there were 5 people that I alone ran into in Lions Arch who spent over $1,000 in gems to get chest keys. They just paid the same sub as 60+ people! If the majority of the rest only spend 10-20, even if some people spent NOTHING they would still come out on top!

Hoyvin.3241:

Tomoyo.3482:

You would be surprised at how much money some people throw at the gem shop.

Guilty as charged. I’ve spent a stupid amount on gems. So it’s idjits like me keeping the lights on. I just spent $60 so I could be Ironman in Marvel Heroes. Meh. You can’t take it with ya.

You get more enjoyment out of that than people who spend $100 on a really expensive meal. They get 1-2 hours of enjoyment out of it. You get at least that, as many as 200-300 hours out of your game purchases.

IMO, don’t feel bad about video game purchases if you have the money to spend on it.

GavinGoodrich.1382:

Just wondering—they pretty much are redefining the mold of MMORPG the way they’re doing it, and with no subscription fee and consantly new events how do you think they’re making enough money? The game itself is getting cheaper, too (sales n’ such) are they just doing THAT well that I shouldn’t be concerned for the company?

Yeah, never before have I felt a game was so good that I’d be concerned they weren’t charging enough. I just don’t want this to go away, lol

Affording what? Great servers with no skill lock? Updates “big as expansions” that are actually smaller then most funbase made Skyrim patches?

GavinGoodrich.1382:

Just wondering—they pretty much are redefining the mold of MMORPG the way they’re doing it, and with no subscription fee and consantly new events how do you think they’re making enough money? The game itself is getting cheaper, too (sales n’ such) are they just doing THAT well that I shouldn’t be concerned for the company?

Yeah, never before have I felt a game was so good that I’d be concerned they weren’t charging enough. I just don’t want this to go away, lol

Right now, it’s basically a giant countdown timer in LA square, give them a few more months/years of RNG to run people off, sprinkle some one time content that only runs for 2 weeks and BAM.

I’m not saying this is what will happen, but rather what could happen, it’s up to Anet which direction they take.

Right now they are making bank on people who can’t add. When those people leave, I’ll start worrying for development money, unless they evolve their business model to be more than pulling a lever at a casino. To each their own.

Honestly I’m a little worried too now that I think of the lack of development and bug fixes the past few months. Maybe I’m just spoiled from other companies.

Aeonblade.8709:

Right now they are making bank on people who can’t add. When those people leave, I’ll start worrying for development money, unless they evolve their business model to be more than pulling a lever at a casino. To each their own.

Supply is nearly unlimited. According to a very wise and smart businessman, there’s one born every three seconds (adjusted for birth rate of the contemporary world population).

tolunart.2095:

Aeonblade.8709:

Right now they are making bank on people who can’t add. When those people leave, I’ll start worrying for development money, unless they evolve their business model to be more than pulling a lever at a casino. To each their own.

Supply is nearly unlimited. According to a very wise and smart businessman, there’s one born every three seconds (adjusted for birth rate of the contemporary world population).

Haha I like that, gave me a good laugh because it’s actually pretty true.

Lévis.5489:

Here’s the sales from the NCsoft May 10th earning call . As you can see, GW 2 is almost making the same amount of money than Aion, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul reunited .

But way less than Lineage, a game that’s been release in 1998… You are trying to show this picture and tell us that gw2 is doing well… i have no words…

There’s probably more people than you realize that buy gems with real money.

I’ve probably spent more on gems than I would have on subscription fees.

CoRtex.2157:

Lévis.5489:

Here’s the sales from the NCsoft May 10th earning call . As you can see, GW 2 is almost making the same amount of money than Aion, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul reunited .

But way less than Lineage, a game that’s been release in 1998… You are trying to show this picture and tell us that gw2 is doing well… i have no words…

I know, it’s really disheartening and worrying. I’m thinking if they changed the RNG GW2 may be their best seller, but I can’t say for sure.

GW2 is doing well considering its different revenue streams. Realize that Lineage 1 is an MMO with a subscription, and is popular in Asian cultures. So long as it has significant subscriptions, it will naturally earn more money than GW2, whose only revenue post-box-sales is the gem store. The very fact that a F2P game like GW2 is doing better than NCSoft’s other games tells of the magnitude of the success of GW2.

There is nothing to be worried about.

CoRtex.2157:

Lévis.5489:

Here’s the sales from the NCsoft May 10th earning call . As you can see, GW 2 is almost making the same amount of money than Aion, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul reunited .

But way less than Lineage, a game that’s been release in 1998… You are trying to show this picture and tell us that gw2 is doing well… i have no words…

And Lineage is South Korea’s WoW. 96% of that games income is from South Korea. It is THEIR WoW, THEIR UO, it was THE signature MMO that launched MMOs there just as StarCraft launched e-sports.

Well $10+ million a month is doing well. How many $15 subscriptions in WoW is that? Over 600K. EVE recently past 500,000 subscribers. WoW has clouded a lot of people’s definition of what counts as success in a MMO. WoW is a freak occurrence. It is way out, many SDs beyond what the average population size and income is for successful MMOs. I know someone will or has trotted out the “but GW2 isn’t a WoW killer”. It’s not meant to be. Sure they would love to have a massive player base, more money but there’s always a minimum threshhold to what ANet and NCSOFT would consider successful. If the game exceeds that, great. If the game exceeds it by large margins, even better.

But nobody in their right mind would or should ever expect any MMO now or in the next few years to exceed the success of WoW. WoW is like the introduction of the iPod. Sure, there were MP3 players before that but the iPod and iTunes made sure that the iPad quickly became 90% of that market. Sony couldn’t make an iPod killer. Microsoft couldn’t make an iPod killer. And the only thing that is killing off the iPod nowadays is folding that functionality into the iPhone.

WoW did that with MMOs. Soon everyone started making WoW knockoffs “with a twist”, in hopes to be struck by the same lightning and it never happened. However some companies have been able to cut out niches that they could thrive in and those games aren’t WoW clones by any stretch of the imagination. They will use innovative game play, unique settings or existing IP or sandbox environment/player created content.

Here’s something that may give away who I was in another MMO since it’s posted there as well. The sales numbers of every MMO NCSoft reported on over the last 6+ years in chart form. If you want to gauge success or failure, just compare our sales numbers to the rest of the games NCSoft is willing to report on. Note that once GW2 came out, the GW sales got shoved into “Others”. Now compare GW2’s income to the original that you all are heaping praise on as better.

Sorry players vote with money and even this quarter shows that GW2 beat GW handily in their best quarter of sales.

it is not very expensive to run servers for a MMO (comparatively speaking). But that’s not their entire cost. I’ll take a guess at what are the top few things that cost them money:
1) advertising
2) everyone’s salaries
3) their office’s rent and utilities
4) servers to run the game

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Every subscription based MMO was overcharging.

This.

WoW for example charges 10 pound approximately per month per subscriber.

With lets say an average of 10 million plus subs for just a year thats a income of 100 million pounds – MONTHLY.

Now take into consideration they have at least 4-5 years with that kind of sub number or more…
And the inital cost of development (supposedly) was around 60 million.

Now you see how overpriced that game really was.

What an absolute load of garbage. Try looking at it from a point that matters … yourself.

$15 per month is approximately 0.48 cents per day. If you are playing and enjoying an MMO you may spend 3+ hours per day playing it, although many people here would play an MMO a lot more than that. Even at 3 hours per day for a form of entertainment, which is exactly what a game is, it equates to around 0.16 per hour. I’d love to see your thoughts on an entertainment activity that is even remotely comparable in terms of value for your money.

Salt.4621:

What an absolute load of garbage. Try looking at it from a point that matters … yourself.

$15 per month is approximately 0.48 cents per day. If you are playing and enjoying an MMO you may spend 3+ hours per day playing it, although many people here would play an MMO a lot more than that. Even at 3 hours per day for a form of entertainment, which is exactly what a game is, it equates to around 0.16 per hour. I’d love to see your thoughts on an entertainment activity that is even remotely comparable in terms of value for your money.

I have mentioned something similar to this too. I played 106 hours when I mentioned it. I payed $60 for GW2 and have not been forced to pay a penny more. My play time is probably extremely low so others numbers would work out even better for expense verses entertainment time for others.

53 two hour movies at a theater would be 106 hours of movie entertainment. Most theaters run about $10 a movie. 53 movies X $10 = 530 dollars. One could argue watching 106 hours of two hour dollar rentals would be $53, but if you wanted to watch more than 106 hours you will have to continue to pay for the rentals.

This is all good to hear, tbh. Those that want things with gems can get ‘em, those that don’t, or just have a lil’ more play time, can just play more and everyone wins. Gotta say this new business model kicks kitten

Never underestimate the power of cash shop – rift is going to be copying this exact model on june 12. Sub fee is just an old unneeded model that was only required back when sever costs were insane. Now they’re dirt cheap.

Mathias.9657:

Never underestimate the power of cash shop

And it is nothing new. If someone downloads several free game apps for their tablet or phone, and even facebook games, it is very apparent.

So something must be working.

Aeonblade.8709:

CoRtex.2157:

Lévis.5489:

Here’s the sales from the NCsoft May 10th earning call . As you can see, GW 2 is almost making the same amount of money than Aion, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul reunited .

But way less than Lineage, a game that’s been release in 1998… You are trying to show this picture and tell us that gw2 is doing well… i have no words…

I know, it’s really disheartening and worrying. I’m thinking if they changed the RNG GW2 may be their best seller, but I can’t say for sure.

Lineage is South Korea’s WoW. It’s a game that have a cult following. Being second to the god of Korean MMOs is good.

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s something that may give away who I was in another MMO since it’s posted there as well. The sales numbers of every MMO NCSoft reported on over the last 6+ years in chart form. If you want to gauge success or failure, just compare our sales numbers to the rest of the games NCSoft is willing to report on. Note that once GW2 came out, the GW sales got shoved into “Others”. Now compare GW2’s income to the original that you all are heaping praise on as better.

Sorry players vote with money and even this quarter shows that GW2 beat GW handily in their best quarter of sales.

The only thing i see is lineage doing better than GW2… GW2 had the most players ever at launch, if GW2 really was a great game, they would have had 2 times more than lineage 1 on the chart right now. Why didn’t they? They over hyped the game & they lied in videos. (ex. Hey i swong a sword, hey swong a sword again, We don’t want that in our game) Guesse how GW2 combat is… U can’t deny the fact that 80% of all players since launch left. But this isn’t what the topic is about, it’s about how anet is paying the servers. And for that we need to know the costs. Until then it doesn’t matter how much they make. But i’m sure anet makes enough money to pay the servers.

CoRtex.2157:

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s something that may give away who I was in another MMO since it’s posted there as well. The sales numbers of every MMO NCSoft reported on over the last 6+ years in chart form. If you want to gauge success or failure, just compare our sales numbers to the rest of the games NCSoft is willing to report on. Note that once GW2 came out, the GW sales got shoved into “Others”. Now compare GW2’s income to the original that you all are heaping praise on as better.

Sorry players vote with money and even this quarter shows that GW2 beat GW handily in their best quarter of sales.

The only thing i see is lineage doing better than GW2… GW2 had the most players ever at launch, if GW2 really was a great game, they would have had 2 times more than lineage 1 on the chart right now. Why didn’t they? They over hyped the game & they lied in videos. (ex. Hey i swong a sword, hey swong a sword again, We don’t want that in our game) Guesse how GW2 combat is… U can’t deny the fact that 80% of all players since launch left. But this isn’t what the topic is about, it’s about how anet is paying the servers. And for that we need to know the costs. Until then it doesn’t matter how much they make. But i’m sure anet makes enough money to pay the servers.

Oh look, again with the made up numbers. I can deny something you can’t prove quite easily. Just stop making up numbers. Because you don’t know the numbers. In fact, in a non-sub game, people leave and come back all the time.

You can’t compare lineage, which is a subscription game to Guild Wars 2 which is a buy once cash shop game. Even games with small player bases that have subscriptions make a lot of money. So only someone completely disingenuous would try to compare them. One is a theme park game one is a sandbox game. There’s nothing to compare here.

Vayne.8563:

CoRtex.2157:

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s something that may give away who I was in another MMO since it’s posted there as well. The sales numbers of every MMO NCSoft reported on over the last 6+ years in chart form. If you want to gauge success or failure, just compare our sales numbers to the rest of the games NCSoft is willing to report on. Note that once GW2 came out, the GW sales got shoved into “Others”. Now compare GW2’s income to the original that you all are heaping praise on as better.

Sorry players vote with money and even this quarter shows that GW2 beat GW handily in their best quarter of sales.

The only thing i see is lineage doing better than GW2… GW2 had the most players ever at launch, if GW2 really was a great game, they would have had 2 times more than lineage 1 on the chart right now. Why didn’t they? They over hyped the game & they lied in videos. (ex. Hey i swong a sword, hey swong a sword again, We don’t want that in our game) Guesse how GW2 combat is… U can’t deny the fact that 80% of all players since launch left. But this isn’t what the topic is about, it’s about how anet is paying the servers. And for that we need to know the costs. Until then it doesn’t matter how much they make. But i’m sure anet makes enough money to pay the servers.

Oh look, again with the made up numbers. I can deny something you can’t prove quite easily. Just stop making up numbers. Because you don’t know the numbers. In fact, in a non-sub game, people leave and come back all the time.

You can’t compare lineage, which is a subscription game to Guild Wars 2 which is a buy once cash shop game. Even games with small player bases that have subscriptions make a lot of money. So only someone completely disingenuous would try to compare them. One is a theme park game one is a sandbox game. There’s nothing to compare here.

You would be suprised how much money people spend in a store of a good game. My friends in league of legends, almost all spent way more money than they would’ve if the game had a subscription fee. And this is the same for GW2 for many people. But league of legends is free + no-sub-fee. I’m pretty sure they make more money than any other game in the world knowing that they have 32+ million ACTIVE players. It’s not about subscription fees, it’s about how good your game is. That’s where profit comes from.

CoRtex.2157:

Vayne.8563:

CoRtex.2157:

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s something that may give away who I was in another MMO since it’s posted there as well. The sales numbers of every MMO NCSoft reported on over the last 6+ years in chart form. If you want to gauge success or failure, just compare our sales numbers to the rest of the games NCSoft is willing to report on. Note that once GW2 came out, the GW sales got shoved into “Others”. Now compare GW2’s income to the original that you all are heaping praise on as better.

Sorry players vote with money and even this quarter shows that GW2 beat GW handily in their best quarter of sales.

The only thing i see is lineage doing better than GW2… GW2 had the most players ever at launch, if GW2 really was a great game, they would have had 2 times more than lineage 1 on the chart right now. Why didn’t they? They over hyped the game & they lied in videos. (ex. Hey i swong a sword, hey swong a sword again, We don’t want that in our game) Guesse how GW2 combat is… U can’t deny the fact that 80% of all players since launch left. But this isn’t what the topic is about, it’s about how anet is paying the servers. And for that we need to know the costs. Until then it doesn’t matter how much they make. But i’m sure anet makes enough money to pay the servers.

Oh look, again with the made up numbers. I can deny something you can’t prove quite easily. Just stop making up numbers. Because you don’t know the numbers. In fact, in a non-sub game, people leave and come back all the time.

You can’t compare lineage, which is a subscription game to Guild Wars 2 which is a buy once cash shop game. Even games with small player bases that have subscriptions make a lot of money. So only someone completely disingenuous would try to compare them. One is a theme park game one is a sandbox game. There’s nothing to compare here.

You would be suprised how much money people spend in a store of a good game. My friends in league of legends, almost all spent way more money than they would’ve if the game had a subscription fee. And this is the same for GW2 for many people. But league of legends is free + no-sub-fee. I’m pretty sure they make more money than any other game in the world knowing that they have 32+ million ACTIVE players. It’s not about subscription fees, it’s about how good your game is. That’s where profit comes from.

I really don’t understand how ANYONE can compare League of Legends to an MMORPG. How much monthly content do they have to come up with to keep people playing? Again, you have to compare MMOs to MMOs.

For example, how long did it take LoL to be developed and how many developers worked on it. It was a tiny project by comparison. A much smaller footprint.

Comparing a moba to an MMORPG with a giant explorable world is like comparing a car to a jet.

League of Legends had 20 million players at one point. Guild Wars 2 has had probably less than 4 million sales all up. If you’re right in saying that 80% of the playerbase have left the game, how many people does that leave?

You can’t compare games of different types to each other to make a point, because it doesn’t make the point you’re trying to make.

Vayne.8563:

CoRtex.2157:

Vayne.8563:

CoRtex.2157:

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s something that may give away who I was in another MMO since it’s posted there as well. The sales numbers of every MMO NCSoft reported on over the last 6+ years in chart form. If you want to gauge success or failure, just compare our sales numbers to the rest of the games NCSoft is willing to report on. Note that once GW2 came out, the GW sales got shoved into “Others”. Now compare GW2’s income to the original that you all are heaping praise on as better.

Sorry players vote with money and even this quarter shows that GW2 beat GW handily in their best quarter of sales.

The only thing i see is lineage doing better than GW2… GW2 had the most players ever at launch, if GW2 really was a great game, they would have had 2 times more than lineage 1 on the chart right now. Why didn’t they? They over hyped the game & they lied in videos. (ex. Hey i swong a sword, hey swong a sword again, We don’t want that in our game) Guesse how GW2 combat is… U can’t deny the fact that 80% of all players since launch left. But this isn’t what the topic is about, it’s about how anet is paying the servers. And for that we need to know the costs. Until then it doesn’t matter how much they make. But i’m sure anet makes enough money to pay the servers.

Oh look, again with the made up numbers. I can deny something you can’t prove quite easily. Just stop making up numbers. Because you don’t know the numbers. In fact, in a non-sub game, people leave and come back all the time.

You can’t compare lineage, which is a subscription game to Guild Wars 2 which is a buy once cash shop game. Even games with small player bases that have subscriptions make a lot of money. So only someone completely disingenuous would try to compare them. One is a theme park game one is a sandbox game. There’s nothing to compare here.

You would be suprised how much money people spend in a store of a good game. My friends in league of legends, almost all spent way more money than they would’ve if the game had a subscription fee. And this is the same for GW2 for many people. But league of legends is free + no-sub-fee. I’m pretty sure they make more money than any other game in the world knowing that they have 32+ million ACTIVE players. It’s not about subscription fees, it’s about how good your game is. That’s where profit comes from.

I really don’t understand how ANYONE can compare League of Legends to an MMORPG. How much monthly content do they have to come up with to keep people playing? Again, you have to compare MMOs to MMOs.

For example, how long did it take LoL to be developed and how many developers worked on it. It was a tiny project by comparison. A much smaller footprint.

Comparing a moba to an MMORPG with a giant explorable world is like comparing a car to a jet.

League of Legends had 20 million players at one point. Guild Wars 2 has had probably less than 4 million sales all up. If you’re right in saying that 80% of the playerbase have left the game, how many people does that leave?

You can’t compare games of different types to each other to make a point, because it doesn’t make the point you’re trying to make.

Oh actually i can compare those games because didn’t anet say in their video: Hey if you hate MMO’s, you really want to check out GW2. That means GW2 is for any type of player and so it can be compared to any other type of game. Not my words, anet said it themselfs.

Also, i don’t know anyone who plays 1 type of games. I play FPS, Moba, MMO or any other online game that’s good.

I could understand you couldn’t compare it with a RTS. Because they can’t sell anything. They don’t have stores or fees.

CoRtex.2157:

The only thing i see is lineage doing better than GW2… GW2 had the most players ever at launch, if GW2 really was a great game, they would have had 2 times more than lineage 1 on the chart right now. Why didn’t they?

By your standard, the only ‘great game’ is apparently World of Warcraft.

CoRtex.2157:

Oh actually i can compare those games because didn’t anet say in their video: Hey if you hate MMO’s, you really want to check out GW2. That means GW2 is for any type of player and so it can be compared to any other type of game. Not my words, anet said it themselfs.

Also, i don’t know anyone who plays 1 type of games. I play FPS, Moba, MMO or any other online game that’s good.

I could understand you couldn’t compare it with a RTS. Because they can’t sell anything. They don’t have stores or fees.

let’s think of how would GW2 store look if it was the same as a LoL store:
You get humans and charr for free. The only accessible professions are a necromancer and an engineer. To unlock more either a) pay us for them b) get a full world explore and a dungeon master on both of your characters. Oh and if you want to be competitive or enjoy the game at all you need warriors, because the game has been adjusted to expect you to do their damage. Everyone owns a warrior. Buy one from our store right now!

They can afford it because monthly subscription to cover “running costs” is the biggest scam in the history of gaming.

And we totally fell for it. Running costs are tiny in comparison to what they bring in. That is why I’m never going to get such a game again and why I am still playing GW2 (and throwing money at Anet a little now and then).

NCSOFT has to publicly publish their quarterly results and where they spend their money. This quarter they looked like this for the NCSOFT (which ArenaNet is a part of).

41% salaries
30% profit margin
2% advertising
4% payment processing fees of banks
3.7% servers and bandwidth (all NCSOFT games together)
0,3% creating retail boxes.
20% sum of really boring stuff, read the report yourself.

Activision Blizzard is also a stock company, they also publish results. They also list where they spend their money. What you need to know there is the WoW operating costs. Those include all the developers Blizzard has on WoW, the development costs of new expansion, the support for WoW and the costs of operating the game. Basically, the number is $1.7 per player. If every WoW player paid that, they would pay for all of the game and get the next expansion for free. Anything else you pay more than that ends up as net profit for Activision-Blizzard.

This is why every developer wanted to make an MMO, This is why when developers go to venture capitalists and pitch an MMO, they get funded. It is the promise of insane profit margins and for a while there was a gold-rush atmosphere surrounding developers wanting to create an MMO. Investors too. Why make the best action game in the world with a profit margin of 50%, when even a bad MMO can make five times its money back with an audience 20 times smaller than WoW?

As for ArenaNet, they employ roughly 300 people last time we heard something. Rule of thumb (read industry sites on that topic) says a studio that size costs roughly $15-$30 million per year depending on office costs and salaries. Again, look at the quarterly report on page 10, which lists the revenue directly generated at ArenaNet, which is probably the online store itself. There you can see, that the online store generated $14 million in the first quarter of 2013, so by July the selling of gems will probably have paid for all of ArenaNet’s bills this year.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Every subscription based MMO was overcharging.

This.

Also, RNG Chests and gemstore. Look at TF2 and Mann Co.

That said, GW2 needs more hats we can use in PvE.

I’ve often heard that as successful as GW1 was critically it didn’t really do well financially which is why they did a lot of things differently in GW2 to hopefully make it appeal to a wider audience

@CoRtex

Lineage is still what passes for a subscriber game in Korea (rate is higher than Aion’s), plus a cash shop (which you can notice when that went into effect when it’s sales doubled). GW2 is a buy 2 play game plus a cash shop and right now we are transitioning into relying on the cash shop for the bulk of sales.

How can they not afford this would be a far better question.

@FourthVariety

“an audience 20 times smaller than WoW” is still 400 -500K. There’s not a lot of MMOs with current populations that large.

Also from what I can glean, box sales for GW2 are assigned as sales income to NC Interactive and NC Europe (since they are handling retail distribution) in those reports and only direct online purchases are assigned to ANet. Likely Gem card sales are assigned the same way.

I myself and many of my friends on gw2, spend more irl money on the gem shop than a normal sub would cost per month. I dont mind it though because you feel like you get something for your money and you decide it yourself, in comparison to subscriptions where all you get is playtime. besides anet is bringing lots of new content and I would gladly contribute to that by using their gem store as long as it is a fair store. (not too happy about the BLC weapon tickets though)

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Rng chests and limited time item deals.

Cheap tactics can net you alot of cash.

Of course, it isnt as cheap as pay2win, so big upps to anet for staying away from that minefield for now.

what you talking about, the game has been pay to win since day one, you can buy legendary weapons which are always BIS

buying top end gear for cash is essentially the definition of pay to win

Shadow Blade.1324:

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Rng chests and limited time item deals.

Cheap tactics can net you alot of cash.

Of course, it isnt as cheap as pay2win, so big upps to anet for staying away from that minefield for now.

what you talking about, the game has been pay to win since day one, you can buy legendary weapons which are always BIS

buying top end gear for cash is essentially the definition of pay to win

Except that you can’t say it’s pay to win, because exotic weapons are easy to get. That’s the point. Hundreds or thousands of dollars to a buy a BIS weapon that you can get easily in game is NOT P2W.

With “consistent and strong” gem sales.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/guildwars/guild-wars-2-gem-sales-are-consistent-and-strong

I love the logic of GW2 players.

Paying for a sub on any other MMO is “being ripped off”.
Buying gems on the cash shop is “supporting the game you love”.

Stay classy.

Sephyros.9652:

I love the logic of GW2 players.

Paying for a sub on any other MMO is “being ripped off”.
Buying gems on the cash shop is “supporting the game you love”.

Stay classy.

lmao +1

This made me chuckle a little.

Behellagh.1468:

@FourthVariety

“an audience 20 times smaller than WoW” is still 400 -500K. There’s not a lot of MMOs with current populations that large.

Also from what I can glean, box sales for GW2 are assigned as sales income to NC Interactive and NC Europe (since they are handling retail distribution) in those reports and only direct online purchases are assigned to ANet. Likely Gem card sales are assigned the same way.

Yea not a lot of MMO’s with at least 400k+, just:
Aion
FFXI
GW2
Star Wars
Eve

and probably a few others.

Shadow Blade.1324:

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Rng chests and limited time item deals.

Cheap tactics can net you alot of cash.

Of course, it isnt as cheap as pay2win, so big upps to anet for staying away from that minefield for now.

what you talking about, the game has been pay to win since day one, you can buy legendary weapons which are always BIS

buying top end gear for cash is essentially the definition of pay to win

I can’t tell if sarcastic.. Legendarys are same stats currently as exotics. Top gear in GW2 has nothing to do with stats, but to do with looks. Aside from Ascended which isn’t needed anywhere outside of fractals. If gear actually mattered, then yes, p2w.