Guild Wars 2

Louveepine.7630:

rather they could offer us the expansion … it would be better for that good, armors skins of 50 Euros …

:) well to be fair; the cost of developing a quaggan hat versus a good actual expansion…. well….
Naturally a game as this with no monthly will have to make a lot of very small items for players to buy to function economical.

As a large group of players rush through whatever content to get to max- and then complain of lack of content- catering to that group of players is pointless.
You can’t develop as fast,- as the most end-game players reach end game.

Gearbox.2748:

Louveepine.7630:

rather they could offer us the expansion … it would be better for that good, armors skins of 50 Euros …

:) well to be fair; the cost of developing a quaggan hat versus a good actual expansion…. well….
Naturally a game as this with no monthly will have to make a lot of very small items for players to buy to function economical.

As a large group of players rush through whatever content to get to max- and then complain of lack of content- catering to that group of players is pointless.
You can’t develop as fast,- as the most end-game players reach end game.

From a commercial standpoint you are correct. Why create good content while there are people you can persuade people to spend it on other stuff. Like buying mini’s (what is fun about buying a mini? I love to collect mini’s, but ingame.. What is fun on buying them? Yes there might be a few you like but getting them all or many for cash or even gold..?), skipping the grind you first make so people can skip it and more of that stuff.

For the short term (3 years?) that’s great. Fairly easy income, but for the quality of the game is does not do any good. That is also why I really don’t get that people buy that stuff. Then again, I also don’t understand why people spend a lot of money in casino and so on… and no it has nothing to do with fun. A game of higher quality is more fun.

Biggest problem is that it negatively effects the game for everybody, and most of the buyers in fact think they are supporting the game. Then after two years they start complaining the game is going in the wrong direction. No kittenpo sherlock.

Then they move on to the next game and so for the company (Ncsoft in this case) it’s no problem there model works for the short term. Those people then go to a game like Wildstar (again from Ncsoft). Why care about long-term and high quality games?

my tax returns….

Devata.6589:

3. Do not spend a single dime on cash-shop / gems as that only helps to push towards a cash-shop focus what is bad for the game. So as supporter I make sure I don’t steer them in the wrong direction. I don’t want to be part of the reason stuff go’s bad.

Sadly enough there are to many people who do buy many gems (falling for marketing tricks) helping the game come to the bad state it is in currently. Anyway, I did what I could to support this game.

Fully agreed.

Before I saw this thread I genuinely didn’t understand why Anet puts so much focus on arguable useless items in the gem store, simply because I couldn’t fathom any scenario where I would personally buy them.
It’s surprising to me to see how much some people actually spend. Can’t blame ANet on this one, though – if I could bring in piles of cash money by periodically launching game skins that I could cook up in a few days, I no doubt would. I do wonder what they’re doing with the rest of their time, though..

As far as the topic goes, I have not spent any money in the cash shop. Nor will I.

“Gem Stores 2”, all the rest is forgettable.

Spent 0 Euros and never will spend any money on this over the starting 60 for the naive purchase of this “game”.

I’ve spent several hundred as well, but this is counting my husband’s gem purchases as well as my own. We don’t buy gems every month (even though I have a ‘gaming’ allotment in the monthly budget, which rolls over if not used). Depending on what’s in the store or if Anet did something we want to support, then we buy them. We’ve spent a couple hundred in the last couple of months, to show our support of the reusable gemstore skins (which we bought a few), and we upgraded to the deluxe edition while it was half off, and we bought another character slot, etc etc.

Generally speaking we don’t purchase the rng based items (specialty dye packs, the LS boxes when they were doing those, black lion keys, etc) as we don’t support that type of thing in the store. I do occasionally buy minis, but not often.

Around $100 for extra bank slots, inventory slots, 750 Collectibles and last purchase was for The Copper-Fed Salvage, I really love the last one.

I think the The Copper-Fed Salvage was a pure garbage, but I save too many Mystic Forge Stone. Only 5 for 250 Gems no way…!! Not even pay with gold is to much money.

I use the The Copper-Fed Salvage for blue and green items, and the 250 Mystic Salvage Kit for exotics and rares.

I’m happy with every purchase i did

With some of the amounts I see here, you could have bought modern reproduction armor, a modern reproduction sword, and been a knight in real life.

spent bout 100dollars, but never used any on BL keys, and never will, im not a gambler nor wish to ever be one.

Devata.6589:

Gearbox.2748:

Louveepine.7630:

rather they could offer us the expansion … it would be better for that good, armors skins of 50 Euros …

*snip.

From a commercial standpoint you are correct. Why create good content while there are people you can persuade people to spend it on other stuff.
*snip
For the short term (3 years?) that’s great. Fairly easy income, but for the quality of the game is does not do any good.
*snip
Biggest problem is that is negatively effects the game for everybody and most of the buyers in fact think they are supporting the game. Then after two years they start complaining the game is going in the wrong direction. No kittenpo sherlock.

Hmm some rather good points there. Definitely worth thinking about.

I don’t have the financial info on it, but lets make a guesstimate.

Making a New MMO costs (X) . (you can reduce some cost if you have a previous game with developed lore and such to attach it to. (x) )

Since it is an MMO and not an offline game- some monthly cost is involved. (Y)

Making an expansion will cost far less than X as mechanics are developed etc. but it still needs to be substantial, or players will not feel its an expansion, rather than say; new content- as fractals, dungeons etc)
For the arguments sake lets call it (Z)

So GW2 is X-x and without monthly subscription meaning Y needs to be handled in another way. That is done by Micro-transactions.

Will a new expansion cost extra money-? yes likely that seems to be the consensus business model. and would need to be there to pay for the Z.
Does it take time to develop Z? yes quite a lot.. as you say a few years.
Since it is an MMO and no offline. I assume they need those transactions to run while they develop an expansion instead of subscription.

It also means that we have a bit of choice as to what our money is used for.- . negative part is as you say- resources are spend there instead of developing Z.

My experience from other MMO have been that new expansions come- and a large amount of players again rush through it. (max level or end content) – in a matter of weeks…— again far faster than you can develop for.
It creates a negative spiral. where you can never develop fast enough.-

So instead you create features and smaller content to keep player base active. (its cost efficient) and GW2 did that. plenty of new stuff comes all the time.. (not all good, but heck)

Do I want expansion.. hell yes.!. I want a new race and new maps etc. Higher max level.- No! absolutely not. its ruined a lot of other games.

But from a financial solid foundation , as a developer you have to try to get players to spend as much time as possible in the X before Z. and even jump through hoops to get old players to re-try old content so that new players feel that the game is active—

and before you start- no- Mega servers etc is not the way to do it… Do I have a solution.-…. No…..

I’ll have to think through the Micro Vs Subscription and yes your point is excellent on- when are we feeding the machine that works against an expansion. at what point is it better for devs to get kitten s in gear.

vana.5467:

Devata.6589:

3. Do not spend a single dime on cash-shop / gems as that only helps to push towards a cash-shop focus what is bad for the game. So as supporter I make sure I don’t steer them in the wrong direction. I don’t want to be part of the reason stuff go’s bad.

Sadly enough there are to many people who do buy many gems (falling for marketing tricks) helping the game come to the bad state it is in currently. Anyway, I did what I could to support this game.

Fully agreed.

Before I saw this thread I genuinely didn’t understand why Anet puts so much focus on arguable useless items in the gem store, simply because I couldn’t fathom any scenario where I would personally buy them.
It’s surprising to me to see how much some people actually spend. Can’t blame ANet on this one, though – if I could bring in piles of cash money by periodically launching game skins that I could cook up in a few days, I no doubt would. I do wonder what they’re doing with the rest of their time, though..

As far as the topic goes, I have not spent any money in the cash shop. Nor will I.

I do not blame the financial people behind the game. For them it’s just a source of income. I do however expect a company to also want to make a quality product and while the cash-shop stuff is easy and works (on the short run). Selling regular expansions should work as well and can hold a higher quality for the game. So to that extent I do blame Anet.

Compare it with non-MMO games. They create a game what takes 3 to 5 on average to build (Development time can be very different per game but I think 3 to 5 is a good average). They sell it for 60. Maybe an expansion a year later for 40 and then they start creating a new game that gets released multiple years later. Most games have bugs and have MP so they also have to do bug-fixes and keep servers running. For sure that’s less then in MMO’s but it’s not like they are done after release.

Then take an MMO. Initial build-time might be longer. 5 to 7 on average. You need to do more fixes, balances and some small releases (most mmo’s have at lease one bigger patch inbetween expansions) and have higher cost running the server. On the other hand, they can push out expansions every year, building and expanding up on what they already have.

So they should even with 100% expansion sales be able to generate the income (and more) of what non-MMO’s gaming-companies generate. The longer the game is successful the higher the profit. And you can even put core upgrades (graphical upgrades and so on) in the expansion. No need for a sequel you have to build from scratch and you can do it in parts. One expansions you upgrade the model of x, and the other expansion you upgrade the model of y.

Sadly the MMO’s has become a money grabber for companies and that’s also why you see so many games and franchise going MMO-RPG. But as soon as that happens the quality shoots down. It’s then up to the company that makes the game to keep it high.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Steel Fenrir.2791:

$440 That’s worth a lot of pizza, burgers, and other junk fast food deliveries. Thank you anet, you improved my diet. XD

LOL.. thanks for the laugh. Sooooo true right? If we don’t spend it here we spend it on something else equally as frivolous. Don’t kid yourselves. Anyone who thinks people are “stupid” for paying cash for gems must not have ever purchased something they didn’t absolutely need to live.

I’m just kidding. I was going to say “I could have bought a PS4 or Xbone, deliver the goods anet!” but that sounded whiny, and I realized it won’t do any good and instead of that, it would be better to “suggest” what I wanted for the product I invested money on and help it improve so I get my money’s worth (and probably if things improve they will get more support from me).

I also made a thread similar to this long ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Poll-How-much-have-you-spent-on-GW2/

Gearbox.2748:

Devata.6589:

Gearbox.2748:

Louveepine.7630:

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Hmm some rather good points there. Definitely worth thinking about.

I don’t have the financial info on it, but lets make a guesstimate.

Making a New MMO costs (X) . (you can reduce some cost if you have a previous game with developed lore and such to attach it to. (x) )

Since it is an MMO and not an offline game- some monthly cost is involved. (Y)

Making an expansion will cost far less than X as mechanics are developed etc. but it still needs to be substantial, or players will not feel its an expansion, rather than say; new content- as fractals, dungeons etc)
For the arguments sake lets call it (Z)

So GW2 is X-x and without monthly subscription meaning Y needs to be handled in another way. That is done by Micro-transactions.

Will a new expansion cost extra money-? yes likely that seems to be the consensus business model. and would need to be there to pay for the Z.
Does it take time to develop Z? yes quite a lot.. as you say a few years.
Since it is an MMO and no offline. I assume they need those transactions to run while they develop an expansion instead of subscription.

It also means that we have a bit of choice as to what our money is used for.- . negative part is as you say- resources are spend there instead of developing Z.

My experience from other MMO have been that new expansions come- and a large amount of players again rush through it. (max level or end content) – in a matter of weeks…— again far faster than you can develop for.
It creates a negative spiral. where you can never develop fast enough.-

So instead you create features and smaller content to keep player base active. (its cost efficient) and GW2 did that. plenty of new stuff comes all the time.. (not all good, but heck)

Do I want expansion.. hell yes.!. I want a new race and new maps etc. Higher max level.- No! absolutely not. its ruined a lot of other games.

But from a financial solid foundation , as a developer you have to try to get players to spend as much time as possible in the X before Z. and even jump through hoops to get old players to re-try old content so that new players feel that the game is active—

and before you start- no- Mega servers etc is not the way to do it… Do I have a solution.-…. No…..

I’ll have to think through the Micro Vs Subscription and yes your point is excellent on- when are we feeding the machine that works against an expansion. at what point is it better for devs to get kitten s in gear.

“I assume they need those transactions to run while they develop an expansion instead of subscription. “ Why? Non-mmo games have never needed it. Sure MMO’s have higher cost keeping stuff running and updated so they might make a little less in those first years then non-mmo’s do but after maybe 3 years (releasing an expansion every year) they are even with the non-mmo games and after that they would be starting to make more money. (that time is just a guestimate).

Of course it has a higher risk because if it fails after a year you did lose or at least did not make a lot of money. Short term cash-shop is safer.

That is long-term investment planning.

And then there are cash-shops and cash-shops. If they put only things in the cash-shop that are really not part of the game it’s not a problem. Think of total-makeover kits (except if the lore would dictate that the people would morph into any shape), name-changers, (not hair-cuts.. that belongs in the game as a barber), sex-changer, race-changer, guild-name changer and if they give you at least the amount of character-slots you need to have all races or professions (whatever you have most) then additional character-slots could also be oke. So they could use that as a side income supporting the game meanwhile.

You can even sell vip-subscription. Now this might sound strange coming from me. However even that can be done right. A temporary title (only while the sub is active) and access to beta servers. Maybe even if you add items as drops (if it’s nothing special where time is important) the vip people might be able to get those drops 3 days sooner. But that last one is tricky. Still that’s an example how you can even make a subscription harmless and might still attract people who like to have access to the beta severs.

In addition you have merchandise. Something an average MMO (especially when it has a longer lifetime) can benefit of likely even more then your average non-MMO.

Spent hundreds of dollars since it launched but after I realized they were pouring their development efforts primarily into the China release and outright snubbed the current players I slammed my wallet shut. It will stay that way until they add more permanent content, and address the myriad of concerns players raised after the feature patch.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

0€. There’s nothing to spend gems on.

I don’t support RNG, I don’t care about mini’s, I already have the dyes I like, I don’t need more bag space or character slots, all style items are ugly, I don’t need boosts (especially not for that price), and most items under the services tab are overpriced.

I’m in the same boat.

On one hand I like not having to buy anything extra, but I really feel like the game deserves some of my money.

The problem is I’m very sensitive towards value/money.

When I spent 50$ on the entire game I can’t justify spending 20$ on items like Infinite Gathering Tools no matter how convenient they are. They are literally just a few items costing 40% of what the entire game cost me.

I don’t care much for aesthetics, especially not if they have no prestige attached to them.

I don’t need more character slots or bank slots and even if I did, I don’t feel they are good value/money.

I’d be willing to pay for more content, especially if it was much better designed than what we currently have, but ANet isn’t selling content yet and core game-play at the moment is simply too shallow to get invested in it.

I spent $10 on a character slot.

As a general rule I never buy single use items or “per character” things; only Account Based Perm Unlocks and/or expansions.

I would have bought one of the armor sets I found pretty cool looking to level a new character in – till I learned it was a one use item that would then require a constant flow of Charges to use my purchased Armor. Lost sale there…

Next purchase from me will be a full fledged expansion. Further, I’ve decided to also not use the exchange at all till I see a better distribution of content added IN the game vs added to the Gem Store. I feel we should be seeing new armor sets and weapons added IN the game at a ratio of 5:1 (5 IN game to 1 in Gem Store) by now – as one example. The game, IMO, is starved for content and grinding kittens is getting old.