Guild Wars 2

Today NCSoft presented the earnings report 3Q14. The sales you can fin here:

http://imgur.com/AVPKAKk

GW2

• 19.68 biln Won

• -6.6 % QoQ; -20% YoY

• Still strong performance in NA/EU

• Performance in China is weaker than expected.

During the conference call the question came up about an expansion pack for GW2. The answer was:

" The game is now two years old. And therefore in the not too far future we do think that we will have an opportunity to show our plans about expansion packs for this game"

Stream of the conference call: http://cast.calltogether.co.kr/ncsoft/2014_3Q/index.html

NCSoft uses now different phrases to deal with this topic. This does not mean that the expansion pack is right around the corner. But at least they seem to be confident enough to prepare us carefully for more informations in the not so far future.

Their plans could be “Rather than a traditional expansion, we’re going to go with the ‘Living Story’ method of expanding the game.” So, don’t take this to mean anything about an expansion.

The bit about sales in China, however, is interesting. THAT is going to be what moves them, and decides what they’ll pressure ANet into doing.

Very nice, and hopefully more of a traditional expansion.

I always thought china’s release is what push back GW2’s plan for expansion.

It makes better financial sense to not release expansion anywhere near the china’s initial release.

That being said, it is just a guess.

I think NCSoft says similar things about expansion last year though, and Anet deny’s it. So it is hard to say what’s going on.

Palador.2170:

Their plans could be “Rather than a traditional expansion, we’re going to go with the ‘Living Story’ method of expanding the game.” So, don’t take this to mean anything about an expansion.

The bit about sales in China, however, is interesting. THAT is going to be what moves them, and decides what they’ll pressure ANet into doing.

Sure, “expansion packs” could stand for seasons/feature packs within the LW concept.

Wow! Has been years since I last saw a sales report.
Seeing Lineage 1 still doing that well is incredible.

Flitzie.6082:

Wow! Has been years since I last saw a sales report.
Seeing Lineage 1 still doing that well is incredible.

I’m surprised Aion is doing that well.

You’d be surprised how less popular MMOs still remain strong. That just means they are playing it safe and keeping their current playerbase while slowly trying to attract new blood.

As for an expansion pack, that would mean that Arenanet will have time to implement new stuff that they could not do with mere Living Story updates.

It looks like WS initial sales weren’t much more than GW2 in the same quarter. And the second quarter even less than GW2. Must have been disappointing for some. That’s interesting to note, though.

Would like to see the US/EU breakdown of their games. I doubt Aion touches GW2 in the US/EU compared to Asia.

And yeah… WS looks like its in a bit of trouble since, its numbers are lower than GW2 and its only really a couple months old. As always I am simply amazed at the number of people that actually like playing Lineage 1 or 2. They basically are the definition of grind-fests.

laokoko.7403:

I always thought china’s release is what push back GW2’s plan for expansion.

It makes better financial sense to not release expansion anywhere near the china’s initial release.

That being said, it is just a guess.

I think NCSoft says similar things about expansion last year though, and Anet deny’s it. So it is hard to say what’s going on.

What they fail to mention is the other markets that GW2 has yet to be officially released in, such as Brazil…grrr, there’s 4 at least, drawing a blank on the other 3 at the moment.

Hmm … so where are the numbers for China? That image only shows Korea, US+EU, Japan, and Taiwan for the regions.

Number from China classify under royalties.

So we’ll be getting an expansion soon

Look at how much new content they’ve created in two years. Do you really think they are even capable of creating enough new content for an expansion pack? (The answer is no.)

Lord Kuru.3685:

Look at how much new content they’ve created in two years. Do you really think they are even capable of creating enough new content for an expansion pack? (The answer is no.)

Unless they’ve been working on an expansion pack longer than you think they have, in which case it’s a different answer.

No one knows for sure but Anet and NCSoft.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Look at how much new content they’ve created in two years. Do you really think they are even capable of creating enough new content for an expansion pack? (The answer is no.)

Sure they are.

It might not be a GOOD expansion pack, but they can still throw together a few things and call it that. And overcharge for it, too.

expansion pack is code for “60 more dollars for new software”

And royalties are down QoQ (quarter over quarter) by 40.7%. And since Blade & Soul China is also under royalties it looks as if both Chinese ventures aren’t panning out as well as some at the Mothership hyped hoped.

As for the “expansion” packs. I’ll believe it when I hear ANet say it. Expansions had been reported multiple times during investor calls only to have ANet go “whoa their Tex” and publicly correct the Mothership. Something that normally isn’t seen in Korean business culture, an underling correcting/contradicting their boss.

QoQ GW2 is down only 8.5% compared to 11.6% 2nd quarter in KrW.

GW2 dropped to 4th largest earning in reported games, now behind AION which had an amazing surge of 79.5% and Blade & Soul as WildStar’s earnings fell 42.9% as B&S improved slightly by 3.3% putting it only 73 million KrW over GW2.

Things they didn’t report but can be calculated. GW2 earned roughly $95-96 million USD. Also last year 4Q earnings grew 37.1% over 3Q due to the holiday season. It will be interesting to see what kind of bounce we see this season.

Edit: Totally missed AION’s surge. Who would’ve thunk it.

Expansion pack = Playable Tengu’s (I hope)

hmmm as i predicted last quarter, further sliding and now dropping behind blade and soul. Aion now beats both, which recently announced an update.

they almost always say an expansion is in the works for anet though. At this point i think it will be a really bad idea for anet not to announce one, even if they have no real plans, because the game will continue to drop without a substantial real update to the game.

Behellagh.1468:

And royalties are down QoQ (quarter over quarter) by 40.7%. And since Blade & Soul China is also under royalties it looks as if both Chinese ventures aren’t panning out as well as some at the Mothership hyped hoped.

As for the “expansion” packs. I’ll believe it when I hear ANet say it. Expansions had been reported multiple times during investor calls only to have ANet go “whoa their Tex” and publicly correct the Mothership. Something that normally isn’t seen in Korean business culture, an underling correcting/contradicting their boss.

QoQ GW2 is down only 8.5% compared to 11.6% 2nd quarter in KrW.

They are still the 3rd largest earning in reported games, now behind Blade & Soul as WildStar’s earnings fell 42.9% as B&S improved slightly by 3.3% putting it only 73 million KrW over GW2.

Things they didn’t report but can be calculated. GW2 earned roughly $95-96 million USD. Also last year 4Q earnings grew 37.1% over 3Q due to the holiday season. It will be interesting to see what kind of bounce we see this season.

they are 4th, aion beats both blade and soul and gw2 substantially.
Wildstar is actually doing surprisingly well considering such a small playerbase/interest/bad press.

Sales usually go up around christmas, if they do not for gw2 that would be a complete shock. Then again, i dont think they can attract many new players without new of an expansion. (1 box sale is bigger than like 5 players in terms of profit per year)

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

Have there every been one of these reports that didn’t state that there would be an expansion coming soon?

And yeah.. clearly that have not been the case, so I wouldn’t put too much into it this time either.

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

aion is way older, lineage 1 is way older. Its doing as well as blade and soul virtually which has started off with a lot less numbers.

If anet hadnt reached so many people it would be doing ok, but it started high and has consistently sunk this year. blade and soul for example, has been generally stable. Whereas say a blade and soul can still hope to expand, gw2 has basically gotten and lost all of those customers. They wont get most of them back unless they give them something substantial.

lordkrall.7241:

Have there every been one of these reports that didn’t state that there would be an expansion coming soon?

And yeah.. clearly that have not been the case, so I wouldn’t put too much into it this time either.

yeah they had a disclaimer that every thing they say in the report may not come to pass, so its not a guarantee. It reads more like, its been 2 years, its about the time arena net should be looking at an expansion.

lordkrall.7241:

Have there every been one of these reports that didn’t state that there would be an expansion coming soon?

Well, all the previous times they have said that they are not yet ready to answer the question about expansions, and are looking at the situation to see if the moment is right. This is the first time that they said this moment may be close by.
Still doesn’t mean anything, of course.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

aion is way older, lineage 1 is way older. Its doing as well as blade and soul virtually which has started off with a lot less numbers.

If anet hadnt reached so many people it would be doing ok, but it started high and has consistently sunk this year. blade and soul for example, has been generally stable. Whereas say a blade and soul can still hope to expand, gw2 has basically gotten and lost all of those customers. They wont get most of them back unless they give them something substantial.

Lineage is Korea’s WoW. I’d be stunned if it wasn’t doing amazing. Lineage servers in the US are all shut down because of lack of interest. That’s the thing. Lineage is a phenomenam in Korea, but failed in the US. It’s a bit hard to actually compare games in different markets, because they’re completely different markets. Lineage makes ton of money for NCsoft, but none from the US. Guild Wars 2 still exists in a US market. I’m not even sure why anyone would compare a sandbox game from a different region with a themepark game.

Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2 are literally neck and neck. They’re very close. If one is sucessful than it’s likely the other is too.

BTW the line about most people never coming back…strictly your opinion. No one can say what people will do. Even people who say they’ll never do something often end up doing it. I’ve seen that line too often.

If this game is making close to 6 million US a month, that’s a lot of people spending a lot of money in the cash shop. The last players this game has, the more each of them on the average are spending.

I’m not sure this game is doing as badly kitten many people are trying to say.

I would be surprised if they do not work on an expansion. As of now we hear nothing about the main game developers and story writers (Eric Flannum, Ree Soesbee, Jeff Grubb etc.). Those people were very active during pre-release and it is very likely they are just working on an expansion – not sure if Cantha. But maybe the Living Story leads to the events that occur in the expansion.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Look at how much new content they’ve created in two years. Do you really think they are even capable of creating enough new content for an expansion pack? (The answer is no.)

Small team is working on LS, big team is working on bigger content. Just a guess of course but I would not be surprised if an expansion is closer than we think.

An expansion could mean a lot of things.

New professions
Large scale area expansion
Level cap increase restricted to new areas
New species to play
New materials for crafting L1-L500
New non-tradable currency
Graphics and object model improvements
Convenience services like guild-only areas for “house parties”
Raid/alliance modes and events or instances designed to require them
Large scale profession trait skill expansion
Weapon use expansion
New boons and conditions restricted to new areas
New travel modes that improve mobility such as riding pets
Functional pet/mini creatures to raise tamagotchi-style
New game modes like the arcade dungeon, mini-games, or something more casual
Additional forging recipes

Major expansions require a lot more investment so they may be restricted to real money purchases. Gems are fine for little things but the revenue stream is smaller because of the gold trade. To ensure a massive content increase is only available to those who pay real money, the pay may be a non-gem purchase. The same on-line transaction system is still possible, though, and likely because it saves on packaging costs.

Hold on the hype for a minute.

IIRC during last year report of NCsoft’s earnings an expansion was also mentionned. I’m still waiting for it as far as I can see.

Wait for an official press announcement to unleash the hype train. Otherwise, the forum will turn mad again because of 2 words on a kitten ed sheet of paper.

VodCom.6924:

Hold on the hype for a minute.

IIRC during last year report of NCsoft’s earnings an expansion was also mentionned. I’m still waiting for it as far as I can see.

Wait for an official press announcement to unleash the hype train. Otherwise, the forum will turn mad again because of 2 words on a kitten ed sheet of paper.

If I had my druthers, I’d wait for the official annoucement and not start the hype train. It would be much better if we could do that.

I sort of suspect that won’t happen though.

We all want it, and that’s exactly why it ain’t gonna happen.

There will be a big press conference next week on Tuesday where NCSoft will present their future plans and strategies mainly around mobile games. But they mentioned they will talk about other games too. There is a very tiny chance that we will get some informations about GW2. But there is no promise at all that this will happen. I personally think next week is to early

WS fell too hard LOL

Mental Paradox.3845:

We all want it, and that’s exactly why it ain’t gonna happen.

No we don’t all want to pay for an expansions with the requisite level cap increase and gear treadmill as ‘must have’ buys.

Stooperdale.3560:

Mental Paradox.3845:

We all want it, and that’s exactly why it ain’t gonna happen.

No we don’t all want to pay for an expansions with the requisite level cap increase and gear treadmill as ‘must have’ buys.

Who told you expansions mean level cap increase and/or gear treadmill?

Valento.9852:

Stooperdale.3560:

Mental Paradox.3845:

We all want it, and that’s exactly why it ain’t gonna happen.

No we don’t all want to pay for an expansions with the requisite level cap increase and gear treadmill as ‘must have’ buys.

Who told you expansions mean level cap increase and/or gear treadmill?

Leave him alone some brains cant understand it that expansion doesnt mean level increase, that raid doesnt mean gear grind , that zerker isnt broken etc etc . Just dont waste your time , 90% of gw2 community is pure casuals , gw1 veterans/hardcore players left this game over 1 year ago .

The only thing I hope that Anet will change is their level of difficulty .
So every content they create , they create it quite challenging and then they add story mode option(turn enemies into hp bags without skills) and all casual would be able to finish game for story but people who play it will have something to do .

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

aion is way older, lineage 1 is way older. Its doing as well as blade and soul virtually which has started off with a lot less numbers.

If anet hadnt reached so many people it would be doing ok, but it started high and has consistently sunk this year. blade and soul for example, has been generally stable. Whereas say a blade and soul can still hope to expand, gw2 has basically gotten and lost all of those customers. They wont get most of them back unless they give them something substantial.

B&S is a subscription based game. It has recently expanded into Japan but it’s Korean income hasn’t been stellar. Of course this excludes the royalties from China. Royalties they pointed out as “decreased royalty sales from B/S China” in this report.

Income from Korea – millions of KrW – % of overall income from Korea

4Q13 – 17,887 – 100%
1Q14 – 19,234 – 100%
2Q14 – 16,632 – 86.9%
3Q14 – 17,046 – 86.3%

B&S had a three month head start on GW2 and even if we exclude GW2’s incredible 4Q12 income (so B&S has roughly 6 months more income), GW2 still earned 24.5% more than B&S. Not bad for a subscription free game over it’s lifetime.

L1 was South Korea’s UO and AION their WoW. And until this quarter AION’s numbers had been steadily falling. TTM AION’s income was still less than ours. And like B&S, over 80% of AION’s income, excluding royalties, is from Korea.

I’m not ready to put on my DOOOOOOM!!! hat for $6.4 million USD per month (average exchange rate for 3rd quarter was 1023.19 KrW per 1$), equivalent to 427 to 534 thousand subscriptions worth (at $12-15 a month) of income. Again, not bad for a free to play after purchase game.

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

GW2 caters to all players. Even the game staff have said in their CDI’s they won’t tolerate “casual vs hardcore” crap, so just drop it.

We’re all gamers, whether we drop in for a few hours in a very busy life schedule, or play for 12 hours a day religiously. GW2 has found a great balance for all, in my opinion.

Belenwyn.8674:

There will be a big press conference next week on Tuesday where NCSoft will present their future plans and strategies mainly around mobile games. But they mentioned they will talk about other games too. There is a very tiny chance that we will get some informations about GW2. But there is no promise at all that this will happen. I personally think next week is to early

Next week way too early going by this…

" The game is now two years old. And therefore in the not too far future we do think that we will have an opportunity to show our plans about expansion packs for this game"

Just some musings on players who have left who will only return if something substantial comes on the table; one thing I’ve noticed in many games that have come out lately (WS/ESO/ArcheAge) that everyone is always talking about GW2 for comparison in global chat in-game. Loving this and that, but it’s always comparison to stuff they also found better in GW2 – just that they were missing some really substantial update to GW2.

So, while other games might not successfully get people back to their game with an expansion pack, my guess is that GW2 might enjoy huge success with one.

Behellagh.1468:

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

We did wait for each of those… and each of those games showed a 5-10% drop for GW2. GW2 can only handle so many 5-10% drops before there is no one left to drop…

Maybe Anet should consider making actual content for a change and try to recover some of those players?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Behellagh.1468:

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

We did wait for each of those… and each of those games showed a 5-10% drop for GW2. GW2 can only handle so many 5-10% drops before there is no one left to drop…

Maybe Anet should consider making actual content for a change and try to recover some of those players?

I’d say then they are on track arent they? Wait for the big launches, and after a while communicate your own new launch. I can atleast hope can i

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Behellagh.1468:

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

We did wait for each of those… and each of those games showed a 5-10% drop for GW2. GW2 can only handle so many 5-10% drops before there is no one left to drop…

Maybe Anet should consider making actual content for a change and try to recover some of those players?

Really? 5 – 10% drop? I’d love to see the numbers that show this amount of loss that directly correlated to the release time period of these other games. I haven’t been able to find any substantial concurrency (or any other kind of) numbers about Guild Wars 2’s playerbase. Could you please post the link? Thanks in advance! =)

Behellagh.1468:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

aion is way older, lineage 1 is way older. Its doing as well as blade and soul virtually which has started off with a lot less numbers.

If anet hadnt reached so many people it would be doing ok, but it started high and has consistently sunk this year. blade and soul for example, has been generally stable. Whereas say a blade and soul can still hope to expand, gw2 has basically gotten and lost all of those customers. They wont get most of them back unless they give them something substantial.

B&S is a subscription based game. It has recently expanded into Japan but it’s Korean income hasn’t been stellar. Of course this excludes the royalties from China. Royalties they pointed out as “decreased royalty sales from B/S China” in this report.

Income from Korea – millions of KrW – % of overall income from Korea

4Q13 – 17,887 – 100%
1Q14 – 19,234 – 100%
2Q14 – 16,632 – 86.9%
3Q14 – 17,046 – 86.3%

B&S had a three month head start on GW2 and even if we exclude GW2’s incredible 4Q12 income (so B&S has roughly 6 months more income), GW2 still earned 24.5% more than B&S. Not bad for a subscription free game over it’s lifetime.

L1 was South Korea’s UO and AION their WoW. And until this quarter AION’s numbers had been steadily falling. TTM AION’s income was still less than ours. And like B&S, over 80% of AION’s income, excluding royalties, is from Korea.

I’m not ready to put on my DOOOOOOM!!! hat for $6.4 million USD per month (average exchange rate for 3rd quarter was 1023.19 KrW per 1$), equivalent to 427 to 534 thousand subscriptions worth (at $12-15 a month) of income. Again, not bad for a free to play after purchase game.

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

exactly, blade and soul never had the start up and number of players trying it out that guild wars had, and now, here we are today, with the same revenue. A revenue which has been stable, they arent losing many players for blade and soul. Also korean market + the american market has less gamers than the US+NA markets.

Also as you say blade and soul came out 3 months earlier, and is still bringing in the money.

Yeah, GW2 hit hard, it started huge, could have blown up the world, and now it falling behind a game (in quarterly profits) thats been out longer, has a pay model that most analysts claim is the losing pay model, Hits a smaller market, had less initial sales, less development time(far as i can see 2-3 years versus 5)

gw2 also has continually fallen whereas blade and soul has mostly stayed stable.
Its doing ok, right now, but its trend is downward, and its underperforming based on what it should be doing.

That said, there would be no reason for them to cancel it yet. Its making nearly as much money as blade and soul. However, should this trend continue gw2 will be right next to the wildstar, which many people claim is a failure. (its actually pretty near it right now)

Every quarter, i have said, this is a bad trend, its falling down, and losing people/revenue. And every month you guys seem to suggest that something will change on its own. Especially with the hardcore cash shop focus in this last quarter, (halloween, long sales, bonuses, and an expanding cash shop every 2 weeks) their total profits still going down.

yeah, i would say its time to come up with some new strategies, and make the product appeal more. In fact i really hope they have already done that, because it will be a hard time if they only begin dealing with this now.

That said, i think good content will cure all woes. People will quickly forget the past/problems, as long as you can give them something really good. Of course, i havent seen something really strong for gw in a long long time. (the type of thing that makes people change opinions, or reignites interest)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Behellagh.1468:

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

We did wait for each of those… and each of those games showed a 5-10% drop for GW2. GW2 can only handle so many 5-10% drops before there is no one left to drop…

Maybe Anet should consider making actual content for a change and try to recover some of those players?

Really? 5 – 10% drop? I’d love to see the numbers that show this amount of loss that directly correlated to the release time period of these other games. I haven’t been able to find any substantial concurrency (or any other kind of) numbers about Guild Wars 2’s playerbase. Could you please post the link? Thanks in advance! =)

Well its actually correlated by definition, it may not be CAUSED by those launches though.

Regardless, it would be better if they lost people due to those games, rather than if they lost them just based on people losing interest in general. Because if they lost it when those games came out, they may get em back when they are no longer as enamored. If they lost them due to people just not wanting to play gw2 anymore, thats a harder thing to flip.

You can put your head in the sand, but fact is gw2 profits have been consistently trending down for the whole year, and are behind last years numbers noticeably every quarter. Its not the end of the world, but it is something you anet should take notice of and react to. Im pretty sure they have also seen a substantial drop in players, but all we can be sure of, is a substantial drop in profits.

On the bright side, its theoretically possible that their profit per player may have increased, which means the game may last a long time, though it will have less players, and many things will be cash shop focused. But still a smaller, tighter more profit per cost venture.

Shame though, the game started out so strong.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Behellagh.1468:

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

We did wait for each of those… and each of those games showed a 5-10% drop for GW2. GW2 can only handle so many 5-10% drops before there is no one left to drop…

Maybe Anet should consider making actual content for a change and try to recover some of those players?

Really? 5 – 10% drop? I’d love to see the numbers that show this amount of loss that directly correlated to the release time period of these other games. I haven’t been able to find any substantial concurrency (or any other kind of) numbers about Guild Wars 2’s playerbase. Could you please post the link? Thanks in advance! =)

The link is literally at the top of this thread… it is what we are discussing….

Just look at the quarterly reports corresponding to the release of each of the major titles over the past 2 years and you will see a dip in profit for GW2 that never recovers.

In particular look for:

WoW expansions
Wildstar
ESO
Archage
FF some large number

All I see is that the game still goes South.

All those changes made in regards to the NPE only helped losing players faster in China than GW2 did in the West before we were told how to play.

Yes this game is two years old, but if it wants to exist long enough for us to actually see all six elder dragons, something has to change.

Unless they are satisfied of being #4 of 6, of NCsoft.

Behellagh.1468:

B&S is a subscription based game. It has recently expanded into Japan but it’s Korean income hasn’t been stellar.

B&S is free to play in China, you do not even have to buy the game. The Korean version is free till level 16, then if you want to play further you have to pay a sub. So B&S earns more with just the subscriptions from Korean players past level 16 and the cash shop than GW2 does with selling copies and cash shop all over the western world.

Mindblowing.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

All I see is that the game still goes South.

All those changes made in regards to the NPE only helped losing players faster in China than GW2 did in the West before we were told how to play.

Yes this game is two years old, but if it wants to exist long enough for us to actually see all six elder dragons, something has to change.

Unless they are satisfied of being #4 of 6, of NCsoft.

Behellagh.1468:

B&S is a subscription based game. It has recently expanded into Japan but it’s Korean income hasn’t been stellar.

B&S is free to play in China, you do not even have to buy the game. The Korean version is free till level 16, than if you want to play further you have to pay a sub. So B&S earns more with just the subscriptions from Korean players past level 16 and the cash shop than GW2 does with selling copies and cash shop all over the western world.

Mindblowing.

it wouldnt include china, that would be in the royalties section. It may include japan though.

that aside, you are basically right, except i highly doubt it will get closed, its still making good money, it may just see less resources/more budget crunch.

This year has really been a pretty bad year for gw2 imo. And yeah, NPE failed to retain players in china, and far as we can see in NA+EU as well. But you know, people told them this long long time ago, during chinese beta, when china came out, before they adopted the same things to NA version.

eh well whatevs