Guild Wars 2

booom forum page fix bug

phys.7689:

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

Yeah that is what I wanted to say. B&S earnings in the report are just from the subs and the cash shop in Korea (really, MMOs for PC are just not a thing in Japan, there is no money to be earned, so you can neglect the influence). They earn more with that game in Korea than they do with GW2 in Europe, all of America and Oceania…

Kaiyanwan.8521:

phys.7689:

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

Yeah that is what I wanted to say. B&S earnings in the report are just from the subs and the cash shop in Korea (really, MMOs for PC are just not a thing in Japan, there is no money to be earned, so you can neglect the influence). They earn more with that game in Korea than they do with GW2 in Europe, all of America and Oceania…

in their defense, korea is a huge MMO market, the competition is crazy, and its still profitable. Still, they should at least have been sitting at around 2600kmw with the start they had.

If they had went with an expansion focus, with a small cash shop, i think theywould have made a lot more money. Year 2, i think they could have got 2 million of that 3.5 million coming back for more. Unless the expansion they make now looks like a game changer, it will probably only sell 1million or less.

phys.7689:

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)

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

Maybe if they fail even more then we gonna have expansion :P i honestly was expecting the game to do good so we receive expansions but maybe if is the opposite then we gonna receive one :P

Gele.2048:

Maybe if they fail even more then we gonna have expansion :P i honestly was expecting the game to do good so we receive expansions but maybe if is the opposite then we gonna receive one :P

That wouldn’t really make any sense business wise.
If something is doing badly why would you push a kittenload of money into it in order to get an expansion out?

Usually expansions comes out because a game is doing well, not because it doesn’t.

I’m highly expecting an expansion pack to be announced “soon”, sometime in christmas or after season 2’s finale.

lordkrall.7241:

Gele.2048:

Maybe if they fail even more then we gonna have expansion :P i honestly was expecting the game to do good so we receive expansions but maybe if is the opposite then we gonna receive one :P

That wouldn’t really make any sense business wise.
If something is doing badly why would you push a kittenload of money into it in order to get an expansion out?

Usually expansions comes out because a game is doing well, not because it doesn’t.

The game is still doing well from a business standpoint. Remember that ANet was spared in the recent NCSoft layoffs. This would really only make sense if the company was turning a decent profit.

A lot of long term players feel like the game is doing poorly because we’re watching our friends leave, we’re seeing a small (relative to other similar games) amount of new content, and ANet’s focus seems to be entirely on attracting new players, rather than keeping existing ones. “Get people to buy the box — after that, kitten ’em” seems to be the new manifesto.

The constant 50% off sales on boxes and cashshop focus for the last two years has paid off for them, although it seems very unsustainable as a lot of veterans have gotten bored and left, and continue to do so. But the game has no sub, so I guess they’re banking really hard that a sufficiently interesting expansion will be enough to undo 2 years of bad customer relations and meager content updates to convince players who left to return.

I hope it works, I love this game. I’d like to see them take a less self-destructive approach to customer relations, but we’ve beaten that dead horse into the ground.

Too late, methinks. I would have bought an xpac. Not now. Too many other good things out there.

NCSoft is more or less the Blizzard of Korea. Before WoW was released Lineage 1 + 2
were by far the MMOs with the most subscriptions. They both hat around 2 Million
at that time i think, while in the west MMOs at that time nearly ever touched
500.000.

However in NA we were proud to have 64.000 players in Lineage 2 2 months after release ..

Here is also a list of the most popular games in Korea from August :
https://www.techinasia.com/south-koreas-top-10-most-popular-pc-games-august-2014/

MMO wise its all NCSoft ..
1. Lineage 2
2. Aion
3. Blade & Soul

None of them however is sucessfull in the west. B & S has still not even been released here.

I expect to see more Gem Store changes, specifically Gem Store Armors and Costumes, Weapon skins relatable to the “B-Iconics” of the Living Story, Permanent Harvesting tools of different variations, and other great items that make this game one of a kind.

Far fetched but I also hope to see some new skills available in the Gem Store. I’ve got my visa ready.

Vayne.8563:

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

im talking about earnings right now, its right next to wildstar in earnings at this moment.
gw #4
ws #5
lineage2 #6

point is, if you think wildstar isnt making enough money this moment, what does it say that gw2 is right next to them in earnings? If wildstar keeps earning at this same pace, it will justify the similar budget to GW2.

past success isnt really relevant to the current product. Ncsoft will just be like, yall were real good at making a new game, go make a new game, dont waste time on GW2, give it minimal updates. If they feel gw2 has peaked in terms of earnings.

Beldin.5498:

NCSoft is more or less the Blizzard of Korea. Before WoW was released Lineage 1 + 2
were by far the MMOs with the most subscriptions. They both hat around 2 Million
at that time i think, while in the west MMOs at that time nearly ever touched
500.000.

However in NA we were proud to have 64.000 players in Lineage 2 2 months after release ..

Here is also a list of the most popular games in Korea from August :
https://www.techinasia.com/south-koreas-top-10-most-popular-pc-games-august-2014/

MMO wise its all NCSoft ..
1. Lineage 2
2. Aion
3. Blade & Soul

None of them however is sucessfull in the west. B & S has still not even been released here.

aion made a bunch of money, it just isnt making money any more. On release here, i think it made 1 mill or more. It had 400k preorders alone.

which goes back to my above point that while yeah, gw2 made a ton of money early on. That doesnt mean if they continue to drop in earnings they will warrant large budgets for gw2. When MMOs arent meeting earning expectations, they just reduce expenditures.

Is it really that surprising. It’s a sub based game. That does not really work anymore. Of course every time I say that (btw I also say the F2P model GW2 is using is not good) I get to hear that those professionals must know better (while they keep failing time after time) and me thinking I know it better is just misplaced arrogance. Anyway, every time It turns out I’m correct and they are wrong I tent to get a little more arrogant on that part I guess and that has been ongoing for 10 years now. So can you really blame me? Blame those professionals.

Only problem is that I also predicted the model GW2 is using at this moment (F2P) is bad in the long term (2 – 3 years) and thats the period where we are now. So lets hope I get proven wrong there but if they keep using this strategy I’m afraid I’m not. Even if they where to release an expansion, if they keep this F2P model an expansion would only help to increase that time a little. The numbers also do show a slow decrease in GW2 sales what perfectly fits with the “it’s not good in the long run” story I have. Yes the game is still doing well and Q4 will likely see a little increase again (all Q4’s tent to be better) but overall you do see a decline.

But of course I already know what the answer of people on this will be. I am just a players and they know it better, even tho I am a player who tent to get this correct for the last 10 years and the professionals got it wrong for the 10 last years. You see there is that arrogance part.

BTW getting it wrong might be just how you look at it. Getting it right in my book means having a quality game that runs for a long long time, that creates a good name for the company, enjoys the players and eventually earns more money over that longer period.

From a business perspective it might be fine to release a game, try to get as much money out of the pockets of the customers. Having the game die and then they simply move on to the next game maybe under another name so people fall for the same trick again.

However end positive. GW2 was successful and still makes a lot of money while at the same time you can see the decrease. Maybe those two facts mean they see they have to change but also have the money for that change. While I am not to convinced about that.

Let’s see if anything happens at all…
We could ask a member of the staff… -.-

If you read between the lines you can see what this “earnings report” is really about:

Iason Evan.3806:

If you read between the lines you can see what this “earnings report” is really about:

You owe me a new monitor, and keyboard. Hilarious!

Antara.3189:

I expect to see more Gem Store changes, specifically Gem Store Armors and Costumes, Weapon skins relatable to the “B-Iconics” of the Living Story, Permanent Harvesting tools of different variations, and other great items that make this game one of a kind.

Far fetched but I also hope to see some new skills available in the Gem Store. I’ve got my visa ready.

and this is why we lose players, whales with a credit card instead of an expansion pack that retains players, bring players back , and creates new players.

My wallet will continue to stay closed til I see an expansion, I highly suggest anyone that wants an expansion to do the same. Anet will create content that brings them money, if that content comes in a form of an expansion pack we will see more, and if it’s wasted in the cash shop…just look back over the last two plus years and expect more of that.

You know since Aion came out I still play it on a regular basis. It’s a fact that the game has stronger aspects that we lack here. It is more time consuming yes but it has a solid structure overall. I won’t mention content releases and how much bigger they are for a f2p game. The funny thing is that it sucked a lot while it was p2p.
And that being said, as much as I love GW2 the devs here can learn a lot of things from a low sale f2p game.

we did not have new content for 3 months and we got new episode of LS2 just last week this game is usually doing better during LS season because most people log, also gw2 is more than 2 years old and if anet wants to see better numbers their only solution is expansion, i dont think gw2 sells go higher than this without expansion and older the game gets fewer people will spend money on it. every game has life span and gw2 current content is moving toward death.
the only thing surprised me was wild star bad sells the game is almost 4 months old and sells are as bad as that with subscription based game. wild star is in trouble.

With WOD just releasing, and me playing a bit of it, it made me realize even more how outstanding an expansion would be for this game. There were so many old/new players who bought draenor just to experience launch day, which is absolutely massive.

First off, lets not any of us lie to ourselves. The living story is in no way comparable to an expansion in gw2 or any game. Its just too narrow content-wise for an expansion. We mostly get living story instances that explain lore and thats it.

Im pretty sure it would be in Anet and NCSOFT’s best interest to release an expansion, profit wise. Data from a massive poll on the gw2 reddit and from me constantly hearing about how much we need an expansion pretty much says that they could price a mega expansion at 80 bucks and anyone would buy it.

Honestly this makes me think it’s less likely to happen.

NCSoft have been saying this on a regular basis since not long after the game came out and it’s never happened. If it was actually going to happen I’d expect them to go the other way and keep quiet until Anet can do a big announcement.

Or maybe NCSoft is as fed up with GW2’s rate of content release as we are….

The quote could be taken as: “The game is two years old. Get the expansion out already.”

Arenanet has a studio of around 300 or so, and a revenue of about $70m a year at the moment. If we assume around a $60-70k average salary (the main bulk of expenses for any software house), that would put them at expenses of around $30-35m at most, surely. As a real world example, the company (software developer, but not games) I used to work for employed roughly that number and had a revenue of about £20m ($30m) a year. They considered that a pretty nice turnover, and it was certainly keeping them in business with plenty of room for expansion. Also note that programmers in the games industry are generally paid less than the financial industry.

So to those who say ‘oh noes, Anet are failing’, really need to look into how much well managed (which Arenanet seem to be) games studios cost to run XD There’s a reason Arenanet have not shown even the remotest sign of financial trouble; They’re not even close to being in any.

AAA studios usually end up in trouble because of hugely bloated marketing budgets and the console market being very much a ‘one shot’ deal. If a developer doesn’t get the sales within the first month, then they’re likely going to be doomed, since they’re not going to gain many more sales on a console. The PC market tends to have a long tail when it comes to sales.

Plus, at any rate, Arenanet could always strike up a deal with Valve to get GW2 onto Steam if they ever desperately needed a sales boost (I’m assuming it’s down to how the Gems are sold, but I could be wrong).

@The Comfy Chair you are 100% right. But the fact that the BLTC gets bigger attention, and the recent NPE, etc shows the opposite. And that’s why we have so much doomsayers. Let’s say the revenue is correct or at leas approximate, to this day I’m trying to figure out what is driving these poor decisions and poor content we get most of the time. Like I said above f2p games with no box sales and no big publisher behind them recieve much more than we do. Why?

Etien.4601:

@The Comfy Chair you are 100% right. But the fact that the BLTC gets bigger attention, and the recent NPE, etc shows the opposite. And that’s why we have so much doomsayers. Let’s say the revenue is correct or at leas approximate, to this day I’m trying to figure out what is driving these poor decisions and poor content we get most of the time. Like I said above f2p games with no box sales and no big publisher behind them recieve much more than we do. Why?

Management and vision.

Granted Anet could be working on an expansion for the last year, but since they’re pretty sensitive to releasing information who knows.

@Etien Don’t get me wrong, I’d much prefer to see a full expansion, but now that the living story content is starting to be good, I can see the argument for ‘incremental expansion’ in that method (especially if the releases start to come out even more frequently). It also has the benefit of not splitting the community in the open world, as everyone can access the maps.

However, this incremental expansion method comes with the caveat that, to make it worthwhile, Arenanet need to make sure they’re releasing enough content! If they current rate persists, we’d probably see 4-5 maps a year being added, along with the story. In that case I’d much rather see a big expansion every 18 months with a continent :P Plus they have to deal with the downside of not having a big ‘oh look at me!’ when releasing an expansion. Guild wars 2 has come on a long way since launch in many areas, but a lot of lapsed players don’t have the motivation to come back yet. Small and frequent updates are great… for the people already here! Others need a bigger push to bring them back.

He who is not busy growing is busy dying…

Luck favors the prepared

Winter is coming..

The Comfy Chair.7265:

@Etien Don’t get me wrong, I’d much prefer to see a full expansion, but now that the living story content is starting to be good, I can see the argument for ‘incremental expansion’ in that method (especially if the releases start to come out even more frequently). It also has the benefit of not splitting the community in the open world, as everyone can access the maps.

However, this incremental expansion method comes with the caveat that, to make it worthwhile, Arenanet need to make sure they’re releasing enough content! If they current rate persists, we’d probably see 4-5 maps a year being added, along with the story. In that case I’d much rather see a big expansion every 18 months with a continent :P Plus they have to deal with the downside of not having a big ‘oh look at me!’ when releasing an expansion. Guild wars 2 has come on a long way since launch in many areas, but a lot of lapsed players don’t have the motivation to come back yet. Small and frequent updates are great… for the people already here! Others need a bigger push to bring them back.

I got your point no worries. I’m not voting for expansion either. Prior to Season 2 I wanted something more that’s for sure. And that’s because of reminisce from Season 1 I guess. But they really picked up the pace with Season 2 and fixed their errors. The key for me is new maps to explore, new things to do. Not just overhaul old content. We asked for it and they deliver. Now all we need is new skills, perhaps new weapons and a third heavy class. And ofc MORE maps.
If they keep the pace like this we don’t need xpac. The game is good that way.

SkylightMoon.1980:

With WOD just releasing, and me playing a bit of it, it made me realize even more how outstanding an expansion would be for this game. There were so many old/new players who bought draenor just to experience launch day, which is absolutely massive.

First off, lets not any of us lie to ourselves. The living story is in no way comparable to an expansion in gw2 or any game. Its just too narrow content-wise for an expansion. We mostly get living story instances that explain lore and thats it.

Im pretty sure it would be in Anet and NCSOFT’s best interest to release an expansion, profit wise. Data from a massive poll on the gw2 reddit and from me constantly hearing about how much we need an expansion pretty much says that they could price a mega expansion at 80 bucks and anyone would buy it.

The LW concept can be used to deliver an expansion. But you have to structure your staff in a certain way to reach this goal. Arenanet would have to give up about the idea of an traditional expansion pack. The company would have to pass a point of no return. At the moment I have the impression the company want to keep all options open for an expansion. But this does not work. If you stand on a forking road you have to take one route and follow it. If you want to try to follow all routes you stand still at the end.

If Arenanet decides to follow the LW concept and is convinced about it then they should tell this the players. If they want to make a traditional pack then inform the players. A company that transfers the impression of hesitation and foot-dragging will not convince many players at the end.

I’m not a bit surprised with how sales aren’t as NCsoft had hoped for in China. After taking a look at how KongZhong made so many insulting changes (plenty of which fly against Anet’s principles), I’d be surprised if it lasted another 2 years.

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.

Its so rare to see someone know what theyre talking about, especially with the UO talk. GW2 is doing amazing; its been out for 2 years with no expansion, and during its release its gone aginst ESO, WS, and FF14. Three major releases, one of them under the same publisher, and a FF which has a huge dedicated fan base. No sub fee, no expansion, and still doing well? When they FINALLY release an expansion, it will bring a lot of old players back

Well it better have more WvW maps or GvG…

Vayne.8563:

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.

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

Anet have > 300 employees. At roughly 100k per employee and ignoring operational costs, that’s a burn rate of >30 mill per year on salaries. Then there’s (high) operational costs, etc.

scerevisiae.1972:

Vayne.8563:

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.

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

Anet have > 300 employees. At roughly 100k per employee and ignoring operational costs, that’s a burn rate of >30 mill per year on salaries. Then there’s (high) operational costs, etc.

There’s no way they pay every single staff member $100k a year.

The vast majority will probably be earning far less than that. Someone further up the thread said $60k is typical for a programmer and a lot of their staff will be doing much less specialist jobs for that.

For one thing I suspect the support staff (the guys who answer tickets) make up a significant part of that, and I’d be surprised if they earned more than the programmers. I don’t know enough about US salaries to guess but if they were in the UK I’d expect them to get about £20-26k, maybe as low as £16k for an entry level position.

Same for QA which is likely to be another big department. Especially QA in fact considering a lot of wanna-be games designers view that as their way of breaking into the field, companies can probably get away with paying lower salaries because recent graduates will take the jobs for the experience more than anything.

scerevisiae.1972:

~Snip~

Anet have > 300 employees. At roughly 100k per employee and ignoring operational costs, that’s a burn rate of >30 mill per year on salaries. Then there’s (high) operational costs, etc.

First off, you’re most likely overstating the average annual salary, and second…Arena.net doesn’t have high operational costs, as a matter of fact, the way the code is written GW2 is probably the cheapest MMO to operate out there, factoring in the servers are owned by NCSoft(not leased), and even with overhead, they’re still making money…which is the bottom line. Plus, the initial 3 million in sales in NA and EU, combined with the initial sales of 3 million in China(as stated after release in China)…and the 4 markets the game has still not been released in…I wouldn’t worry to much yet.

I’ve always thought that an expansion was coming out and I still do. The world and story is so big they can go anywhere with it. #Cantha

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

im talking about earnings right now, its right next to wildstar in earnings at this moment.
gw #4
ws #5
lineage2 #6

point is, if you think wildstar isnt making enough money this moment, what does it say that gw2 is right next to them in earnings? If wildstar keeps earning at this same pace, it will justify the similar budget to GW2.

past success isnt really relevant to the current product. Ncsoft will just be like, yall were real good at making a new game, go make a new game, dont waste time on GW2, give it minimal updates. If they feel gw2 has peaked in terms of earnings.

Businesses work in expectations. They have a business plan. The business plan determines the success of the game far more often than the profit. That’s why some projects making profits are scrapped and some games making less profit stay. It’s all about the plan.

If NcSoft/Anet planned for a dropoff in income after two years, and the game is within range of the plan it’s considered a success. That’s often how it works anyway.

Wildstar didn’t make the initial success…didn’t meet it’s targeted expectations. The layoffs aren’t because of how little the game made. It’s because of how little the game made so soon after launch. This isn’t a problem Guild Wars 2 has.

Guild Wars 2 had no layoffs, because Anet is still meeting expectations, which is why they can say at the quarterly report the the game is still performing strongly. This is the quote “Still strong performance in NA/EU”.

That wouldn’t be said if it wasn’t true. You don’t lie to stockholders at a stock call. That’s why they also said that Chinese sales were below expectation.

A two year old game that’s non sub will have completely different expectations than a new game that’s subscription anyway.

You can’t compare apples and oranges no matter how hard you want to.

Danikat.8537:

Same for QA which is likely to be another big department.

Uhh, yeah. Don’t know what game you’re talking about, but these are the Guild Wars 2 forums. You’re obviously talking about a different game and different company.

::smirk::

ZudetGambeous.9573:

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

Again.

NOT PROFIT

Income. NCSOFT does not show profit numbers on any of their games and lately any of their subsidiaries. These are raw income numbers. Sales. The stuff that’s before expenses.

Now the trick is determining if the decrease in sales is caused by a specific event like a new game coming out, or if they are just the usual drop off of income and interest over time that every product cycle goes through.

Also since this game had a large required start up fee to join and a totally optional fee to continue playing, of course the game’s income would have dropped off compared to those first few quarters when the game was new, and full price. Now that the majority of players interested in the game owns a copy of the game, income is shifted to the entirely optional cash shop. The fact they are still pulling over $6 million a month, primarily by a cash shop is impressive for a game that doesn’t make it a virtual requirement to use the cash shop due to gated off content or other player limitations.

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

Zaklex.6308:

scerevisiae.1972:

~Snip~

Anet have > 300 employees. At roughly 100k per employee and ignoring operational costs, that’s a burn rate of >30 mill per year on salaries. Then there’s (high) operational costs, etc.

First off, you’re most likely overstating the average annual salary, and second…Arena.net doesn’t have high operational costs, as a matter of fact, the way the code is written GW2 is probably the cheapest MMO to operate out there, factoring in the servers are owned by NCSoft(not leased), and even with overhead, they’re still making money…which is the bottom line. Plus, the initial 3 million in sales in NA and EU, combined with the initial sales of 3 million in China(as stated after release in China)…and the 4 markets the game has still not been released in…I wouldn’t worry to much yet.

Any high CCU Internet game has high operational costs.

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

According to this page:

http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/video-game-programmer-salary/

Salaries right out of school are $40,000 not $60,000. First page I stopped at, but it should at least give the indication that no one really knows the numbers.

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

The average game dev salary for the region where ANet is located is between 70k and 80k. The cost to employ is between 1.2 and 1.3 x base salary. The 100k estimate mentioned is a bit high but is significantly closer to normal than the 60k mentioned as a counter argument.

Ashen.2907:

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

The average game dev salary for the region where ANet is located is between 70k and 80k. The cost to employ is between 1.2 and 1.3 x base salary. The 100k estimate mentioned is a bit high but is significantly closer to normal than the 60k mentioned as a counter argument.

Except we simply don’t know. It’s all just guesswork. I’m not sure what the point is. We’ll end up arguing numbers that no one is ever going to confirm.

I agree with Ashen. But all devs aren’t programmers. I would say the minority are programmers while the majority are 3D artists/animators who I’m pretty sure earn less than programmers. But 90-100K is a good average across the board if you include the overhead of the work environment as well as annual benefit costs.

So $30-35 million a year and if you multiply out this last quarter by 4, that’s $76-77 million in annual sales although over the last 12 months it’s closer to $95-96 million.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

The average game dev salary for the region where ANet is located is between 70k and 80k. The cost to employ is between 1.2 and 1.3 x base salary. The 100k estimate mentioned is a bit high but is significantly closer to normal than the 60k mentioned as a counter argument.

Except we simply don’t know. It’s all just guesswork. I’m not sure what the point is. We’ll end up arguing numbers that no one is ever going to confirm.

Actually we do, or can, know the average cost to employ a game developer in the region where ANet is headquartered (the claim I made). This information is fairly readily available. The numbers I mentioned were from memory researched for the last time this subject came up. Any errors due to faulty memory I apologize for.

Of course ANet could very well be paying above or below that average but the average is still there at approximately 85-95k per year. Note that the numbers given are cost to employ (including benefits, payroll taxes, etc) not just base salary.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

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.

~SNIP ~

~SNIP~

~SNIP~

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

All MMO’s reduce their staffing a short whiles after launch.. staffing levels through development are always larger prior to launch.. after launch many positions are simply suplus requirments and are most likely contractually designed to be terminated at that point.. nothing new to report here I am afraid.

Focus more on the actual relevance of the report not what you surmise it to be Vayne. Face facts qtr on qtr there is a downward trend to GW2, some of which coincides at points with other launches that have so say now bombed.. so where is the upspike in players coming back to GW2 that should theoretically affect future earning … unless of course they are coming back but more leave .. not the kind of balance I would want in my own businesses finances.
I am not saying GW2 is doomed, in fact I agree with you I don’t think it is (yet) in that sense as all MMO’s see drop offs, plateauing and upsurge’s but facts remain GW2 appears to be struggling to curb the decline albeit it’s still generating a decent amount of money (profit.. not known) in its launch market… does this however represent the players left are being generous shoppers or has the game been pushing more to the cash shop of late to maybe stretch out some figures running up to the latest report… we all are guessing in part but using what we can draw from the game, the press, the players and the results, but the fact remains GW2 has had a poorer than expected year, lets hope the next Q on Q period can ignite the upsurge in both content quality and player interest like it did this time last year, but with a view to maintaining it going forward because 2 years still doesn’t make the game a success.

I am hoping they have content plans at least a year in advance of this and are working hard to seeing such plans come to fruition (maybe in the form of traditional expansion or maybe something else), but it needs something because even though these figures show a decent generating pull, downward trends cant really be expected to keep pulling those numbers and there is only so much shopping players will do until even the most loyal either run out of coin or simply get fed up with it and look elsewhere.

Again a thread about expansions… haven’t you heard? They don’t reveal any information about upcoming releases so we will get the expansion announcement a week before it’s released :P

Anet: “GW2 expansion coming next week!”
Players: “Wait what?”