Guild Wars 2

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/04/ncsoft-undergoing-realignment/

What implications does this have for Guild Wars 2. Especially in relation to Nexon owning 16% of NcSoft.

Just saw that on Reddit. I’m not sure but I would be a little nervous if I were an AN employee.

Maybe that means they’re going to fire the crazy moderation brigade and actually leave some breathing room in the forums.

probably has more to do with the other games…you know they have more than just guild wars 2, besides arenanet being a subsidiary located in washington, seems to have more to do with their next games and i recall a game was closed too, nexon probably is in management of lineage 2 already since that cash shop is totally pay for win.

I think it means the forum community has finally gone over the conspiracy-theory edge. Since we all believe the whole “Nexon controls ANet” thing, we won’t have to worry, because the world’s going to end soon too, right?

December 21, 2012!

FYI: NCsoft Seattle is a completely different location than Arenanet, which is located in Bellevue, about a 30 minute drive (not during rush hour) from NCsoft Seattle.

NcSoft did close City of Heroes last week, because (I’m guessing), that F2P didn’t go to well for it. Which doesn’t leave to many options left… Aion has already been sold to outside parties, Lineage is being nickle and dimed (or I assume Nexon is attempting to do so as I don’t play Lineage), which pretty much only leaves GW2.

Why is it that companies always always look @ the short term view and never the long term. When you sell something it no longer contributes to your profits.

You forgot Aion.

Right, Nexon’s really calling the shots in NCSoft. And they’re run by the Knights Templar, who are funded by the Illuminati, and their creation of Guild Wars 2 was all to cover up the whole ancient aliens thing.

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

I think it means the forum community has finally gone over the conspiracy-theory edge. Since we all believe the whole “Nexon controls ANet” thing, we won’t have to worry, because the world’s going to end soon too, right?

Not sure if serious..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCsoft

Raehvyn.4530:

You forgot Aion.

No I didn’t, Aion’s no longer run by NcSoft (or at least it isn’t in Europe as Gameforge runs it here).

I’m really really hoping this isn’t going to be another case of a games publisher completely screwing over a game for short term gain… much like EA has done to any of the software houses they’d brought, or even what Perfect World did to Star Trek Online.

Shahiel.8342:

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

I think it means the forum community has finally gone over the conspiracy-theory edge. Since we all believe the whole “Nexon controls ANet” thing, we won’t have to worry, because the world’s going to end soon too, right?

Not sure if serious..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCsoft

I’m aware they have 14.7% of shares. I didn’t realize 14.7% shares translated into Nexon growing waxed curly moustaches and plotting the demise of Guild Wars 2 and the world as we know it.

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

Shahiel.8342:

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

I think it means the forum community has finally gone over the conspiracy-theory edge. Since we all believe the whole “Nexon controls ANet” thing, we won’t have to worry, because the world’s going to end soon too, right?

Not sure if serious..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCsoft

I’m aware they have 14.7% of shares. I didn’t realize 14.7% shares translated into Nexon growing waxed curly moustaches and plotting the demise of Guild Wars 2 and the world as we know it.

The article the OP posted is about NCsoft, not Nexon.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/08/nexon-invests-6-8m-in-ncsoft-becomes-largest-shareholder/

“largest shareholder”

it doesn’t matter if its 14 point something. Nexon is the “largest shareholder.”

Its the economy. Many companies are doing “realignments”.

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

EDIT:
what is a Subsidiary – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiary

Krosslite.1950:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

if you’re wholly owned by NCSoft, NCSoft can shut you down at will.

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

They are the publishers, their bottom line is dependent on the games profitability, and without them the game wouldn’t be made, it is NOT out of question or a “conspiracy theory” to consider that perhaps this may lead to changes in the direction of the game if it means increased income.

However this could go either way. History however teaches us to stay on the side of caution

The layoffs are within NCSoft corporate itself (specifically, the Seattle office of NCSoft). These layoffs are not at ArenaNet (which is also located in the downtown Seattle area…specifically, Bellevue).

I suspect this is a continuation of “realignment of focus” announced along with the City of Heroes sunset. And considering COH’s sunset just occurred last week, my gut is telling me it’s most likely that those within NCSoft corporate who were connected with City of Heroes are very likely the ones who were the casualties of this “realignment.” Don’t forget that the minimal support of COH between the time of the sunset announcement and the sunset itself was being handled through NC’s Seattle office (Paragon Studios was completely shuttered on the day of the sunset announcement). Not to mention there were likely other personnel linked with COH within NC corporate who were also likely based in the Seattle office. Now that COH is no more, those workers no longer had any work (since the game that they were working on has been closed), there may not have been any open positions for these workers to transition to and NCSoft did away with the redundancies. Of course this is all speculation. But it makes the most sense to me (as a former COH player and a current GW2 player).

Considering that Guild Wars 2 earned the biggest chunk of the revenue pie last quarter and helped bump NCSoft as a whole into a quarterly profit for the first time in 12 months, I suspect GW2 players have nothing to worry about with this realignment.

NcSoft is just Anet’s publisher. If they decided to cut off their relationship with Anet or vice versa I’d imagine a new publisher would be found, or they would take up publishing themselves to be fully independent.

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

if you’re wholly owned by NCSoft, NCSoft can shut you down at will.

This benefits us . . . how, exactly?

I mean, there’s nothing here that really is of any positive potential outcome if NCSoft decides to shut down ArenaNet.

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

if you’re wholly owned by NCSoft, NCSoft can shut you down at will.

This benefits us . . . how, exactly?

I mean, there’s nothing here that really is of any positive potential outcome if NCSoft decides to shut down ArenaNet.

pay2win at least they be honest and upping some good stuff on gemstore, besides blacklionuselesskeys

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

if you’re wholly owned by NCSoft, NCSoft can shut you down at will.

This benefits us . . . how, exactly?

I mean, there’s nothing here that really is of any positive potential outcome if NCSoft decides to shut down ArenaNet.

They would save a lot of money if they turned over production and maintaining the IP by a Korean company. Millions probably. Then they can turn to focusing on Blade & Soul there next project.

Volomon.9147:

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Now this is scare mongering and complete out and out conjecture.

Rather than worry about what you’re going to do should this game suddenly become a horrible p2w parody of itself, start focusing on how you’re going to react to it should it come, because leaving doesn’t affect them as much as a subscription based game.

They would save a lot of money if they turned over production and maintaining the IP by a Korean company. Millions probably. Then they can turn to focusing on Blade & Soul there next project.

And if that happens then you can bet your life that it will go the same way as every other mmo under the ncsoft banner

No, I mean . . . if NCsoft decided to shut down ArenaNet, do you think GuildWars 2 would actually continue? Talk about “pay2win” and other things, but . . .

This idea doesn’t help any of us GuildWars 2 players fans or not.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

if you’re wholly owned by NCSoft, NCSoft can shut you down at will.

This benefits us . . . how, exactly?

I mean, there’s nothing here that really is of any positive potential outcome if NCSoft decides to shut down ArenaNet.

that’s just the worst case scenario, if GW2 starts to suck. they can pull a CoH move.

and see here the real relationship of NCSoft/A.NET

http://www.investorglossary.com/wholly-owned-subsidiary.htm

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, I mean . . . if NCsoft decided to shut down ArenaNet, do you think GuildWars 2 would actually continue? Talk about “pay2win” and other things, but . . .

This idea doesn’t help any of us GuildWars 2 players fans or not.

No. Because GW2 is owned by NCSoft. But if NCSoft sells GW2 to other publishers, then it will continue.

“©2010–2012 ArenaNet, Inc. and NC Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet, NCSOFT, the Interlocking NC Logo, and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCSOFT Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.”

Well if it is affecting the Anet office that would explain why suddenly we haven’t heard a single thing from many of the devs in the forums. I mean engineering forums alone haven’t had any developer love since 2 months ago Literally.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Volomon.9147:

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Now this is scare mongering and complete out and out conjecture.

Rather than worry about what you’re going to do should this game suddenly become a horrible p2w parody of itself, start focusing on how you’re going to react to it should it come, because leaving doesn’t affect them as much as a subscription based game.

Hows it conjecture, the investor conference was a couple of months ago. It’s available for the public. Just search NCsoft investor. Leaving definitely affects them. When an investor asks NCsoft the current population concurrent users that is. They don’t want to hear oh their on vacation. When other F2P MMOs are turning a profit. Profits can not be made if people leave. It’s far more devastating for a F2P game than you think, because first off they have to make back 5 years of development funds, do you think they hit that yet? How about marketing funds, probably no where near that.

From what I understand from the investors meeting GW2 did 68% less than the projected profit. In other words GW2 is running in the red. Everything Anet does for the game is for investors. Not for players, they have to make the game profitable or there is no game.

There no fear mongering in that it’s just fact. Like for instance THQ has to run in a positive 5 million on hand cash or Well Fargo comes and closes them down to liquidate. If GW2 doesn’t stay in the black, then NCsoft comes over to them and says well you’ve had X months to bring us a profit. We’re going to close you down and give the game to a much cheaper company that will maintain it for pure profit.

Volomon.9147:

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Wow…the fear mongering and doom and gloom is thick in this thread.

I refer you to this article…
http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/07/guild-wars-2-blade-soul-drive-ncsoft-back-into-profit/

Another breakdown, this time by title, showed Guild Wars 2 overtaking Lineage 1, NCSoft’s traditional big earner. Over the last two quarters the MMORPG represented in 38-45% of the company’s sales, but that dropped to 23% in Q3, with Guild Wars 2 snaffling 27% and Blade & Soul managing 20%. Aion also noted a decrease, something of a trend over the last year.

Considering that GW2 is one of NCSoft’s top three earners (actually, the top earner last quarter), I personally doubt the realignment at NCSoft corporate has anything to do with GW2.

And from the NCSoft Q3 2012 earning report…

Strong growth was achieved in US and EU, fueled by successful launch of GW2.
B&S and GW2 have firmly positioned themselves as main revenue drivers for the company.

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx

alcopaul.2156:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, I mean . . . if NCsoft decided to shut down ArenaNet, do you think GuildWars 2 would actually continue? Talk about “pay2win” and other things, but . . .

This idea doesn’t help any of us GuildWars 2 players fans or not.

No. Because GW2 is owned by NCSoft. But if NCSoft sells GW2 to other publishers, then it will continue.

“©2010–2012 ArenaNet, Inc. and NC Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet, NCSOFT, the Interlocking NC Logo, and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCSOFT Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.”

Public companies are owned by there share holders, the people working there are elected by a board of trustees. Anyone with a majority share has the most votes, in a company. Effectively if someone can garner enough votes they can do literally anything. Your votes are per stock. As nexxon holds the majority share they have the most weight is where there talking about. Often those with the largest shares hold a seat. That means if Nexxon and a few other major share holders wanted to put a guy that works for Nexxon in NCsofts mists they could.

This is what they mean by Nexxon “owns” NCsoft, technically they don’t they just can push some weight around. It’s exaggerated for sure but you know what they mean. You know they can kind of yank the chain.

Volomon.9147:

alcopaul.2156:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, I mean . . . if NCsoft decided to shut down ArenaNet, do you think GuildWars 2 would actually continue? Talk about “pay2win” and other things, but . . .

This idea doesn’t help any of us GuildWars 2 players fans or not.

No. Because GW2 is owned by NCSoft. But if NCSoft sells GW2 to other publishers, then it will continue.

“©2010–2012 ArenaNet, Inc. and NC Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet, NCSOFT, the Interlocking NC Logo, and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCSOFT Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.”

Public companies are owned by there share holders, the people working there are elected by a board of trustees. Anyone with a majority share has the most votes, in a company. Effectively if someone can garner enough votes they can do literally anything. Your votes are per stock. As nexxon holds the majority share they have the most weight is where there talking about. Often those with the largest shares hold a seat. That means if Nexxon and a few other major share holders wanted to put a guy that works for Nexxon in NCsofts mists they could.

This is what they mean by Nexxon “owns” NCsoft, technically they don’t they just can push some weight around. It’s exaggerated for sure but you know what they mean. You know they can kind of yank the chain.

my bad, i was meant to put NCsoft/Nexon, lol.

i don’t care what’s going on inside NCSoft/Nexon, but if they turn Guild Wars 2 into something like Runes of Magic, i’ll stop playing Guild Wars 2……

They’ll never tell us the skinny, but personally I felt the change in direction recently was due to either outside forces wanting more $$$ or outside forces needing more $$$. Outside forces = NCSoft and/or Nexon.

I think we are seeing a different GW2 than the manifesto and did we not here last week via a rumor the vision switch even caught Anet employees off-guard, tells me that a entity above them is flexing some power.

I hope all the above isn’t true, because that is a large tremor that adds risk. That also means a Korean company is driving the game and we know what that typically means. It also can affect moral, one day you are in charge, the next day you are taking orders. I’ve also have seen more liberal moderating here, which was needed, the good way to look at it is they need to be more open to people saying their piece and taking what is needed from that. Or the bad way, we don’t care as much anymore, say what you want, we got sucker punched ourselves.

Who really knows, but I wasn’t a fan when NCSoft acquired Anet. This Anet isn’t the same as it was when it was Anet on their own releasing GW1. Perhaps GW’s 3 will be a Kickstarer! LOL

Horrorscope.7632:

They’ll never tell us the skinny, but personally I felt the change in direction recently was due to either outside forces wanting more $$$ or outside forces needing more $$$. Outside forces = NCSoft and/or Nexon.

I think we are seeing a different GW2 than the manifesto and did we not here last week via a rumor the vision switch even caught Anet employees off-guard, tells me that a entity above them is flexing some power.

I hope all the above isn’t true, because that is a large tremor that adds risk. That also means a Korean company is driving the game and we know what that typically means. It also can affect moral, one day you are in charge, the next day you are taking orders. I’ve also have seen more liberal moderating here, which was needed, the good way to look at it is they need to be more open to people saying their piece and taking what is needed from that. Or the bad way, we don’t care as much anymore, say what you want, we got sucker punched ourselves.

Who really knows, but I wasn’t a fan when NCSoft acquired Anet. This Anet isn’t the same as it was when it was Anet on their own releasing GW1. Perhaps GW’s 3 will be a Kickstarer! LOL

ANET was under NCSoft during GW1 days. it went great for more than 5 years.

When Nexon came to the picture in June or July of 2012, you see changes like dyes becoming character bound, mystic forge which is like the old Mu Online (an early 2000 game by Korean company WebZen) chaos machine, ascended items which doesn’t go well with the manifesto. i think A.NET had a set todo list and when Nexon came, that todo list was edited like kitten.

Volomon.9147:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Volomon.9147:

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Now this is scare mongering and complete out and out conjecture.

Rather than worry about what you’re going to do should this game suddenly become a horrible p2w parody of itself, start focusing on how you’re going to react to it should it come, because leaving doesn’t affect them as much as a subscription based game.

Hows it conjecture, the investor conference was a couple of months ago. It’s available for the public. Just search NCsoft investor. Leaving definitely affects them. When an investor asks NCsoft the current population concurrent users that is. They don’t want to hear oh their on vacation. When other F2P MMOs are turning a profit. Profits can not be made if people leave. It’s far more devastating for a F2P game than you think, because first off they have to make back 5 years of development funds, do you think they hit that yet? How about marketing funds, probably no where near that.

From what I understand from the investors meeting GW2 did 68% less than the projected profit. In other words GW2 is running in the red. Everything Anet does for the game is for investors. Not for players, they have to make the game profitable or there is no game.

There no fear mongering in that it’s just fact. Like for instance THQ has to run in a positive 5 million on hand cash or Well Fargo comes and closes them down to liquidate. If GW2 doesn’t stay in the black, then NCsoft comes over to them and says well you’ve had X months to bring us a profit. We’re going to close you down and give the game to a much cheaper company that will maintain it for pure profit.

Then the game rightfully dies, and once again more spotlight is thrown on the issues with the industry. Right now far too many games are based on a principle that they will be successful if they’re built to make cash by the bucket load and nothing more instead of the game being successful and making a lot of cash because it’s WELL MADE and MAINTAINED.

The only way they can learn from this bad principle is to in fact lose money and perhaps even get out of the market entirely if they cannot understand that we’re not the “unwashed idiotic masses” just waiting to be milked for our cash like cows.
The practices of asian MMO cash shops is HIGHLY incompatible with western markets also and that’s not just me noting that there’s been numerous comments from others online to back that up, that’s not to say that we’re more intelligent, or better than the asian market, but generally we don’t take kindly to the random number generator gambling that they throw in, I’m willing to bet that after being bitten early by the black lion trading chests players were strongly urging anyone thinking of buying in not to waste their cash until better things were offered, and/or the chests were vastly improved to be less of a lottery item.

But again, rather than worry if they’re gonna “do a palpatine” on us and suddenly become the evil empire. Instead we should simply decide what we as players are going to do SHOULD it happen.

Manoa.5897:

Volomon.9147:

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Wow…the fear mongering and doom and gloom is thick in this thread.

I refer you to this article…
http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/07/guild-wars-2-blade-soul-drive-ncsoft-back-into-profit/

Another breakdown, this time by title, showed Guild Wars 2 overtaking Lineage 1, NCSoft’s traditional big earner. Over the last two quarters the MMORPG represented in 38-45% of the company’s sales, but that dropped to 23% in Q3, with Guild Wars 2 snaffling 27% and Blade & Soul managing 20%. Aion also noted a decrease, something of a trend over the last year.

Considering that GW2 is one of NCSoft’s top three earners (actually, the top earner last quarter), I personally doubt the realignment at NCSoft corporate has anything to do with GW2.

NCSOFT Stock
2012.09.07 286,500 ?? 6,500 313,138

2012.12.04 158,500 ??3,000 235,414

Bit of a drop there, it also appears to continue to drop.

The box sales was indeed good, not good enough in my opinion there is not going to be another rush of box sales, that was it they need sustainability now. However the current status right now is horrid. Look at that stock drop. Clearly the forecast for the next quarter is dismal.

Stocks are in WON by the way KRW.

alcopaul.2156:

ANET was under NCSoft during GW1 days. it went great for more than 5 years.

Fair enough to add that detail. But it was still developed and released all on their own initially. NCSoft came in and could have just let GW1 run it’s coarse, the cash shop did show up in GW1, where it originally did not have one. Was that NCSoft? But I do see an even closer pattern to what you say about Nexon.

Volomon.9147:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Volomon.9147:

Alice.8694:

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

NCsoft’s publishing studio might not equal Anet, but it reflects the plight Anet is in. GW2 is not making the money they were banking on and GW2’s failure has lead to people getting fired. It is only a matter of time that Anet is also effected. Not to mention this news comes from a leak, so in no way shape or form does this rule out Anet not being affected. We just don’t know yet how much trouble Anet is in.

In fact I think with the bugs rolling into Anets latest patch maybe a lot of people got fired while working on that patch and that’s why it’s in total disarray.

Now this is scare mongering and complete out and out conjecture.

Rather than worry about what you’re going to do should this game suddenly become a horrible p2w parody of itself, start focusing on how you’re going to react to it should it come, because leaving doesn’t affect them as much as a subscription based game.

Hows it conjecture, the investor conference was a couple of months ago. It’s available for the public. Just search NCsoft investor. Leaving definitely affects them. When an investor asks NCsoft the current population concurrent users that is. They don’t want to hear oh their on vacation. When other F2P MMOs are turning a profit. Profits can not be made if people leave. It’s far more devastating for a F2P game than you think, because first off they have to make back 5 years of development funds, do you think they hit that yet? How about marketing funds, probably no where near that.

From what I understand from the investors meeting GW2 did 68% less than the projected profit. In other words GW2 is running in the red. Everything Anet does for the game is for investors. Not for players, they have to make the game profitable or there is no game.

There no fear mongering in that it’s just fact. Like for instance THQ has to run in a positive 5 million on hand cash or Well Fargo comes and closes them down to liquidate. If GW2 doesn’t stay in the black, then NCsoft comes over to them and says well you’ve had X months to bring us a profit. We’re going to close you down and give the game to a much cheaper company that will maintain it for pure profit.

Where is this 68% data? I’m 100% sure that news outlets will be all over that if it was really what is happening.

Horrorscope.7632:

alcopaul.2156:

ANET was under NCSoft during GW1 days. it went great for more than 5 years.

Fair enough to add that detail. But it was still developed and released all on their own initially. NCSoft came in and could have just let GW1 run it’s coarse, the cash shop did show up in GW1, where it originally did not have one. Was that NCSoft? But I do see an even closer pattern to what you say about Nexon.

cash shop was not pay to win. aesthetic stuffs mostly and other perks such as character slots and make overs, unlock skills and heroes. the game didn’t depend on the cash shop.

Shifu.4321:

Where is this 68% data? I’m 100% sure that news outlets will be all over that if it was really what is happening.

First I heard that, but running numbers 5 million is almost exactly 68% more then 3 million. Connect the dots.

alcopaul.2156:

cash shop was not pay to win. aesthetic stuffs mostly and other perks such as character slots and make overs, unlock skills and heroes. the game didn’t depend on the cash shop.

Right, but it didn’t stop a cash shop from entering a game that wasn’t designed initially to having one. They had no problem taking the cash.

Horrorscope.7632:

alcopaul.2156:

cash shop was not pay to win. aesthetic stuffs mostly and other perks such as character slots and make overs, unlock skills and heroes. the game didn’t depend on the cash shop.

Right, but it didn’t stop a cash shop from entering a game that wasn’t designed initially to having one. They had no problem taking the cash.

sure they had the cash shop. people are willing to pay anyway (for those who bought i guess. i for one bought the bonus mission packs because i love to have the other skins) but good thing is that they didn’t change the fundamental mechanics of the game drastically within 3 months.

alcopaul.2156:

Horrorscope.7632:

alcopaul.2156:

cash shop was not pay to win. aesthetic stuffs mostly and other perks such as character slots and make overs, unlock skills and heroes. the game didn’t depend on the cash shop.

Right, but it didn’t stop a cash shop from entering a game that wasn’t designed initially to having one. They had no problem taking the cash.

sure they had the cash shop. but good thing is that they didn’t change the fundamental mechanics of the game drastically within 3 months.

For sure, wasn’t really my point though.

Horrorscope.7632:

alcopaul.2156:

Horrorscope.7632:

alcopaul.2156:

cash shop was not pay to win. aesthetic stuffs mostly and other perks such as character slots and make overs, unlock skills and heroes. the game didn’t depend on the cash shop.

Right, but it didn’t stop a cash shop from entering a game that wasn’t designed initially to having one. They had no problem taking the cash.

sure they had the cash shop. but good thing is that they didn’t change the fundamental mechanics of the game drastically within 3 months.

For sure, wasn’t really my point though.

But you didn’t got my point that the whole game didn’t depend on the cash shop.