Guild Wars 2

bladex.9502:

So, Blade and Soul made about as much as GW2 even tho BnS is free to play and GW2 just released a 60$ expansion?
Gj I guess NCsoft

Without even being available to western audiences yet. Expect it to go over GW2 in Q2.

morrolan.9608:

I also note that many were rubbishing Daewoo for its predictions a couple of weeks ago yet the actual results are even weaker than those predictions.

Many were saying they’re always wrong, yes that’s true, they are always wrong because the results were always weaker than predicted.

I’m more interested into seeing 2016 Q1 and Q2 overall sales compared to 2015 Q1 and Q2 sales.

It will most likely look similar to this https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=heart%20of%20thorns , except I want to see if the general sales are on the same level as they were year ago, higher or lower.

Belenwyn.8674:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Kattenpootjes.4291:

Lol ofcourse sales went up with that nasty pre-purchase scam going on, not that some fancy graph on a random site should be taken seriously tho.

Q4 sales are Oct, Nov, Dec, so almost entirely regular purchase, not pre-purchase.

• The first beta was in March (Q1).
• Sales boost in Q2, when pre-purchase began in earnest.
• Drop in sales in Q3, after the deadline to get the extra toon slot (register by June).
• Q4 sales (again, representing mostly post-release dates) are over 50% higher than Q2 (representing the peak of pre-purchase sales).

So no, sales didn’t go up because of pre-purchase; they went up in spite of the the 10% boost that pre-purchase provided in Q2 (compared to both Q1 and Q3).

It’s fine to dislike the price and it’s fine to be upset with the changes to the game. Don’t let that close your mind to the fact that in terms of raw sales, the expac has been successful.

Still, as others have mentioned, ‘sales’ is just one metric in measuring success (and of course, it doesn’t tell us how high ANet expected sales to go).

The sales of 4 Q15 contain all sold copies of HoT. Pre-purchase started June 16th. This results in an inflated value for 4Q 15. The values for 2Q and 3Q are artificially reduced. In 3Q 15 the players generated sales of 20 bln Won excluding any sold HoT copy. This shows a very strong base line of sales mostly driven by gems.

None of us truly know when HoT pre sales were booked. It depends on how they define their revenue.

If they are set up to realize revenue only when product is delivered, you are right that all HoT sales would have hit in Q4. If they realize revenue when received as many companies do regardless of when product is delieverd, then and pre sales for HoT would have hit their financials as revenue in the quarter for which payment was received.

Unless you can show proof that all pre sales hit in Q4, then you really do not know.

Regardless of either scenario, nothing in the financials reports or the commentary on them by NCSoft indicates that there is gross weak performance or that profit is sub par. Those that purport those things here amount to baseless doomsayers IMO.

Revenue from pre-sales generally aren’t recorded as revenue until it is realized. It’s usually booked under an account such as deferred revenue since it’s technically a liability.

Ayrilana.1396:

Revenue from pre-sales generally aren’t recorded as revenue until it is realized. It’s usually booked under an account such as deferred revenue since it’s technically a liability.

I agree, but these days ‘generally’ is a big subjective word.

Many companies will realize revenue when they want it to hit rather than when it should. Ethics in this area is very fluid these days. This is true particularly of larger companies.

Again, looking at the reports, nothing indicates horrible performance or any loss of profit as we do not see actual profit figures.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

For your viewing pleasure.

Imgur image

Global Earnings

I think the sales-breakdown image is a little bit misleading because the bars of the different games are scaled different. From the numbers of that diagram I made a diagram where the sales are at the same scale.

jheryn.8390:

None of us truly know when HoT pre sales were booked. It depends on how they define their revenue.

We know when the HoT sales were booked:
“We believe 4Q15 will be NCsoft’s best quarter of the year. Revenue should grow sharply in 4Q, driven by the Guild Wars 2 expansion pack, which went on presale on June 16th in the US and Europe.

The company will begin booking the game’s revenue on a per copy basis after its official launch. We expect the company to sell around 2mn copies (including pre-orders) by year-end at around US$50 per copy. "

https://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/download/198711.pdf?attachmentId=198711

bladex.9502:

So, Blade and Soul made about as much as GW2 even tho BnS is free to play and GW2 just released a 60$ expansion?
Gj I guess NCsoft

BnS has been out for nearly 4 years with expanding into new territories every year or so. China, Nov 2013 (but that income is reflected in the royalties). Japan, May 2014. Taiwan, Nov 2014. Plus VIP pseudo subscriptions are more popular in Asia so you can keep up with everyone else. GW2 is only, in terms of reported income, NA/EU since launch.

Also remember, this report covers 2015 income and specifically the last 3 months of 2015. So NA/EU BnS isn’t in this. We’ll see those numbers in 3 months.

jheryn.8390:

Ayrilana.1396:

Revenue from pre-sales generally aren’t recorded as revenue until it is realized. It’s usually booked under an account such as deferred revenue since it’s technically a liability.

I agree, but these days ‘generally’ is a big subjective word.

Many companies will realize revenue when they want it to hit rather than when it should. Ethics in this area is very fluid these days. This is true particularly of larger companies.

And accounting regulations are quite strict to avoid exactly that situation and ensure the financial results are understandable to stakeholders.

Belenwyn.8674:

jheryn.8390:

None of us truly know when HoT pre sales were booked. It depends on how they define their revenue.

We know when the HoT sales were booked:
“We believe 4Q15 will be NCsoft’s best quarter of the year. Revenue should grow sharply in 4Q, driven by the Guild Wars 2 expansion pack, which went on presale on June 16th in the US and Europe.

The company will begin booking the game’s revenue on a per copy basis after its official launch. We expect the company to sell around 2mn copies (including pre-orders) by year-end at around US$50 per copy. "

https://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/download/198711.pdf?attachmentId=198711

I laughed so hard at that prediction. Another indication that analysts in Asia not understanding the MMO player in NA/EU. Believing that 60% of the game’s original buyers (as this was published before P4F) would still be playing much less be interested in an expansion, no matter how big the Colin hype train is.

And with those unrealistic expectations, even walked back over the next four months, of course it’s a disappointment. Which is why, I believe, NCSOFT was hoping that P4F going live six-seven weeks before HoT dropped would kick up active players who may buy the expansion. But there’s a problem with that notion. Players play “free” MMOs because they don’t want to spend money. And there’s always another “free” MMO right over the horizon to burn through.

Look at BnS. It’s out for around three weeks and a significant number of players are level cap, if it wasn’t for PvP the game would be a wasteland in NA/EU. Plus replay-ability of PvE in BnS story makes GW2’s seem like Tolstoy. But that’s due to BnS’s tour bus nature of the story Vs GW2’s let the kids loose in the amusement park and tell them to meet up at the gate at closing. Unless BnS have quarterly content updates, NA/EU will cause it to have a great 1Q16 but then drop off. My prediction. “Look, I’m an analyst.”

crussell.8504:

Question is, why do people care so much about how much profit NCSoft makes or doesn’t make?

Because the game has/had so much promise that is being completely spoiled by latent development cycles and in-game poor economics (amongst a HUGE list of other things). So, those of us who are snide about the earnings, are more hoping that sales go absolutely terrible, so that ANet addresses these long-standing issues.

F2P will keep this game afloat for a while, but people do grow up and get jobs, and at that point, a free MMO isn’t much more than a Korean grindfest with that carrot on the stick never closer.

Just from experience, i think the market is learning how good sub’d MMOs are, compared to F2P MMOs, but there are those few, like GW2, that are cashing in on any given 16 yr old’s allowance. So there ya go.

morrolan.9608:

Khyan.7039:

crussell.8504:

Question is, why do people care so much about how much profit NCSoft makes or doesn’t make? Let’s face it. With the current state of the game and the engine it’s built on, I reckon within the next 2 years tops GW2 will be about as popular as Kim Jong Eun’s hair style. Which is pretty fab if I do say so myself.

Because it’s players that care about Guild Wars 2 future.

I’m personally glad Guild Wars 2 is doing well.

But its not doing well based on those figures. They couldn’t sustain ongoing development on the base gem sales and the HOT sales are clearly disappointing and not enough to sustain the game until the next xpac.

Even if NCSoft admit it’s a poor showing, that’s STILL not enough to make the conclusion you have made here. What’s MORE likely is that NCSoft are referring to a poor result based on expected ROI, not some relative assessment to what is sustainable or not. These quarterly earnings are about communications with investors, not players.

slamfunction.7462:

crussell.8504:

Question is, why do people care so much about how much profit NCSoft makes or doesn’t make?

Because the game has/had so much promise that is being completely spoiled by latent development cycles and in-game poor economics (amongst a HUGE list of other things). So, those of us who are snide about the earnings, are more hoping that sales go absolutely terrible, so that ANet addresses these long-standing issues.

F2P will keep this game afloat for a while, but people do grow up and get jobs, and at that point, a free MMO isn’t much more than a Korean grindfest with that carrot on the stick never closer.

Just from experience, i think the market is learning how good sub’d MMOs are, compared to F2P MMOs, but there are those few, like GW2, that are cashing in on any given 16 yr old’s allowance. So there ya go.

Really? Name a subscription MMO that came out in the last three years that didn’t go F2P. After a decade of WoW or any sub MMO that got closed after many years, players aren’t willing to make that kind of financial commitment to one game anymore. It’s churn and burn through an endless stream of F2P.

And you do realize that wishing for lower GW2 income will more likely start a death spiral than evoke some kind of 180 degree change in development. And you think P4F is paying the bills? Free must mean something different to you. The free version isn’t restrictive enough to induce players to spend money on the full game. Maybe a few skins or character slots.

I take it the 3 years specification was for Final Fantasy?

No, three years because of the original release year of BnS and GW2. Is there even a NA PC release of the FF MMO or is it just Playstation? I honestly don’t know, I’ve always assume it was a PS3 game and I simply ignore MMOs on consoles. PSO was fun back in the day on Dreamcast but that was a long time ago.

I must admit I’ve never played Lineage but from the financials … I need to try it at least once. GW2 was 19% of the total quarter though so it’s second making it officially an “alright” game to play.

Lineage was shut down in NA back in 2011. The Diablo II/UO perspective didn’t really fly in NA post Everquest. Lineage came to NA in July of 2001.

When asked about income estimated for Lineage in 2016, they mentioned they are having some kind of Vintage 17th Anniversary ad campaign. Here’s a commercial for it.

Look, we are all cool attractive people.

Phy.2913:

Poor Wildstar.

…….

Best part of that graph is how bad Wildstar is doing, it makes my day.

Cirran

DoctorDing.5890:

HoT just does not cater for the traditionally casual GW player It’s a niche product. What did they expect????

Good.
Living story 15 minutes of content every 2 weeks log on and do dailies gameplay was awful. HOT is the best state GW2 has ever been in.

Andulias.9516:

bladex.9502:

So, Blade and Soul made about as much as GW2 even tho BnS is free to play and GW2 just released a 60$ expansion?
Gj I guess NCsoft

B&S Just launched in a new market and his been out for a while in the East. At the very least TRY to be a bit more objective.

I hope this is a wake-up call for ArenaNet. The amount of content in HoT was not enough, the price tag was too steep and the marketing campaign was bleh.

Good news is they seem to have come to the same conclusions, considering they now talk all the time about being focused on making a lot more content and making the game less grind-y. But we’ll see.

Edit: something worth noting is that I don’t really see the China release having much of an impact on earnings. All those resources and energy and for what?

HOT has more content than any MMO released in the past ~8 years. The last MMO expansion with anywhere near the amount of content was the burning crusade(WOW). It released in 2007.

Cirran.1429:

Phy.2913:

Poor Wildstar.

…….

Best part of that graph is how bad Wildstar is doing, it makes my day.

Cirran

Wildstar is the poster child for how the market has shifted away from WOW style business and game play.

I’ve said all this before, but what it all boils down to, IMO, is devs listening to the wrong type of people and/or being the wrong type of people themselves.

Not just Anet devs, but most games devs, frankly.

By “the wrong type” I mean non-representative of the (typically silent, or at least quiet) majority of players and incapable and/or unwilling to cater to them fairly.

Inevitably, this “We know what’s good for you.” approach of devs, stubbornly doing only what they feel like doing and/or what the vocal minority demand and ignoring (or even treating with outright disdain and disrespect, frankly) the majority, will lead to not just slight deviations in game direction, but complete missteps.

GW2 has a lot of potential, but like many other games, it will never even get close to reaching that full potential while this is happening.

It’s a shame, but people have tried to point this out to devs (of various games) for ages and they just don’t seem to care…

I would never risk investing in the games industry, under these circumstances, frankly.

I’m amazed anyone does.

Other industries are not perfect, either, but never before have I witnessed the complete lack of respect and disdain many devs/games companies seem to have for their customers.

Cowboy builders and other dishonest tradesmen would probably be the closest…

Obviously, this is a huge generalisation – I’m sure there are some good, emotionally intelligent, fair minded devs and hardcore players, as well, but still.

It continues to be a problem.

What did they expected when turning the game from a casual into a hardcore game
and removed everything that so much people loved .. like play the way you want
and no raids .. especially when replacing visual outfits / armor skins with costumes and
more useless armor stats ?

My guild has mostly died since HoT and myself i only login for daily rewards
now since 45 days

I wonder really if ANet has ever heared of the fact that people in the forums don’t
represent the ingame population.

Tigaseye.2047:

I’ve said all this before, but what it all boils down to, IMO, is devs listening to the wrong type of people and/or being the wrong type of people themselves.

Not just Anet devs, but most games devs, frankly.

By “the wrong type” I mean non-representative of the (typically silent, or at least quiet) majority of players and incapable and/or unwilling to cater to them fairly.

Inevitably, this “We know what’s good for you.” approach of devs, stubbornly doing only what they feel like doing and/or what the vocal minority demand and ignoring (or even treating with outright disdain and disrespect, frankly) the majority, will lead to not just slight deviations in game direction, but complete missteps.

GW2 has a lot of potential, but like many other games, it will never even get close to reaching that full potential while this is happening.

It’s a shame, but people have tried to point this out to devs (of various games) for ages and they just don’t seem to care…

I would never risk investing in the games industry, under these circumstances, frankly.

I’m amazed anyone does.

Other industries are not perfect, either, but never before have I witnessed the complete lack of respect and disdain many devs/games companies seem to have for their customers.

Cowboy builders and other dishonest tradesmen would probably be the closest…

Obviously, this is a huge generalisation – I’m sure there are some good, emotionally intelligent, fair minded devs and hardcore players, as well, but still.

It continues to be a problem.

The same can be said about anybody creating content for others. You either deliver what you believe others enjoy or what you enjoy. Then that gets “adjusted” to meet the need to make a profit but this isn’t always possible. Which is why we have starving artists and defunct game companies.

The question becomes do you build something and attract people who enjoy it as much as you or do you set aside your convictions and cater to the unwashed masses? Steve Jobs was noted as saying never listen to a focus group because they don’t know what they want but think they do. And sadly he’s right, most people when asked will ask for a version of that “other” thing but with a twist because they don’t know what they need, just what they want.

ArenaNet has always been about bucking the industry trends. We often don’t appreciate what they’ve done until we go off and play some other MMO and recently that’s been BnS, another MMO originally released in 2012. Just about everything ANet said they were trying to avoid in GW2 is gloriously on display in BnS. Quests that require you to crisscross the map. Mobs you need to defeat who just stand around waiting to be farmed even though you’re told they are terrorizing the area. First tag owns the mob for the count as well as XP. Loot in instances needing to be divided up using a variety of methods rather than loot for all.

So here’s the thing, if you can’t stand the game because it doesn’t meet up to your expectations and you think the developers are taking the game to a place you can’t support. Find another game. This one is obviously not for you, anymore. It’s for people who do enjoy this kind of game. And if in the end there’s not enough of them to keep the world up and running, it’ll close, you can gloat but you won’t be here sending out all those negative waves Moriarty to those that find this game enjoyable.

A business isn’t always about catering to the capricious will of it’s loudest customers, re: Carbine Studios.

Beldin.5498:

What did they expected when turning the game from a casual into a hardcore game
and removed everything that so much people loved .. like play the way you want
and no raids .. especially when replacing visual outfits / armor skins with costumes and
more useless armor stats ?

My guild has mostly died since HoT and myself i only login for daily rewards
now since 45 days

I wonder really if ANet has ever heared of the fact that people in the forums don’t
represent the ingame population.

And sadly that’s the issue with level 80 only areas. Where are the crowds in Orr? Southsun Cove on non-daily days or Karka Queen time? Dry Top? Silverwastes are only busy due to the loot that you can get there.

I don’t mind a tougher area but you have to be able to enjoy it and tough doesn’t mean punishing. The lack of waypoints reminds me of corpse runs in other games to get back to where I was when I died. We have adventures you can do repeatedly but they aren’t available at all times and there is no way in game to know unless you get there, or it closes too soon because you got there toward the end of it’s window. Map wide meta events that count everyone who’s in the zone for scaling purposes. Wonderful new mechanics which unfortunately can gate your progression within that map if you haven’t unlocked them yet. Virtually zero areas where you could go AFK safely while you cross a map. Sometimes nature calls, sometimes the spouse or children. An area where formal teaming is nearly a requirement where the original game was exceedingly soloable.

It’s death of a thousand paper cuts. Gliding isn’t enough to justify so many core changes that it feels like a different game. I got the expansion just before it went live. I’m running a daredevil now. I’ve unlocked Gliding I. But that’s it. I can no longer play the way I enjoy playing in core Tyria, it’s too abusive. When you don’t bat an eye fighting vets in core Tyria and get repeatedly owned by them in HoT, it’s a distasteful shift in terms of play.

Behellagh.1468:

Beldin.5498:

What did they expected when turning the game from a casual into a hardcore game
and removed everything that so much people loved .. like play the way you want
and no raids .. especially when replacing visual outfits / armor skins with costumes and
more useless armor stats ?

My guild has mostly died since HoT and myself i only login for daily rewards
now since 45 days

I wonder really if ANet has ever heared of the fact that people in the forums don’t
represent the ingame population.

And sadly that’s the issue with level 80 only areas. Where are the crowds in Orr? Southsun Cove on non-daily days or Karka Queen time? Dry Top? Silverwastes are only busy due to the loot that you can get there.

I don’t mind a tougher area but you have to be able to enjoy it and tough doesn’t mean punishing. The lack of waypoints reminds me of corpse runs in other games to get back to where I was when I died. We have adventures you can do repeatedly but they aren’t available at all times and there is no way in game to know unless you get there, or it closes too soon because you got there toward the end of it’s window. Map wide meta events that count everyone who’s in the zone for scaling purposes. Wonderful new mechanics which unfortunately can gate your progression within that map if you haven’t unlocked them yet. Virtually zero areas where you could go AFK safely while you cross a map. Sometimes nature calls, sometimes the spouse or children. An area where formal teaming is nearly a requirement where the original game was exceedingly soloable.

It’s death of a thousand paper cuts. Gliding isn’t enough to justify so many core changes that it feels like a different game. I got the expansion just before it went live. I’m running a daredevil now. I’ve unlocked Gliding I. But that’s it. I can no longer play the way I enjoy playing in core Tyria, it’s too abusive. When you don’t bat an eye fighting vets in core Tyria and get repeatedly owned by them in HoT, it’s a distasteful shift in terms of play.

We need CoH 2… That will solve many problems.

Behellagh.1468:

Beldin.5498:

What did they expected when turning the game from a casual into a hardcore game
and removed everything that so much people loved .. like play the way you want
and no raids .. especially when replacing visual outfits / armor skins with costumes and
more useless armor stats ?

My guild has mostly died since HoT and myself i only login for daily rewards
now since 45 days

I wonder really if ANet has ever heared of the fact that people in the forums don’t
represent the ingame population.

And sadly that’s the issue with level 80 only areas. Where are the crowds in Orr? Southsun Cove on non-daily days or Karka Queen time? Dry Top? Silverwastes are only busy due to the loot that you can get there.

I don’t mind a tougher area but you have to be able to enjoy it and tough doesn’t mean punishing. The lack of waypoints reminds me of corpse runs in other games to get back to where I was when I died. We have adventures you can do repeatedly but they aren’t available at all times and there is no way in game to know unless you get there, or it closes too soon because you got there toward the end of it’s window. Map wide meta events that count everyone who’s in the zone for scaling purposes. Wonderful new mechanics which unfortunately can gate your progression within that map if you haven’t unlocked them yet. Virtually zero areas where you could go AFK safely while you cross a map. Sometimes nature calls, sometimes the spouse or children. An area where formal teaming is nearly a requirement where the original game was exceedingly soloable.

It’s death of a thousand paper cuts. Gliding isn’t enough to justify so many core changes that it feels like a different game. I got the expansion just before it went live. I’m running a daredevil now. I’ve unlocked Gliding I. But that’s it. I can no longer play the way I enjoy playing in core Tyria, it’s too abusive. When you don’t bat an eye fighting vets in core Tyria and get repeatedly owned by them in HoT, it’s a distasteful shift in terms of play.

I believe Anet thought that the expansion would be able to bring in and retain enough players to the point that non-soloable content won’t be a problem since people are constantly playing, however the downside to this is, is that when you don’t bring in those many players or hold them for very long that non-soloable content gets completed a lot less and when people login to a dead map they just log out which is mostly my experience especially since im playing on OCE times. They catered all the content in HoT towards large populations and high participation, when most of the content (from events to skins) requires multiple people to complete and obtain, you set yourself up for failure.

One of the things i didn’t really like was having many of the new weapon skins obtainable through the map currencies where in core tyria mobs would drop some themed weapon skins, some were craftable in a way you just had to buy the recipe from an npc with karma and buy the other materials off the tp or simply gather and also straight up weapons for karma. The maps don’t entice people to play them when there aren’t events getting zerged down quickly or joining when the climactic map event is up that gives the expensive loot and better time vs reward so you mostly find dead maps that deter players since they can’t solo the events or get the currency at a nice pace playing solo.

Behellagh.1468:

No, three years because of the original release year of BnS and GW2. Is there even a NA PC release of the FF MMO or is it just Playstation? I honestly don’t know, I’ve always assume it was a PS3 game and I simply ignore MMOs on consoles. PSO was fun back in the day on Dreamcast but that was a long time ago.

Not sure about NA (I live in EU) but I’d assume NA was included in their western release on PC (it was also released on PS3 at the same time and now is also available on PS4). Last year I think it hit 5m subs.

More fun with numbers.

All numbers are rough, but ought to be good enough for discussion.

The Q4 2015 revenues were in excess of 37,000 Mn Korean Won. That’s 37,000,000,000. The Korean Won is currently converting at 1000 KW to $0.84. That means that GW2 revenue in dollars is actually ~$31,000,000.

But wait a minute. Recent Gem store sales have been bouncing around north of 20,000 and south of 23,000 MN KW per quarter. Say we set a generous (i.e, low) rough median for recent quarter sales via gem store of 21,000 Mn KW, or $17,600,000. Subtract that out and HoT sales are about 13,400,000. I’m comfortable with that assumption because the report cites stability in other GW 2 revenue.

Divide that $13.4M by the $50 minimal price tag and you get about 268,000 copies sold. Now, that’s not going to be exact. Some people bought the $75 and some the $100 bundle, but retail establishments paid the wholesale price. My guess is that retail sales trumped the more expensive bundles and actual sales numbers may be in excess of 300,000, but probably not by that much.

Very rough, but enough to evaluate the relative success of the product. For one thing, the number, whatever it actually is, is nowhere near (20+%) of the 1.5M monthly logins claimed in the recent Fortune article, and that’s not excluding any PFF adopters. I can certainly believe that the powers-that-be at NCSoft and ANet are not delighted.

IndigoSundown.5419:

More fun with numbers.

All numbers are rough, but ought to be good enough for discussion.

The Q4 2015 revenues were in excess of 37,000 Mn Korean Won. That’s 37,000,000,000. The Korean Won is currently converting at 1000 KW to $0.84. That means that GW2 revenue in dollars is actually ~$31,000,000.

But wait a minute. Recent Gem store sales have been bouncing around north of 20,000 and south of 23,000 MN KW per quarter. Say we set a generous (i.e, low) rough median for recent quarter sales via gem store of 21,000 Mn KW, or $17,600,000. Subtract that out and HoT sales are about 13,400,000. I’m comfortable with that assumption because the report cites stability in other GW 2 revenue.

Divide that $13.4M by the $50 minimal price tag and you get about 268,000 copies sold. Now, that’s not going to be exact. Some people bought the $75 and some the $100 bundle, but retail establishments paid the wholesale price. My guess is that retail sales trumped the more expensive bundles and actual sales numbers may be in excess of 300,000, but probably not by that much.

Very rough, but enough to evaluate the relative success of the product. For one thing, the number, whatever it actually is, is nowhere near (20+%) of the 1.5M monthly logins claimed in the recent Fortune article, and that’s not excluding any PFF adopters. I can certainly believe that the powers-that-be at NCSoft and ANet are not delighted.

Thanks for taking time to do this, I saw someone quote a figure of about 250k on another site and was basically too lazy to fact check it. Appreciate it.

Swagger.1459:

Behellagh.1468:

It’s death of a thousand paper cuts. Gliding isn’t enough to justify so many core changes that it feels like a different game. I got the expansion just before it went live. I’m running a daredevil now. I’ve unlocked Gliding I. But that’s it. I can no longer play the way I enjoy playing in core Tyria, it’s too abusive. When you don’t bat an eye fighting vets in core Tyria and get repeatedly owned by them in HoT, it’s a distasteful shift in terms of play.

We need CoH 2… That will solve many problems.

Have tried CoH only for some hours and never got in it, but i played CO before
and as an old Diablo 2 player actually i really like Marvel Heroes. Haven’t tried
Daredevil however since i heared he is not that great.

And hey .. if ANet only gives us costumes here anymore, that can i have also there

IndigoSundown.5419:

More fun with numbers.

All numbers are rough, but ought to be good enough for discussion.

The Q4 2015 revenues were in excess of 37,000 Mn Korean Won. That’s 37,000,000,000. The Korean Won is currently converting at 1000 KW to $0.84. That means that GW2 revenue in dollars is actually ~$31,000,000.

But wait a minute. Recent Gem store sales have been bouncing around north of 20,000 and south of 23,000 MN KW per quarter. Say we set a generous (i.e, low) rough median for recent quarter sales via gem store of 21,000 Mn KW, or $17,600,000. Subtract that out and HoT sales are about 13,400,000. I’m comfortable with that assumption because the report cites stability in other GW 2 revenue.

Divide that $13.4M by the $50 minimal price tag and you get about 268,000 copies sold. Now, that’s not going to be exact. Some people bought the $75 and some the $100 bundle, but retail establishments paid the wholesale price. My guess is that retail sales trumped the more expensive bundles and actual sales numbers may be in excess of 300,000, but probably not by that much.

Very rough, but enough to evaluate the relative success of the product. For one thing, the number, whatever it actually is, is nowhere near (20+%) of the 1.5M monthly logins claimed in the recent Fortune article, and that’s not excluding any PFF adopters. I can certainly believe that the powers-that-be at NCSoft and ANet are not delighted.

Interesting.

That means of those 1.5 million monthly logins, 80% (those who didn’t get HoT) are likely to, or have already, quit the game.

Reasoning: HoT’s specializations weren’t the advertised sidegrades but were rather upgrades — major upgrades. Also, core-only players actually lost playable content. In this kind of situation, the options are to buy HoT, or slowly (or quickly) lose interest and quit.

Pretty bad sign.

Thats kinda the the sad thing about hot (the spec system) it could be good for the future.
but its kinda not so appealing atm. my friend ask me what will her guardian get if she didnt want to be a dragon hunter i could only tell her(you gets nothing!) :x and she didnt buy Hot because of that. im sure other people prolly did the same thing.

IndigoSundown.5419:

All numbers are rough, but ought to be good enough for discussion.
(…)
The Q4 2015 revenues were in excess of 37,000 Mn Korean Won. That’s 37,000,000,000. The Korean Won is currently converting at 1000 KW to $0.84. That means that GW2 revenue in dollars is actually ~$31,000,000.

But wait a minute. Recent Gem store sales have been bouncing around north of 20,000 and south of 23,000 MN KW per quarter. Say we set a generous (i.e, low) rough median for recent quarter sales via gem store of 21,000 Mn KW, or $17,600,000. Subtract that out and HoT sales are about 13,400,000. I’m comfortable with that assumption because the report cites stability in other GW 2 revenue.

Divide that $13.4M by the $50 minimal price tag and you get about 268,000 copies sold. Now, that’s not going to be exact. Some people bought the $75 and some the $100 bundle, but retail establishments paid the wholesale price. My guess is that retail sales trumped the more expensive bundles and actual sales numbers may be in excess of 300,000, but probably not by that much.

Very rough, but enough to evaluate the relative success of the product. For one thing, the number, whatever it actually is, is nowhere near (20+%) of the 1.5M monthly logins claimed in the recent Fortune article, and that’s not excluding any PFF adopters. I can certainly believe that the powers-that-be at NCSoft and ANet are not delighted.

Based on your estimations comparing the gemstore sales ($17,600,000) to the HoT sales ($13,400,000) in Q4/2015 the HoT sales are noticable less than the gemstore sales.

And when we look at the costs of both: I am pretty sure that creating HoT has cost A-Net a lot more money (from 5-times to 100-times more I guess) than maintaining the gemstore and creating new gemstore items.

So the cost/revenue ratio of HoT is much worse than the gemstore.

But an expansion has not only to “pay itself” it functions also as a marketing tool and to attract new customers/players. But if only one fifth of the active playerbase bought HoT, I think it was not very successful with that.

But an expansion is also new content to hold players in the game (to drive the gemstore sales). Only A-Net knows the exact numbers how much players left before and after HoT. But I am pretty sure the long time before HoT without new content was noticable and thats why A-Net now tries to work on Living Story (several small content pieces) and the next expansion (one big content piece) in parallel.

Behellagh.1468:

A business isn’t always about catering to the capricious will of it’s loudest customers

No, I know.

That is exactly what I am saying.

I also, I think, made it extremely clear that I am talking about the games industry in general; not just Anet (or not even especially Anet) and not about my own personal likes/dislikes/needs.

So, leaving the game wouldn’t help me, would it?

This kind of irrelevant (and slightly hostile) reaction illustrates the problem very well, so thanks for that.

…and with that, I will bid you adieu, as this topic has been talked into the ground, already.

If games devs/companies want to continue to behave like patronising older brothers, who make games for their “entitled” younger brothers, who should be grateful for whatever they’re “given” (including insults), that is up to them, I guess.

I just hope they don’t expect to maximise customer loyalty that way…

250k copies of HoT sold would be roughly 5% of players buying the expansion… which is just… terrible. I have to imagine NCSOFT would have shut the game down by now if those were the real numbers.

We must be missing something. The expansion would need at least a million copies sold to be successful. I remember WoW used to get 50-80% expansion copies sold, not sure what they are averaging these days, but it is certainly well above 5%.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

250k copies of HoT sold would be roughly 5% of players buying the expansion… which is just… terrible. I have to imagine NCSOFT would have shut the game down by now if those were the real numbers.

We must be missing something. The expansion would need at least a million copies sold to be successful. I remember WoW used to get 50-80% expansion copies sold, not sure what they are averaging these days, but it is certainly well above 5%.

Draenor sold 3.3m in 24hours.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

250k copies of HoT sold would be roughly 5% of players buying the expansion… which is just… terrible. I have to imagine NCSOFT would have shut the game down by now if those were the real numbers.

We must be missing something. The expansion would need at least a million copies sold to be successful. I remember WoW used to get 50-80% expansion copies sold, not sure what they are averaging these days, but it is certainly well above 5%.

Slightly better than 5% maybe. They said 1.5m monthly concurrent players before HoT and 3.1m when it went free to play. Since not all free to play have or will buy, then it’s might be better to base the numbers on the 1.5 million (and add a few). If you guesstimate 2 million paying monthly concurrent players then it’s around 12.5%.

Edit: I suspect those percents are too low when compared to players who logon on a regular basis. When you get any group of random level 80s together and mouse over them almost all have Mastery points, showing that they did buy the expansion.

Hmm, is this chart supposed to be of their earnings worldwide? That’s the only explanation I can think of as to why something like Lineage is still doing well, and why Blade and Soul is somehow doing better despite being new here in NA….assuming this chart is accurate.

And, isn’t ArenaNet now all but free of NCSoft’s control by now? The only thing I can see that implies any remaining ties to NCSoft is those gem cards still being around.

Nilkemia.8507:

Hmm, is this chart supposed to be of their earnings worldwide? That’s the only explanation I can think of as to why something like Lineage is still doing well, and why Blade and Soul is somehow doing better despite being new here in NA….assuming this chart is accurate.

That chart doesn’t factor in NA/EU yet.

morrolan.9608:

jheryn.8390:

Ayrilana.1396:

Revenue from pre-sales generally aren’t recorded as revenue until it is realized. It’s usually booked under an account such as deferred revenue since it’s technically a liability.

I agree, but these days ‘generally’ is a big subjective word.

Many companies will realize revenue when they want it to hit rather than when it should. Ethics in this area is very fluid these days. This is true particularly of larger companies.

And accounting regulations are quite strict to avoid exactly that situation and ensure the financial results are understandable to stakeholders.

And you believe companies adhere to those regulations? You believe they don’t find ways around them or ways to circumvent them? Curious.

I am in no ways saying ANet or NCSoft does that, but many companies do. To think otherwise is naive. Watch the news.

Nilkemia.8507:

And, isn’t ArenaNet now all but free of NCSoft’s control by now? The only thing I can see that implies any remaining ties to NCSoft is those gem cards still being around.

NCsoft still owns ArenaNet. Thats the opposite of “free of control”.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

250k copies of HoT sold would be roughly 5% of players buying the expansion… which is just… terrible. I have to imagine NCSOFT would have shut the game down by now if those were the real numbers.

We must be missing something. The expansion would need at least a million copies sold to be successful. I remember WoW used to get 50-80% expansion copies sold, not sure what they are averaging these days, but it is certainly well above 5%.

Slightly better than 5% maybe. They said 1.5m monthly concurrent players before HoT and 3.1m when it went free to play. Since not all free to play have or will buy, then it’s might be better to base the numbers on the 1.5 million (and add a few). If you guesstimate 2 million paying monthly concurrent players then it’s around 12.5%.

Edit: I suspect those percents are too low when compared to players who logon on a regular basis. When you get any group of random level 80s together and mouse over them almost all have Mastery points, showing that they did buy the expansion.

It would make sense to me that players who play regularly are more likely to have bought HoT. Playing more regularly indicates greater commitment to the franchise. While I do see a lot of players without the MP indicator, I’ve no way of knowing how many of those are free players. We also have no way of knowing how many of the 1.5M monthly account logins are players who log in for login rewards and then log out while waiting for Anet to produce something they’d like to play. I did that for a while, and I doubt I was alone.

I’m assuming the ~5M players Zudet is referring to are all NA/EU (3.5M reported sales last time I saw anything plus ~1.6M free players). I’ve no idea if HoT made it to China, but royalties, iirc, are not reported as part of revenue. I think a more realistic percentage is the ~20% I guesstimated.

I’d also like to think we’re missing something. I originally thought that pre-sales would have shown up in Q2 and Q3, but based on the numbers, this is not the case. So, I’m not sure where there is anything to have missed.

Regardless, ANet has to create new content to keep the main source of revenue, the gem sales, from drying up as players lose interest and to market the game to new adopters. Fort that reason, I don’t share Zudet’s opinion that the XPac needed to sell a million copies to be successful. I think it will be successful if the gem sales stay stable over the course of the time it takes for the next new thing to pop. I do, however, question just how many new, paying, players HoT brought in. I suspect it’s not many.

IndigoSundown.5419:

More fun with numbers.

All numbers are rough, but ought to be good enough for discussion.

The Q4 2015 revenues were in excess of 37,000 Mn Korean Won. That’s 37,000,000,000. The Korean Won is currently converting at 1000 KW to $0.84. That means that GW2 revenue in dollars is actually ~$31,000,000.

But wait a minute. Recent Gem store sales have been bouncing around north of 20,000 and south of 23,000 MN KW per quarter. Say we set a generous (i.e, low) rough median for recent quarter sales via gem store of 21,000 Mn KW, or $17,600,000. Subtract that out and HoT sales are about 13,400,000. I’m comfortable with that assumption because the report cites stability in other GW 2 revenue.

Divide that $13.4M by the $50 minimal price tag and you get about 268,000 copies sold. Now, that’s not going to be exact. Some people bought the $75 and some the $100 bundle, but retail establishments paid the wholesale price. My guess is that retail sales trumped the more expensive bundles and actual sales numbers may be in excess of 300,000, but probably not by that much.

Very rough, but enough to evaluate the relative success of the product. For one thing, the number, whatever it actually is, is nowhere near (20+%) of the 1.5M monthly logins claimed in the recent Fortune article, and that’s not excluding any PFF adopters. I can certainly believe that the powers-that-be at NCSoft and ANet are not delighted.

How many of those monthly, meaning unique accounts that logged in at least once during the month were P4F? If you were only logging in a couple times a month, would you drop $50 on the expansion cause you might not have even finished the core game yet. Based on they previous primarily gem sale quarters I’ve always put their regular player base at 400-600 thousand in NA/EU.

And it wasn’t ANet but an analyst that called out those numbers.

“Guild Wars 2 has proven pretty resilient historically, with about 1.5 million monthly actives,” SuperData Research CEO Joost van Dreunen says. “Since it switched to free-to-play in late August, Guild Wars 2’s monthly active user base has doubled to 3.1 million (October 2015). By entering the ESL Pro League, ArenaNet is leveraging its player-versus-player style game play, and is trying to offer a broader experience.”
Warman says Guild Wars 2 has remained a Top 20 game streamed on Twitch with spikes around big announcements like the recent Heart of Thorns expansion.

Neither ArenaNet or NCSOFT release those numbers anymore since they always pale in comparison the WoW. Plus due to the prevalence of cash shops rather than subscriptions, head count has little meaning anymore.

Behellagh.1468:

So to improve converting non-HoT owners to HoT owners, they are looking at ways to tease them with systems only available in HoT. (Core Tyria gliding anyone?) Another method they are looking into is more frequent content updates that only expansion owners can access.

That’s all very interesting to hear. For myself, I couldn’t justify paying 50 bucks just to have gliders. The whole progression system is a big mess. It seems like they’re trying very hard to provide all sorts of small perks (temporary +10% karma banner and whatever). I guess there are types of players who are really into doing every achievement and completing every story chapter, but I’m not one of those players. I like to play (WvW mainly) and I got the new borderlands map for free.

The expansion can’t work whenever it divides playing population. The new maps are just alternatives to core game world, I don’t miss them. It’s going to be very difficult task to convince players like me to fork over cash for HoT.

IndigoSundown.5419:

It would make sense to me that players who play regularly are more likely to have bought HoT. Playing more regularly indicates greater commitment to the franchise. While I do see a lot of players without the MP indicator, I’ve no way of knowing how many of those are free players. We also have no way of knowing how many of the 1.5M monthly account logins are players who log in for login rewards and then log out while waiting for Anet to produce something they’d like to play. I did that for a while, and I doubt I was alone.

Wow, I have seen just the opposite. I go into the major cities or while waiting for a world boss and even if I don’t see right away the MP indicator, I click on the person themselves and it shows me quite clearly the MP indicator. The only time it doesn’t is if the char is under level 80. Out of hundreds I see less than 10 that are level 80 with no MP indicator.

GW2 is a fxcking more and more faming world before HOT upgrade. My friends hate this, when HOT on sale they never care about this news.
I don’t like to play farming PVE game too, just like PVP & WVW. So i didn’t want to buy HOT,and then Anet made “No Balance PVP league” take me into the holy shxt PVP hell. So i will go back Fallout4. GW2 E-sport? let it dead.

Behellagh.1468:

- snip -

The 1.5 million was before PFF. Sure, an analyst presented the info, but where did he get it? ANet partnered with a third party for their PvP ESport initiative. Did ANet give the analyst the info? Did they give it to the 3rd party, who shared it. Did Anet refute the numbers? You’re correct that we don’t know. For all we know, 1/3 of the 1.5M could be second accounts being laurel-farmed. However, it’s the only number we have.

I’ve seen reports that the in the recent conference call, NCSoft cited the HoT sales as disappointing. If so, clearly, they — and ANet — were expecting higher sales.

The key elements of my post are the educated guess as to HoT sales in dollars. The tentative conclusions I drew don’t mean much, so dispute away.

I like that their oldest game earns them more than all their other games combined

also wildstar kittening sucks. worse graphics and GW2 AND worse performance. And I mean notably worse in both categories. Like if I max out all the settings, it still looks worse than GW2 on medium or even low settings (and is unplayable on my laptop), and if I set everything to lowest, I still get lower frame rates than GW2 on my usual medium settings

There seemed to be a lot of people that were disappointed that they’d sprung for the pre-purchase and I don’t think a lot of the people that pre-purchased HoT will do so again. I think a good portion of them are going to take a wait and see approach, which means numbers for a second expansion could very possibly be even more dissatisfying than HoT’s numbers.

And it doesn’t surprise me that their idea of F2Pers buying the expansion didn’t play out as well as they thought it would. When you compare core Tyria’s content for free to HoT’s tiny content for money along with the grindy system, yeah, don’t know why they’d buy it. lol