Guild Wars 2

I have this game added on Steam as a “non steam game,” but noticed that the first guild wars (as well as its expansions) are on Steam. Is there a possibility of this game being added to Steam in the future, or is that a no-go?

I mean, I can play it without Steam, but I am wondering if it would increase an already large player base.

I know little of how Steam works, but every time someone posts a request on this forum to have GW2 available on Steam, the common response from those who do know is that Steam takes a sizable hunk of the income for the games it runs. So apparently it’s great for small games that otherwise would have trouble marketing and distributing at all, but terrible for larger companies that are well-known, established, and have easy direct purchase options in place.

Donari.5237:

I know little of how Steam works, but every time someone posts a request on this forum to have GW2 available on Steam, the common response from those who do know is that Steam takes a sizable hunk of the income for the games it runs. So apparently it’s great for small games that otherwise would have trouble marketing and distributing at all, but terrible for larger companies that are well-known, established, and have easy direct purchase options in place.

ah, that makes sense!

Donari.5237:

I know little of how Steam works, but every time someone posts a request on this forum to have GW2 available on Steam, the common response from those who do know is that Steam takes a sizable hunk of the income for the games it runs. So apparently it’s great for small games that otherwise would have trouble marketing and distributing at all, but terrible for larger companies that are well-known, established, and have easy direct purchase options in place.

This.

It used to be on there, and was removed by anet. I don’t think they’re going to be happy to go back.

I’m not sure how it is with other MMOs. But for ESO, if you bought the game before it was released on Steam, your account could not be transferred. You would have had to buy a NEW copy on Steam and make a new account.

vanillexhope.2043:

I’m not sure how it is with other MMOs. But for ESO, if you bought the game before it was released on Steam, your account could not be transferred. You would have had to buy a NEW copy on Steam and make a new account.

That is pretty routine. I don’t know why, but my guess is that it’s because the game uses some sort of steam ID as part of authenticating or whatever — since you can definitely ship games requiring a third party account on steam.

(…and the developers used your email address or something concrete and meaningful as the primary key for identifying accounts, rather than an internal account ID with one-or-more external ways of identifying to it. dang developers, assuming that you have one stable way to prove identity on the internet. not that I have not made the same mistake in my time.)

SlippyCheeze.5483:

vanillexhope.2043:

I’m not sure how it is with other MMOs. But for ESO, if you bought the game before it was released on Steam, your account could not be transferred. You would have had to buy a NEW copy on Steam and make a new account.

That is pretty routine. I don’t know why, but my guess is that it’s because the game uses some sort of steam ID as part of authenticating or whatever — since you can definitely ship games requiring a third party account on steam.

(…and the developers used your email address or something concrete and meaningful as the primary key for identifying accounts, rather than an internal account ID with one-or-more external ways of identifying to it. dang developers, assuming that you have one stable way to prove identity on the internet. not that I have not made the same mistake in my time.)

I have worked on 2 MMO’s that later got added to steam, and in our case at least you are correct. The steamID tied to the steam wallet will allow a company to set up payments using the steam wallet to work in the in game store. In our case we were able to set up a way to convert accounts in the background so you could use your old accounts on steam, so to the customer it looked like nothing changed, but technically those were all new accounts, copies of the old ones.

Just add it as a non steam game. Thats what I’ve done. It still lets you use the steam overlay thing.

All of the above, plus… Steam is evil.

I think Steam takes about 30% of each transaction. At least that was the last number given by others. So not sure if it’s the real number or close but I would guess it’s probably very close.

There’s also the fact that ANet has a custom-made launch client tailored to their needs which they can, of course, do whatever they want with. This is highly preferred since they don’t have to wrestle with somebody else’s launch program and payment portal and they have more than enough resources to maintain it and customize it to be better for both the client and ANet. The only disadvantage to this is of course a small sacrifice of convenience to the client but honestly, it’s definitely a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make as a customer for a secure, fast, and easy launch program and payment portal.