Guild Wars 2

From: http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/23/the-10-highest-grossing-online-pc-games-in-2014-hearthstone-dota-2-cant-compete-with-league-of-legends/

http://i.imgur.com/AJuOEKf.jpg

Sad to see Guildwars isn’t on this list.

A little heartbreaking.

If they just made things a lot more accessible and affordable in the gemstore, they could have been easily scoring 50 to 70 dollars a month at least from me.

EDIT:

I feel like they keep throwing the monetization opportunity with their holidays.

Its a well known fact that both Halloween and Christmas are some of the most lucrative times of the year for retailers.

Had they given a solid new experience with Halloween and released an entire catalogue of accessible products on the gemstore, I can tell you people would be lapping that up real good as long as the event itself has the production values to justify the spending.

id like to point out this is only about in game spending, So essentially any game that makes its money primarily through in game transactions will have an advantage.
Doesnt include box sales, dlc sales, expansions, subscriptions etc.

the fact that WoW is on this list even with subscriptions is notable.

How are half of these games considered MMOs? Isn’t one of the pilars of MMOs an always online consistent world? How do card games and MOBAs have that? Or is any multiplayer game an MMO nowadays?

On GW2 in specific, they will have more income once they restore some of the goodwill they lost from some of their customers.

Pourekos.5032:

How are half of these games considered MMOs? Isn’t one of the pilars of MMOs an always online consistent world? How do card games and MOBAs have that? Or is any multiplayer game an MMO nowadays?

On GW2 in specific, they will have more income once they restore some of the goodwill they lost from some of their customers.

true on all points.

of course one can say that if a MOBA is running circles around a “cash cow MMO” in revenue you know someone has to get their head out of the dirt.

Pourekos.5032:

How are half of these games considered MMOs? Isn’t one of the pilars of MMOs an always online consistent world? How do card games and MOBAs have that? Or is any multiplayer game an MMO nowadays?

On GW2 in specific, they will have more income once they restore some of the goodwill they lost from some of their customers.

MMO just means many players can play together at once. Many can be a pretty small number, persistent world is a different thing.

MMORPG is a bit more specific. I would say some of the games stretch the even the loose definition though.

So .. how many people really play Lineage 1 in the west ?
I know Lineage was the biggest MMO before release of WoW, but it was always only
strong in Asia.
Lineage 2 had for example 2 million players when i played it, and here in the west
they happily announced 64.000 players 2 months after release.

And Crossfire .. i never even heared that name at all.

Beldin.5498:

So .. how many people really play Lineage 1 in the west ?
I know Lineage was the biggest MMO bevor release of WoW, but it was always only
strong in Asia.

And Crossfire .. i never even heared that name at all.

Lineage 1 isn’t very popular in the west along with Lineage 2.

Crossfire is like an MMO Counter Strike its extremely strong in asia.

Time for Arena Net to step up their game.
Few bright ideas – add VIP, make people pay gems to unlock dyes, remove gold to gems, let people to buy legendaries on TP with gems.

Nick.6972:

Time for Arena Net to step up their game.
Few bright ideas – add VIP, make people pay gems to unlock dyes, remove gold to gems, let people to buy legendaries on TP with gems.

don’t know if trolling.

EDIT: Okay, I remember your previous posts, nevermind my lack of sleep.

This is what happens when you make outfits and not armor, for a tip of an iceberg.

We told you so?

IllegalChocolate.6938:

of course one can say that if a MOBA is running circles around a “cash cow MMO” in revenue you know someone has to get their head out of the dirt.

One could say that, but league of Legends is a really, really well designed game on all fronts. Clearly, that hard work is paying off big time.

I’m a bit surprised GW2 isn’t on the list, but none of the games that are on there surprise me.

phys.7689:

Pourekos.5032:

How are half of these games considered MMOs? Isn’t one of the pilars of MMOs an always online consistent world? How do card games and MOBAs have that? Or is any multiplayer game an MMO nowadays?

On GW2 in specific, they will have more income once they restore some of the goodwill they lost from some of their customers.

MMO just means many players can play together at once. Many can be a pretty small number, persistent world is a different thing.

MMORPG is a bit more specific. I would say some of the games stretch the even the loose definition though.

I’m gonna call shenanigans on that list. MOBA isn’t _M_MO, wherein the first M is “Massively”. 10 people on a map isn’t a high population. It may have a lot of players, but the concurrence just isn’t there. So that makes it a “multiplayer, online” game. Yeah, I know it’s totally semantics.

Not to be obtuse to the actual point, though, if GW2 weren’t making mistake after mistake, it could still be on this top-10 list. And that’s just sad. :\

The thing is that GW2 is BY FAR the best designed game when it comes to game mechanics, and professions. I tried to play another recently released MMO that doesn’t have the dodge mechanic, and I just couldn’t do it. There is so much about GW2 that is right that it keeps me logging in. No I don’t play anywhere near as much as I used to, but the game is 2 years old now.

If they offered more/better items on the gem store I would be more inclined to purchase gems. I’m also still bitter about the introduction of ascended weapon/armor stats and having to grind to 500 to craft them. I know I would purchase auto 500 crafting boosters if they were on the gem store in a heartbeat. I still would have to craft the actual ascended/weapon armor, but at least I wouldn’t have to grind to 500 to do it.

The bottom line for me is that they need to offer better items if they want to make more money.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

of course one can say that if a MOBA is running circles around a “cash cow MMO” in revenue you know someone has to get their head out of the dirt.

One could say that, but league of Legends is a really, really well designed game on all fronts. Clearly, that hard work is paying off big time.

This is also correct.

Although there are some improvements that come in with the living story releases I personally feel like the actual content itself is just too isolated. You have some fantastic ideas in Dry Top including more complex AI or enemy abilities that haven’t seen any influence in dungeons, where we actually need these types of designs.

I can confidently say that if living story was a lot more of a global gradual improvement of the game, we’d be seeing Guild Wars 2 on that list.

If league added 300m in microtransaction revenue over the last year they must be doing something right.

For all people say that 90% of the devs focus is on the gem store there is still a surprisingly small amount of things you can buy for a 2 year old game.

Just because GW2 is not on the top 10 doesn’t mean it’s doing good, not to say that it’s doing great either.
Personally, I blame the non-existent direction, lack luster content updates and stagnant state of the game.
Maybe they do have some big background projects, but as of now, there’s absolutely nothing (for me) to be hyped about or nothing to look forward to.

There are only two MMORPGs on that list and only one themepark MMORPG. Obviously WoW is going to be on that list and it is. Final fantasy isn’t. SWToR isn’t. Rift isn’t.

I’ve said all along MMORPGs are really a niche game and the genre is very competitive. Less players across more products means less profits across the board.

So I’m not surprised at all.

Of all the western MMOs, only WoW is on that list. I’m pretty sure that FF would be before Guild Wars 2, because it has consoles and computers, if you’re looking at just pure intake of money. If it’s not there’s a problem.

But for western MMOs, and themepark MMOs, WoW is the only one that made it into the top 10.

From the article:

“League of Legends is so lucrative that it actually makes more money than World of Tanks, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft combined.”

That League of Legends, eh? I remember when WoW use to be top dog on these lists, poor thing has fallen to 4th place now.

Sizer.5632:

If league added 300m in microtransaction revenue over the last year they must be doing something right.

For all people say that 90% of the devs focus is on the gem store there is still a surprisingly small amount of things you can buy for a 2 year old game.

That is not what we are saying.

We are saying they are not doing it correctly.

We as in I as I cannot speak for everyone.

So .. now we know what GW2 needs to be more successful ..
1. more grind aka Lineage
2. more tanks
3. It should be either a shooter or moba

great .. lets do that .. lol

Beldin.5498:

So .. now we know what GW2 needs to be more successful ..
1. more grind aka Lineage
2. more tanks
3. It should be either a shooter or moba

great .. lets do that .. lol

That actually wouldn’t be that bad when you think about it.
You see, GW1 was a niche and they wanted GW2 to be more accessible and mainstream, isn’t that the whole idea of the game? Easy to get in, easy to drop, easy to get back, easy to learn, cash shop, dress up mini games.

i said it before, but everyone is still ignoring that this list is from in game sales only.
Essentially this game is measuring the most succesful cash shops, not the most succesful games

Check out the full list below, and keep in mind that this only takes into account revenues from in-game spending on PC (so no subscription revenue for World of Warcraft or mobile spending for Hearthstone):

however, note that unless gw2 does expansions, it will essentially become a cash shop game, so perhaps this is more relevant to gw2 than it is to WoW

I had to look up MOBA to make sure it wasn’t the Museum Of Bad Art or the Metro Omaha Builders Association.

I’m not surprised to see League of Legends on the top spot. Riot Games is excellent at delivering content that players want to buy with no obligation to buy it.

Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

• Who spends cash on repair canister when you can repair your armor for free?
• What’s the motivation to buying town clothes when you can’t fight with them and have few chances to show them off?
• Festival item effects are not impressive and temporary on a game that’s already saturated with them. Cast a meteor shower from your staff if you want to see effects.

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

lordkrall.7241:

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

not all other studios, the report was on ncsoft west, which is essentially localisation, and carbine studios
the eastern divisions didnt report layoffs

I would like to see mobile apps included in that list, I’m sure some like Candy Crush would …um… crush the competition haha.

Well, i remember this list popping up during end of 2013 as well and GW2 wasn’t there back then as well. Some people acted surprised, just like some folks here. I remember Wooden Potatoes and M. Visual talking about it at some point. So, it’s nothing big really, it wasn’t on that list in 2013, it’s not on that list in 2014 (kinda makes sense, 2013 seems to be a stronger year for GW2 compared to 2014). Unless, maybe it’s because GW2’s revenue data (cash shop part of it) might not be available for whatever reason to the source of that list, and that’s why it never was on that list.

lordkrall.7241:

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

Not sure this is a fun commend or not.

At least you can’t be serious.

The only reason why A-Net is still alive is that they let almost everyone go and
outsource as much as they can.
That also explains why GW2 as a product looks so disconnected from the customers
or their former glory.

Let me quote from employees NOT MADE UP BY ME
QUOTE:

• Severe reliance on contract/outsourced positions completely tanks morale across virtually every department.
• Resources are spread too thin. Nothing seems like a real priority
• Most of the upper management seems disconnected from their employees and the customers
• Compensation: ArenaNet has always paid below the industry standard for most, if not all, of its positions.
• Salaries have not only lagged behind, but opportunities to advance have also been greatly reduced.
  END QUOTE
  Just to add to that, the positive outlook by the employees is around 54% right now

On top we have the income report that clearly shows that they had a little peak in 2013 but in general lose about 3 million to the former quarter.
Like we all read GW2 is not under the top revenue games any longer.

How do you read out of these informations that A-Net makes enough to keep the employees and deliver a descent product is far beyond me and totally delusional.

Fact is that they did bet on odd horses and lost.
LS was more than a foreseeable failure and the fact that they stick to it instead deliver expansions has more to do with the financial situation.
They simply can’t switch anymore even if they wanted.

I know most people “dream” of a hidden secret expansion project that will pop out of nowhere.
But sadly all of the relevant numbers speak against that.
A-Net isn’t announcing something epic because there is nothing to announce.

Simple plain and very sad

Kurrilino.2706:

lordkrall.7241:

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

---

Not sure this is a fun commend or not.

At least you can’t be serious.

The only reason why A-Net is still alive is that they let almost everyone go and
outsource as much as they can.
That also explains why GW2 as a product looks so disconnected from the customers
or their former glory.

Let me quote from employees NOT MADE UP BY ME
QUOTE:

• Severe reliance on contract/outsourced positions completely tanks morale across virtually every department.
• Resources are spread too thin. Nothing seems like a real priority
• Most of the upper management seems disconnected from their employees and the customers
• Compensation: ArenaNet has always paid below the industry standard for most, if not all, of its positions.
• Salaries have not only lagged behind, but opportunities to advance have also been greatly reduced.
  END QUOTE

On top we have the income report that clearly shows that they had a little peak in 2013 but in general lose about 3 million to the former quarter.
Like we all read GW2 is not under the top revenue games any longer.

How do you read out of these informations that A-Net makes enough to keep the employees and deliver a descent product is far beyond me and totally delusional.

Fact is that they did bet on odd horses and lost.
LS was more than a foreseeable failure and the fact that they stick to it instead deliver expansions has more to do with the financial situation.
They simply can’t switch anymore even if they wanted.

I know most people “dream” of a hidden secret expansion project that will pop out of nowhere.
But sadly all of the relevant numbers speak against that.
A-Net isn’t announcing something epic because there is nothing to announce.

Simple plain and very sad

Very—informative—post—Kurrilino.2706.

All the more reason to deliver an xpac…

What did you guys expect? far more players have quit this game than stayed… that’s a 100% FACT. There are not millions of players like there was at launch.. why? LACK OF CONTENT. point blank, period.

This is an MMORPG. How do MMORPG thrive and survive? CONTENT.
Look at the strong history of MMORPGS like Runescape, EQ, WoW, etc… ALL delivered good content at an workable pace to the community.. hell even after a decade RS is still consistently making money and at a strong 60k+ concurrent user base..

Look at the drop off of GW2 from launch to now… The fact there are ppl in this community that actually believe this will go down as one of the greatest MMORPGS ever lol… this game won’t even come close to the longevity some of the great MMORPGS have had… Not without meaningful CONTENT updates..

This games beautiful., has fun combat, but it’s not going ANYWHERE but downhill if anet just wants to purely focus their development on LS + gemstore.

Xpac has to come…What logical reason does anet have not to deliver an xpac? they haven’t delivered jack kitten through this cheesy kitten LS. MMORPG genre has a pretty big community… and no one is exactly signing up in rows to check out this LS nonsense… so far its been nothing but a lame story that 80% of the playerbase could care less about with a few new zones with re-hashed content… Things they did right in LS1 haven’t been seen so far in this new season… Stuff like twisted marionette? I loved that stuff and so did many others… They gotta fix the direction of development or its all downhill…
theres a reason why we saw that gemstore change…anet wants ppl to spend more money lol…they are trying hard to bump up revenue and this is the kind of stuff they have to resort too since they didn’t forsee LS being such a turn off for the majority of the playerbase so far.

Kurrilino.2706:

Let me quote from employees NOT MADE UP BY ME
QUOTE:

• Severe reliance on contract/outsourced positions completely tanks morale across virtually every department.
• Resources are spread too thin. Nothing seems like a real priority
• Most of the upper management seems disconnected from their employees and the customers
• Compensation: ArenaNet has always paid below the industry standard for most, if not all, of its positions.
• Salaries have not only lagged behind, but opportunities to advance have also been greatly reduced.
  END QUOTE

Source?

Nothing on that list other than WoW was even mildly interesting to me. Comparing Apples to Oranges it seems.

As soon as they fix the necromancer’s minions (permanently and not for 3 days like one year ago), I’ll gladly give them all the money I can afford.
And if they ever fix the 2-years old bugs, I’ll give them more.

Crovax.7854:

Source?

I would assume it is from Glassdoor Reviews, which is isn’t really that reliable as a source, seeing as it is fully possible for anyone (employee or not) to actually add reviews.

Kurrilino.2706:

lordkrall.7241:

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

---

Not sure this is a fun commend or not.

At least you can’t be serious.

The only reason why A-Net is still alive is that they let almost everyone go and
outsource as much as they can.
That also explains why GW2 as a product looks so disconnected from the customers
or their former glory.

Let me quote from employees NOT MADE UP BY ME
QUOTE:

• Severe reliance on contract/outsourced positions completely tanks morale across virtually every department.
• Resources are spread too thin. Nothing seems like a real priority
• Most of the upper management seems disconnected from their employees and the customers
• Compensation: ArenaNet has always paid below the industry standard for most, if not all, of its positions.
• Salaries have not only lagged behind, but opportunities to advance have also been greatly reduced.
  END QUOTE
  Just to add to that, the positive outlook by the employees is around 54% right now

On top we have the income report that clearly shows that they had a little peak in 2013 but in general lose about 3 million to the former quarter.
Like we all read GW2 is not under the top revenue games any longer.

How do you read out of these informations that A-Net makes enough to keep the employees and deliver a descent product is far beyond me and totally delusional.

Fact is that they did bet on odd horses and lost.
LS was more than a foreseeable failure and the fact that they stick to it instead deliver expansions has more to do with the financial situation.
They simply can’t switch anymore even if they wanted.

I know most people “dream” of a hidden secret expansion project that will pop out of nowhere.
But sadly all of the relevant numbers speak against that.
A-Net isn’t announcing something epic because there is nothing to announce.

Simple plain and very sad

Where are you quoting from?

Crovax.7854:

Kurrilino.2706:

Let me quote from employees NOT MADE UP BY ME
QUOTE:

• Severe reliance on contract/outsourced positions completely tanks morale across virtually every department.
• Resources are spread too thin. Nothing seems like a real priority
• Most of the upper management seems disconnected from their employees and the customers
• Compensation: ArenaNet has always paid below the industry standard for most, if not all, of its positions.
• Salaries have not only lagged behind, but opportunities to advance have also been greatly reduced.
  END QUOTE

Source?

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm

Employee entry from Jul 23 2014

There are many more posts but all of them say the same basically

Kurrilino.2706:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm

Employee entry from Jul 23 2014

There are many more posts but all of them say the same basically

Yeah……. except that most of them don’t.

lordkrall.7241:

Crovax.7854:

Source?

I would assume it is from Glassdoor Reviews, which is isn’t really that reliable as a source, seeing as it is fully possible for anyone (employee or not) to actually add reviews.

lol.. yeah sure…………….
now it’s the source that unreliable.

I dare you…….. bring me a reliable source that proves me wrong and i shut up.
Oh and i guess Vayne jumps in sooner or later, i dare you too

Kurrilino.2706:

lordkrall.7241:

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

---

Not sure this is a fun commend or not.

At least you can’t be serious.

The only reason why A-Net is still alive is that they let almost everyone go and
outsource as much as they can.
That also explains why GW2 as a product looks so disconnected from the customers
or their former glory.

I’m guessing lordkrall was referring to this news from the other day –
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10/24/guild-wars-2-emerges-unscathed-by-ncsofts-layoffs/

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Kurrilino.2706:

lordkrall.7241:

Zenith.6403:

I
Guild Wars 2 on the other hand does really poor job at selling useful things:

And yet Guild Wars 2 does make enough money in order for ArenaNet to avoid a rather massive layoff involving all other studios owned by NCSoft.

---

Not sure this is a fun commend or not.

At least you can’t be serious.

The only reason why A-Net is still alive is that they let almost everyone go and
outsource as much as they can.
That also explains why GW2 as a product looks so disconnected from the customers
or their former glory.

I’m guessing lordkrall was referring to this news from the other day –
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10/24/guild-wars-2-emerges-unscathed-by-ncsofts-layoffs/

Will you look at that.

Kurrilino = LotOfSize