Guild Wars 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3j80he/arenanet_is_taking_over_the_publishing_of_guild/

now that we are free of the evil shackles of ncsoft / nexon can we see cantha and elona in the upcoming next 2 expansions?

and also publish gw2 on steam for more exposure and profit.

discuss!

I think what doesnt change is that Anet is a subsidiary of Ncsoft. They’re closing down NCsoft West which was registered on the same address as Anet. So it might just be that Anet gets aditional tasks but is still part of Ncsoft like it has been.

No and No. Steam was a cut of everything you sell on steam, that will include gems. That is why a few years ago EA pulled there game from steam. As they didn’t want to give steam anymore money that just from the sale of the base game. They didn’t want Steam getting a cut of there DLC sales or in game micro transactions, like in ME3. If a game on on there before a date then it was exempt from this. This may or may not have changed, but going back a few years it was very true. As for what the next Xpac will bring. ANet will.probably finish filling the main map first before heading to different continents. So if Elona or Cantha are ever going to be in GW2, at the current rate of Xpacs, they’ll show up in around 9-10 years if we go by filling out maps in Tyria first.

Still a subsidiary, still need to follow rules.
They now control marketing, or more accurately are responsible for it, as well as sales.
This would mean steam may well be possible, cantha unlikely related to the publishing aspect.

Going on Steam is not necessarily profit as they take 30% from each purchase along with some other hoops that ANet would have to jump thru.

I don’t see GW2 going on Steam in the near future.

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

Clearly if Anet thought it was worth it, it would’ve been on Steam at launch. It clearly isn’t worth it to them.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

If that was the case, then they would have done it from the word go. ANet know the numbers, we do not. Steam is not the be all and end all of PC gaming. Steam is great from a gamers point of view, but not so much from a business point of view. 30% of each sale an mount up to a lot of money. Just look at the Ultimate edition of HoT. If soemonw got that through steam that’s $30 lost to ANet, that’s all the cost of the digital items. Or more than half of the cost of the discounted Gems at full price.(this bit I’m not sure, as I’m from the UK and don’t know the $ price of gems.)

So if 10 people where to buy it, that’s $300 lost that ANet loses. And that only grows with every sale.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

If that was the case, then they would have done it from the word go. ANet know the numbers, we do not. Steam is not the be all and end all of PC gaming. Steam is great from a gamers point of view, but not so much from a business point of view. 30% of each sale an mount up to a lot of money. Just look at the Ultimate edition of HoT. If soemonw got that through steam that’s $30 lost to ANet, that’s all the cost of the digital items. Or more than half of the cost of the discounted Gems at full price.(this bit I’m not sure, as I’m from the UK and don’t know the $ price of gems.)

So if 10 people where to buy it, that’s $300 lost that ANet loses. And that only grows with every sale.

30% is also about the same amount that Amazon, DLGamer, Gamestop, and GameTap charge as well, which Guild Wars 2 and HoT are being sold as authorized dealers. That 30% is about a standard cut, and is still less than than a standard cut for physical versions. On physical versions, publisher/developers only make about 30-40% in revenue.

eisberg.2379:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

If that was the case, then they would have done it from the word go. ANet know the numbers, we do not. Steam is not the be all and end all of PC gaming. Steam is great from a gamers point of view, but not so much from a business point of view. 30% of each sale an mount up to a lot of money. Just look at the Ultimate edition of HoT. If soemonw got that through steam that’s $30 lost to ANet, that’s all the cost of the digital items. Or more than half of the cost of the discounted Gems at full price.(this bit I’m not sure, as I’m from the UK and don’t know the $ price of gems.)

So if 10 people where to buy it, that’s $300 lost that ANet loses. And that only grows with every sale.

30% is also about the same amount that Amazon, DLGamer, Gamestop, and GameTap charge as well, which Guild Wars 2 and HoT are being sold as authorized dealers. That 30% is about a standard cut, and is still less than than a standard cut for physical versions. On physical versions, publisher/developers only make about 30-40% in revenue.

Yes, but they don’t take a cut of in game gem sales, that steam would want a cut of. But as I said that might have changed. But to my knowledge, that is very old information, steam want a cut of everything thing you sell in that game, be it dlc or micro transactions. And lets face it, GW2 gets alot of exposer via gaming sites and magazine’s.so that probably makes up for the fact that are not on Steam.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

What does steam bring to the table that you cant get from just downloading the game yourself?

Zypher.7609:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

What does steam bring to the table that you cant get from just downloading the game yourself?

Most people have signed their souls over to Steam and can’t imagine a world without it.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

now that we are free of the evil shackles of ncsoft / nexon can we see cantha and elona in the upcoming next 2 expansions?

The urban legend that NCSOFT prevented ANet from going to Cantha or Elona just won’t die. There’s no evidence for this at all.

All we really know is that before the game released, there was a section in DR called the Cantha district and it became the Great Collapse instead. One (otherwise trustworthy) developer was asked to comment on this and did not know why — he speculated that some mucky-muck had nixed it, due to some concern about a mythical cultural objection. (No specific evidence for that either.)

While it’s possible that some sort of cultural imperialism was at play, lots of other, more plausible explanations exist. Lots of things were removed at short notice from the game in the months prior to launch; we don’t need to invent tin foil hats to explain them.

Cantha or Elona?
Knowing that it takes 3 years to make 4 zones, we may see these continents in 30 years yes.

Zypher.7609:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

What does steam bring to the table that you cant get from just downloading the game yourself?

steam trading cards.

NCSOFT still owns ANet via NC West Holdings.

NC Interactive had been handling publishing in NA/EU for the game as well as the running of AION/Lineage II and the translation for Blade & Soul. As those games are all or will be F2P in NA/EU, publishing isn’t needed. Same goes for WildStar.

So that leaves only ANet with the promise of GW2 HoT will have a box release. So … tag they’re it.

Yunielesca.2850:

Cantha or Elona?
Knowing that it takes 3 years to make 4 zones, we may see these continents in 30 years yes.

It’s 7 zones in addition to retired content; for what it’s worth.

Steam doesn’t want a cut of the micro transactions in Guild Wars. Nor in a whole lot of other Free/Buy to Play games that has their own in-game stores and payment services. EA’s way of distributing their DLC was horrendous by the way, absolutely horrendous. No clue if it’s still as bad, but did you ever buy the DLC for the original Dragon Age? It was such a stupidly convoluted system just to get some DLC activated. This caused a whole lot of Support tickets to Steam Support, when it was supposed to go to EA Support (which was/is equally as terrible as the convoluted DLC system they use(d)). I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what caused the split in some way, and incidentally that I have not purchased a single EA game since. Their loss, not mine. Rarely do I buy games if they are not on Steam. Guild Wars 2 is practically the only exception I’ve made in a long time.

If they can get Guild Wars 2 F2P on to Steam, the added exposure is undoubtedly good. Sure, people probably know about the game, so I wouldn’t say exposure in that sense. But having it a few clicks away through everyone’s “favorite platform” is likely more of a trigger for; “I’ll give it a go, why not?” than when they still need to go through the official website.

One of the problems however is that the Steam Community Hub is often used by the Steam users, regardless if the game has their own official forums (—guilty as charged). E.g., complaints about WB Games titles, such as MKX and B:AK, went mostly on to the Steam forums for the PC versions. WB didn’t seem to monitor that at all (and still seem to be doing a poor job). And I guess this would be cause to some problems for ArenaNet in terms of user feedback, unless they designate someone to communicate and update on the Steam Community as well, or find a deal with Valve on how to make it just link directly to the Guild Wars 2 Forums.

Strictly speaking, it’s not necessary. I have my Guild Wars 2 client added as a non-Steam application and can take my screenshots and share them through my Activity Feed just fine. I can Shift-Tab to open the browser while seeing the action in the game behind it, and use the community features such as the chat, with friends not in the same game as me. I can even use the VoIP when I’m too lazy to set up something else.

The only thing that’s not really there, is the Steam Community, which is not really necessarily something ArenaNet would want, as it’d fragment their community more than say unofficial forums and such do (though I guess, they would sort of get a good indication of where F2P players comment on things, considering they can’t post here on the official forums), and such things as Steam Achievements (I guess it’d be fun to see all (non-temporary) achievements in-game be unlocked on Steam as well for all to see, though very few people truly cares about that), as well as Steam Trading Cards; emotes, backgrounds and badges. Those kind of things.

I guess the ease of exposure and being just a few clicks away, might bring more players into trying it however. More so than announcements around the web regarding it being Free to Play, but only available through the official site. There are perks to Steam too. The absolutely massive user base is one.

eisberg.2379:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

If that was the case, then they would have done it from the word go. ANet know the numbers, we do not. Steam is not the be all and end all of PC gaming. Steam is great from a gamers point of view, but not so much from a business point of view. 30% of each sale an mount up to a lot of money. Just look at the Ultimate edition of HoT. If soemonw got that through steam that’s $30 lost to ANet, that’s all the cost of the digital items. Or more than half of the cost of the discounted Gems at full price.(this bit I’m not sure, as I’m from the UK and don’t know the $ price of gems.)

So if 10 people where to buy it, that’s $300 lost that ANet loses. And that only grows with every sale.

30% is also about the same amount that Amazon, DLGamer, Gamestop, and GameTap charge as well, which Guild Wars 2 and HoT are being sold as authorized dealers. That 30% is about a standard cut, and is still less than than a standard cut for physical versions. On physical versions, publisher/developers only make about 30-40% in revenue.

Seeing as how I maintain my boss’ store front on Amazon, I can tell you that it is NOT 30%.

Amazon gets 12% of each sale.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

eisberg.2379:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone is just so short sighted.

the sales on steam would be extra profit.
the cut will be worth it.

If that was the case, then they would have done it from the word go. ANet know the numbers, we do not. Steam is not the be all and end all of PC gaming. Steam is great from a gamers point of view, but not so much from a business point of view. 30% of each sale an mount up to a lot of money. Just look at the Ultimate edition of HoT. If soemonw got that through steam that’s $30 lost to ANet, that’s all the cost of the digital items. Or more than half of the cost of the discounted Gems at full price.(this bit I’m not sure, as I’m from the UK and don’t know the $ price of gems.)

So if 10 people where to buy it, that’s $300 lost that ANet loses. And that only grows with every sale.

30% is also about the same amount that Amazon, DLGamer, Gamestop, and GameTap charge as well, which Guild Wars 2 and HoT are being sold as authorized dealers. That 30% is about a standard cut, and is still less than than a standard cut for physical versions. On physical versions, publisher/developers only make about 30-40% in revenue.

Seeing as how I maintain my boss’ store front on Amazon, I can tell you that it is NOT 30%.

Amazon gets 12% of each sale.

Is it software sold through Amazon Digital Inc (Which Guild Wars 2 HoT is being sold through on Amazon)? Cause my brother’s company sells software through Amazon Digital Inc, and they take a 30% cut.

I mean the actual core f2p game. I think this would be great to increase the population

Not that we know of.