a casual player is going to be bummed out if there's new content added all the time because they won't have the dedicated time to accomplish that said content like a hardcore player would... so they'll just find another game.
As a casual player who has limited time to play, I have to ask why you think this? For me, if ANet adds content, for free or otherwise, that I don't have time to get to right away, I'll get to it on my own time (and if it's in the cash shop, this enables me to budget for it just like any other game I'm planning on buying).
Why would I leave the game just because there's content I don't have time to complete? If time is the issue, it'll be much more of an issue in almost any other MMO out there. It'd be more like stopping playing Mass Effect 2 because a new DLC came out before I'd finished the game.
Remember, the content most likely won't be vertical progression on the order of +10 levels or making max level gear obsolete, but rather parallel content such as opening up other continents, or additional dungeons, etc.
Originally posted by stealthbr Considering the average game DLC is around $15 and the average game expansion around $40, if they were to release a DLC every 1.5 months (which they stated DLC's will be part of their business model) and an expansion every 6 months we get: (15*8)+(40*2) = $200 per year Now, comparing that to your standard P2P game like WoW, where there is a monthly subscription fee of $15 and a yearly expansion cost of $40, we get: (15*12)+(40*1) = $220 per year As you can see, there would be very little price differences between both models and a 6 month time span would be a rather small time frame to develop a fully-fledged expansion pack. That prediction further seems unrealistic considering the time between each of Guild Wars 1's content updates.
Here's a better expression of your example -
Guild Wars 2 (Box cost) $60 + (optional fees)$0 to $200 = $60 to $260 a year depending on player choice
OR
Subscription MMO (Box cost) $60 + (mandatory sub) $180 + $0 to $40 optional fees = $240 to $280 a year
Although the highest potential cost is roughly the same, the minimum cost is dramatically different...and in both cases you get a complete game for the box price. Also, it's quite important to note that with the optional costs in GW2's model, you would be getting a known amount of content for the money you spend...whereas in the subscription model, for your mandatory monthly fee you get some unknown amount of content which is totally dependent on the developer.
So, even if ArenaNet were to release DLC every six weeks and an expansion every six months, it would still be a dramatically better deal to players than the subscription model. I wouldn't mind it if GW2 got new purchasable content that often...but I doubt that will be the case (especially considering they have already committed to releasing free content updates).
Obviously the above example does not include potential money a player might spend in the cash shops of either business model...but that's completely variable from $0 to infinity.
What i hate about subscriptions is when i played trough all the contend i still need to pay dev's who are slacking and let me pay for the contend i already played many many months.
In the GW franchise i buy and play nothing more nothing less.
Once a new Xpac comes out i buy it when i want to buy it and play it when i want to play it.
For me the best way to play mmo's by far.
Look at wow..........you need to pay 6 months of subs wich i played out in a few weeks.......
What i hate about subscriptions is when i played trough all the contend i still need to pay dev's who are slacking and let me pay for the contend i already played many many months.
In the GW franchise i buy and play nothing more nothing less.
Once a new Xpac comes out i buy it when i want to buy it and play it when i want to play it.
For me the best way to play mmo's by far.
Look at wow..........you need to pay 6 months of subs wich i played out in a few weeks.......
No thanks iam totaly done with that.
The thing is, in between expansions, Guild Wars had a very small amount of content updates. Also, their server infrastructure was less costly due to the nature of the game (lobby style).
I will tell you the truth, though. $15 is so meaningless to me, that I honestly have no problems justifying paying a subscription for an entertainment service.
Originally posted by stealthbr The thing is, in between expansions, Guild Wars had a very small amount of content updates. Also, their server infrastructure was less costly due to the nature of the game (lobby style).
Incorrect. ArenaNet has said specifically that the cost of infrastructure isn't much different at all. What does "small amount of content updates" mean...in comparison to what?
Also remember that at the same time, the expansions for GW1 pretty much doubled (or more) the size and content of the game. Most subscription games don't have expansions nearly that big.
The thing is, in between expansions, Guild Wars had a very small amount of content updates. Also, their server infrastructure was less costly due to the nature of the game (lobby style).
Most MMORPGs have very little content updates between expansions, really. Guild Wars even less than many, but they're not even an MMORPG... and they do at least patch in lots of balance patches (As much as that may annoy some people. ) If you look at the amount of content they released from GW1 to EotN, it's on par or exceeding almost all MMORPGs for amount of content released, at a cheaper price than a subscription.
... also, the people who run GW1 (And I don't see any reason for them to lie) say that the server price was not actually notably less than running an MMORPG. After all, they had to have a LOT of instances running. A ton. A ton and a half.
Incorrect. ArenaNet has said specifically that the cost of infrastructure isn't much different at all. What does "small amount of content updates" mean...in comparison to what?
Also remember that at the same time, the expansions for GW1 pretty much doubled (or more) the size and content of the game. Most subscription games don't have expansions nearly that big.
Incorrect. ArenaNet has said specifically that the cost of infrastructure isn't much different at all. What does "small amount of content updates" mean...in comparison to what?
Also remember that at the same time, the expansions for GW1 pretty much doubled (or more) the size and content of the game. Most subscription games don't have expansions nearly that big.
In comparison to World of Warcraft.
Bad choice.
Let's look at World of Warcraft, shall we? By the time of the Burning Crusade, that was over =2 years=.
We're talking about 60+40 (Was BC more? I'm not sure), + 24 months at 15 dollars a pop (It's really 26 months, but 2 were free). So 460 dollars.
In the same time frame, GW released 3 expansions, so that's 60*3 + 40 (EotN was cheaper), or 220 dollars.
On the other hand, Guild Wars released 4 new classes, and more than =quadrupled= the size of the world and available content.
So... yeah.
I guess you could show me how between free patches and Burning Crusade over a period of two and a half years, it adds up to 8 times the content of vanilla WoW, (Twice as much as 4, since it costs twice as much, right?) but that seems like a rough path to tread.
I didn't talk about the size of these content updates or the price. My comparison was solely about the number of updates between expansions in order to justify the subscription, which World of Warcraft does indeed have more. If you want to compare the amount of content added through these games' expansions, you must also consider that in each expansion WoW raises the level cap, therefore increasing the playtime immensely. 60-85 takes A LOT longer than 1-60, so you could say they more than doubled the playtime.
I didn't talk about the size of these content updates or the price. My comparison was solely about the number of updates between expansions in order to justify the subscription, which World of Warcraft does indeed have more. If you want to compare the amount of content added through these games' expansions, you must also consider that in each expansion WoW raises the level cap, therefore increasing the playtime immensely. 60-85 takes A LOT longer than 1-60, so you could say they more than doubled the playtime.
Well, talking about solely the updates between expansions is sort of silly, yes?
I mean, the whole POINT to the GW1 model was that it was supposed to have more expansions, in place of a sub fee. (Yet it still ends up cheaper)
So the only fair comparison is to compare all the expansions that GW1 put out before they stopped, vs. all the expansions + free content WoW put out in the same period of time.
If you ignore the expansions that GW1 puts out in the same time period, then you're talking about how much content you get for 6 years of subs vs. all the content you got in the same period of time for GW1.
... in which case, oddly enough, you'll discover that on a dollar for content basis, GW1 blows WoW out of the water. Either that or you get a 'can't multiply times zero (The price you paid)' error. :P
If you're comparing the GW1 pricing model to the WoW pricing model though, you have to realize you NEED to include the expansions, because that was their whole methodology for delivering new content (while making money)... the fact they gave any updates at all (Which they have, oddly enough, and quite a few) for FREE is pretty awesome. :P
ANet isnt looking to be a top dog making zillions of dollars. They even said it there self. OP, have you watched any of the dev interview videos? Unless there insanely good liars, it doesnt seem like there just trying to make money. They constantly say how they dont want this to be like any other game, or REPLACE any other game.
If they were just after money, they would have a monthly fee and what not.. but they dont. Its not always ALL about the money.
We could go on and on about which game added more things during that time-frame, but it all boils down to which business model you feel most comfortable with. These types of games have repeatable content so it becomes undeniably difficult to make such a comparison (and we would also have to reach an agreement on what we consider to be content).
Oh look, some poor sub-payers trying to justify themselves.
Guild wars 2 has and will always have the better and fairer business model. Summed up in two words: 'suck it'.
I've played GW1 for 2000 hours over 5 years (quite a lot of PvP over time!). WoW would have cost me £600-700, Guild wars cost me £80. That extra £520-620 allowed me to buy so many things that i wouldn't have been able to get had i wasted it all on a sub fee.
Bottom line: If guild wars 2 has a crazy amount of expansions, i'll be perfectly happy with that. If i want them, i'll buy them. If i don't think they're worth it (like the bonus mission pack in gw1) i wont. Unlike the poor, degraded sub players, there's no-one forcing them to get the expansions.
Oh look, some poor sub-payers trying to justify themselves.
Guild wars 2 has and will always have the better and fairer business model. Summed up in two words: 'suck it'.
I've played GW1 for 2000 hours over 5 years (quite a lot of PvP over time!). WoW would have cost me £600-700, Guild wars cost me £80. That extra £520-620 allowed me to buy so many things that i wouldn't have been able to get had i wasted it all on a sub fee.
Bottom line: If guild wars 2 has a crazy amount of expansions, i'll be perfectly happy with that. If i want them, i'll buy them. If i don't think they're worth it (like the bonus mission pack in gw1) i wont. Unlike the poor, degraded sub players, there's no-one forcing them to get the expansions.
... that's a silly argument. Yes, 15 dollars a month is a trivial amount of money for most people.
On the other hand, I could afford to pay an extra 15 dollars breathing tax. Doesn't mean I =want= to. (Nor do I like the idea that once I'm locked into the 'breathing sub' model, when I don't pay up, they withhold breathing privileges. :P )
Lots of subscription style things are grossly overpriced. When possible, people tend to flock towards alternatives that give similar services but at a cheaper price.
a casual player is going to be bummed out if there's new content added all the time because they won't have the dedicated time to accomplish that said content like a hardcore player would... so they'll just find another game.
Remember, the content most likely won't be vertical progression on the order of +10 levels or making max level gear obsolete, but rather parallel content such as opening up other continents, or additional dungeons, etc.
^^ the level progression would be terrible, the latter much more prefered,
but, some games you need to be using the newest, latest, greatest to be able to do anything it seems and be in the popular areas. i understand original GW has never been like this at all with the exceptions of some new builds definately being much more effective than old ones and the common nerf that occurs with time. the other thing that worries me slightly with new content always being added is, your friends might move on, leaving you in the dust of an older chapter of the game with no incentive or desire to come back to the 'noob' areas. again, just basing it off my experiances. heck, i remember when VAnquishing was the big thing to do in GW, i was still working on getting all the elite parts of the missions done in hard mode and it was a real bother it seemed for some guildmates to take time away from VQ'ing to do missions again.
i realize this is a completely new game and expansions are likely going to play a much bigger role in the game than in the previous guild wars, i just highly doubt it will be a 'major' expansion every month, and to my original post fall under the 4-6 month bracket.
i'm not sure how many character slots will be available at launch, i'll guess 4-6, even as a hardcore player basing off of GW1 Prophesies, it would take at least 4 months to accomplish everything on a PvE basis accross all your characters. GW2 appears to be much bigger.
... that's a silly argument. Yes, 15 dollars a month is a trivial amount of money for most people.
On the other hand, I could afford to pay an extra 15 dollars breathing tax. Doesn't mean I =want= to. (Nor do I like the idea that once I'm locked into the 'breathing sub' model, when I don't pay up, they withhold breathing privileges. :P )
Lots of subscription style things are grossly overpriced. When possible, people tend to flock towards alternatives that give similar services but at a cheaper price.
It's a joke. Seriously, some people think subscriptions are something super major, when in reality, it's just 15 bucks a month. It won't change anything in your life unless you're severely debilitated economically, in which case you shouldn't even be thinking about games. Since it's charged automatically, you don't even need to worry about it after pressing the "Subscribe" button. You just have fun and use the service the way you see fit. If you are constantly bothered by not making full use of those $15, I think the problem is not with the model, but with you. Just take it easy and play when you feel like it. These things are so simple and easy to control that it has become the least my of preocupations.
... that's a silly argument. Yes, 15 dollars a month is a trivial amount of money for most people.
On the other hand, I could afford to pay an extra 15 dollars breathing tax. Doesn't mean I =want= to. (Nor do I like the idea that once I'm locked into the 'breathing sub' model, when I don't pay up, they withhold breathing privileges. :P )
Lots of subscription style things are grossly overpriced. When possible, people tend to flock towards alternatives that give similar services but at a cheaper price.
It's a joke. Seriously, some people think subscriptions are something super major, when in reality, it's just 15 bucks a month. It won't change anything in your life unless you're severely debilitated economically, in which case you shouldn't even be thinking about games. Since it's charged automatically, you don't even need to worry about it after pressing the "Subscribe" button. You just have fun and use the service the way you see fit. If you are constantly bothered by not making full use of those $15, I think the problem is not with the model, but with you. Just take it easy and play when you feel like it. These things are so simple and easy to control that it has become the least my of preocupations.
$15 wouldn't be that much if that was all we were talking about, but firstly, it's not always just $15. If you have a spouse and kids who you want to play with, it can quickly get to be $30, $45 or $60 a month. And that's just one game. If you want to play more than one game in that month, you've got to double up on subscriptions.
It's not so much about the money as it is about the principle of it. A subscription is worth it to the person if they feel like they're getting value for it, but there's not really a correlation between the subscription and what you're getting. You can even go further and say that it can breed lazyness in the developer. Trion is a young, hungry company who very much wishes to maintain their 500k subs. They're putting out expansion content nearly every month. WoW on the other hand had over 20x the number of subscribers. Don't they bring in something like 100 million dollars per month? With that kind of money they could almost have 60 development teams running at the same time, each with a 5 year cycle, so that they could eventually start putting out an entire vanilla WoW every single month. But they don't, because they don't have to. People are going to pay for the "free dungeon" that shows up every 4 months, and then pay again when the yearly expansion comes.
B2P forces the developer to come out with a quality product that people will voluntarily pay for, which is a much harder thing than just a recurring sub. It also gives the customer access to everything they've bought indefinitely. I could log on to GW1 right now for 2 minutes, without digging out a credit card. It makes populations more stable because people aren't inclined to quit at the end of whatever month. You can give the game as a gift.
It's just a much better system for the customer and that's why we think people should start demanding it instead of just being content to pay subscriptions every month.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
$15 wouldn't be that much if that was all we were talking about, but firstly, it's not always just $15. If you have a spouse and kids who you want to play with, it can quickly get to be $30, $45 or $60 a month. And that's just one game. If you want to play more than one game in that month, you've got to double up on subscriptions.
It's not so much about the money as it is about the principle of it. A subscription is worth it to the person if they feel like they're getting value for it, but there's not really a correlation between the subscription and what you're getting. You can even go further and say that it can breed lazyness in the developer. Trion is a young, hungry company who very much wishes to maintain their 500k subs. They're putting out expansion content nearly every month. WoW on the other hand had over 20x the number of subscribers. Don't they bring in something like 100 million dollars per month? With that kind of money they could almost have 60 development teams running at the same time, each with a 5 year cycle, so that they could eventually start putting out an entire vanilla WoW every single month. But they don't, because they don't have to. People are going to pay for the "free dungeon" that shows up every 4 months, and then pay again when the yearly expansion comes.
B2P forces the developer to come out with a quality product that people will voluntarily pay for, which is a much harder thing than just a recurring sub. It also gives the customer access to everything they've bought indefinitely. I could log on to GW1 right now for 2 minutes, without digging out a credit card. It makes populations more stable because people aren't inclined to quit at the end of whatever month. You can give the game as a gift.
It's just a much better system for the customer and that's why we think people should start demanding it instead of just being content to pay subscriptions every month.
That is a good point about family. I failed to observe it as your typical brazilian family rarely has more than one gamer. While B2P does force the developer to create an excellent expansion, it also gives them the ability to "slack off" in between them. Also, while subscription-based games don't depend solely on box/expansion packs sales, they still represent a very significant amount of money to any company. For instance, Cataclysm in its first month sold 5 million copies. That is 200 million dollars in a single month we are talking about! So yes, they also do matter for subscription-based models. Furthermore, it's completely unrealistic to consider a company getting a developer team that big. People would be downloading gigabytes worth of patches every month and that would be just plain annoying. There would be loads of content people would never even touch. Also, the more you grow as a company, the harder it becomes to standardize the quality of your product.
As I say. It's not necessarily a bad thing that will be seeing expansions just weeks after the first is released.
I'm just saying that's what there gonna do !.......Understand that you will have the game for life, and be able to play for the most part years without paying a sub price. Who will profit the most?.... the ones that play for years.
Why do I think they will release expansions so often ?....It's simply taking too long for release for starters, second, it would be a smart move for more profit.
Advantages of quick expansions :
1) Make the first release shorter than people would expect. Make it a good quality, they will buy the expansions.
2) Video game sales and hype are quick fads. Then players move on to the next ( catch them when players are the most interested. Get expansions out while there interested ).
3) Lay off workers. Yes that's what companies like to do. Sorry thats how America works...why have them linger around paying health care.
Disadvantage of quick expansions :
..................Can't think of any !
Remember a few things. THIS IS NOT GW1, Guild Wars 1 was a huge unexpected success. Developers are smarter now, lessons have been learned. Developers will pump more money into a sure thing like GW2....This is not really a bad thing for the players. I'm just saying what they are gonna do !
As I say. It's not necessarily a bad thing that will be seeing expansions just weeks after the first is released.
I'm just saying that's what there gonna do !.......Understand that you will have the game for life, and be able to play for the most part years without paying a sub price. Who will profit the most?.... the ones that play for years.
Why do I think they will release expansions so often ?....It's simply taking too long for release for starters, second, it would be a smart move for more profit.
Advantages of quick expansions :
1) Make the first release shorter than people would expect. Make it a good quality, they will buy the expansions.
2) Video game sales and hype are quick fads. Then players move on to the next ( catch them when players are the most interested. Get expansions out while there interested ).
3) Lay off workers. Yes that's what companies like to do. Sorry thats how America works...why have them linger around paying health care.
Disadvantage of quick expansions :
..................Can't think of any !
Remember a few things. THIS IS NOT GW1, Guild Wars 1 was a huge unexpected success. Developers are smarter now, lessons have been learned. Developers will pump more money into a sure thing like GW2....This is not really a bad thing for the players. I'm just saying what they are gonna do !
Your assessment of Arena Net and proposed market strategies are simply flawed on the basis that Guild Wars 2 is not taking too long to release. It just seems that way because they chose to anounce the game when they JUST started development. This was back in early 2007 when the company chose to hault development of their standalone campaigns for the first game so they could make a full blown sequel. Full-time development hadn't started until after Eye of the North released, which was in August of 2007. That would put us at just over 4 years, which is not a lot of time considering that they heavily updated the original game's engine as well to incorporate and support all of their innovative features.
Most MMORPG's take 4-6 years to develop. The Austin studios for Bioware's Star Wars The Old Republic opened up back in 2006 and in 2008 when the game was anounced, Bioware told fans that 12 full-time writers had been working on the story for the game for two years prior. That would put SWTOR in the same window, over 5 years. Blizzard's World of Warcraft took approximately 5 years to develop as well, from 1999 to 2004.
Community Managers for Guild Wars 2 constantly remind players about everything I just said, so I honestly don't feel like hunting down links/sources for this. The fact remains it's highly unlikely for Arena Net to go a route that would hit a sensitive nerve in the gaming community, which is, essentially, launching with DLC. They also would not rush expansions that had no quality or longevity to them. Their continued success depends on whether or not they're making content that players want to play and pay for. And no one wants to pay for garbage.
That being said, there's absolutely no reason Arena Net shouldn't put a lot of effort towards expansions for the game post-release. That's how the business model works. They continue making large amounts of content for players to enjoy, and they make their money that way.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that Arena Net's going into closed beta with Guild Wars 2 by the end of the year, so there's no reason to suspect the game will take much longer than 5 years to complete, if at all.
Comments
As a casual player who has limited time to play, I have to ask why you think this? For me, if ANet adds content, for free or otherwise, that I don't have time to get to right away, I'll get to it on my own time (and if it's in the cash shop, this enables me to budget for it just like any other game I'm planning on buying).
Why would I leave the game just because there's content I don't have time to complete? If time is the issue, it'll be much more of an issue in almost any other MMO out there. It'd be more like stopping playing Mass Effect 2 because a new DLC came out before I'd finished the game.
Remember, the content most likely won't be vertical progression on the order of +10 levels or making max level gear obsolete, but rather parallel content such as opening up other continents, or additional dungeons, etc.
Here's a better expression of your example -
Guild Wars 2
(Box cost) $60 + (optional fees)$0 to $200 = $60 to $260 a year depending on player choice
OR
Subscription MMO
(Box cost) $60 + (mandatory sub) $180 + $0 to $40 optional fees = $240 to $280 a year
Although the highest potential cost is roughly the same, the minimum cost is dramatically different...and in both cases you get a complete game for the box price. Also, it's quite important to note that with the optional costs in GW2's model, you would be getting a known amount of content for the money you spend...whereas in the subscription model, for your mandatory monthly fee you get some unknown amount of content which is totally dependent on the developer.
So, even if ArenaNet were to release DLC every six weeks and an expansion every six months, it would still be a dramatically better deal to players than the subscription model. I wouldn't mind it if GW2 got new purchasable content that often...but I doubt that will be the case (especially considering they have already committed to releasing free content updates).
Obviously the above example does not include potential money a player might spend in the cash shops of either business model...but that's completely variable from $0 to infinity.
The payment of the GW franchise is perfect.
What i hate about subscriptions is when i played trough all the contend i still need to pay dev's who are slacking and let me pay for the contend i already played many many months.
In the GW franchise i buy and play nothing more nothing less.
Once a new Xpac comes out i buy it when i want to buy it and play it when i want to play it.
For me the best way to play mmo's by far.
Look at wow..........you need to pay 6 months of subs wich i played out in a few weeks.......
No thanks iam totaly done with that.
The thing is, in between expansions, Guild Wars had a very small amount of content updates. Also, their server infrastructure was less costly due to the nature of the game (lobby style).
I will tell you the truth, though. $15 is so meaningless to me, that I honestly have no problems justifying paying a subscription for an entertainment service.
Incorrect. ArenaNet has said specifically that the cost of infrastructure isn't much different at all. What does "small amount of content updates" mean...in comparison to what?
Also remember that at the same time, the expansions for GW1 pretty much doubled (or more) the size and content of the game. Most subscription games don't have expansions nearly that big.
Most MMORPGs have very little content updates between expansions, really. Guild Wars even less than many, but they're not even an MMORPG... and they do at least patch in lots of balance patches (As much as that may annoy some people.
) If you look at the amount of content they released from GW1 to EotN, it's on par or exceeding almost all MMORPGs for amount of content released, at a cheaper price than a subscription.
... also, the people who run GW1 (And I don't see any reason for them to lie) say that the server price was not actually notably less than running an MMORPG. After all, they had to have a LOT of instances running. A ton. A ton and a half.
In my eyes there are three accepteble payment setups for a game:
1) No or very low registration free + monthly sub + no expansion cost (EvE)
2) Box cost + optional expansions + no monthly sub (Guild Wars)
3) Micro Payments for playtime/content* (DDO, LOTRO, World of Tanks)
* Vanity item MP are excluded from all of this. Different thing.
Any combo of the above is just pure greed. Yeah, I am looking at you WoW (Payed expansions & semi high box cost)... And TOR (High box cost)...
Rift is waking a fine line, but they are close enough to 1 atm. to be ok. But if they put out a payed expansion they are right back in bad company.
In comparison to World of Warcraft.
Bad choice.
Let's look at World of Warcraft, shall we? By the time of the Burning Crusade, that was over =2 years=.
We're talking about 60+40 (Was BC more? I'm not sure), + 24 months at 15 dollars a pop (It's really 26 months, but 2 were free). So 460 dollars.
In the same time frame, GW released 3 expansions, so that's 60*3 + 40 (EotN was cheaper), or 220 dollars.
On the other hand, Guild Wars released 4 new classes, and more than =quadrupled= the size of the world and available content.
So... yeah.
I guess you could show me how between free patches and Burning Crusade over a period of two and a half years, it adds up to 8 times the content of vanilla WoW, (Twice as much as 4, since it costs twice as much, right?) but that seems like a rough path to tread.
I didn't talk about the size of these content updates or the price. My comparison was solely about the number of updates between expansions in order to justify the subscription, which World of Warcraft does indeed have more. If you want to compare the amount of content added through these games' expansions, you must also consider that in each expansion WoW raises the level cap, therefore increasing the playtime immensely. 60-85 takes A LOT longer than 1-60, so you could say they more than doubled the playtime.
Well, talking about solely the updates between expansions is sort of silly, yes?
I mean, the whole POINT to the GW1 model was that it was supposed to have more expansions, in place of a sub fee. (Yet it still ends up cheaper)
So the only fair comparison is to compare all the expansions that GW1 put out before they stopped, vs. all the expansions + free content WoW put out in the same period of time.
If you ignore the expansions that GW1 puts out in the same time period, then you're talking about how much content you get for 6 years of subs vs. all the content you got in the same period of time for GW1.
... in which case, oddly enough, you'll discover that on a dollar for content basis, GW1 blows WoW out of the water. Either that or you get a 'can't multiply times zero (The price you paid)' error. :P
If you're comparing the GW1 pricing model to the WoW pricing model though, you have to realize you NEED to include the expansions, because that was their whole methodology for delivering new content (while making money)... the fact they gave any updates at all (Which they have, oddly enough, and quite a few) for FREE is pretty awesome. :P
ANet isnt looking to be a top dog making zillions of dollars. They even said it there self. OP, have you watched any of the dev interview videos? Unless there insanely good liars, it doesnt seem like there just trying to make money. They constantly say how they dont want this to be like any other game, or REPLACE any other game.
If they were just after money, they would have a monthly fee and what not.. but they dont. Its not always ALL about the money.
We could go on and on about which game added more things during that time-frame, but it all boils down to which business model you feel most comfortable with. These types of games have repeatable content so it becomes undeniably difficult to make such a comparison (and we would also have to reach an agreement on what we consider to be content).
Oh look, some poor sub-payers trying to justify themselves.
Guild wars 2 has and will always have the better and fairer business model. Summed up in two words: 'suck it'.
I've played GW1 for 2000 hours over 5 years (quite a lot of PvP over time!). WoW would have cost me £600-700, Guild wars cost me £80. That extra £520-620 allowed me to buy so many things that i wouldn't have been able to get had i wasted it all on a sub fee.
Bottom line: If guild wars 2 has a crazy amount of expansions, i'll be perfectly happy with that. If i want them, i'll buy them. If i don't think they're worth it (like the bonus mission pack in gw1) i wont. Unlike the poor, degraded sub players, there's no-one forcing them to get the expansions.
OHMAHGAWD15DOLLARWILLGUARANTEEMELIFEEVERYMONTHCANTPAYGAME!
... that's a silly argument. Yes, 15 dollars a month is a trivial amount of money for most people.
On the other hand, I could afford to pay an extra 15 dollars breathing tax. Doesn't mean I =want= to. (Nor do I like the idea that once I'm locked into the 'breathing sub' model, when I don't pay up, they withhold breathing privileges. :P )
Lots of subscription style things are grossly overpriced. When possible, people tend to flock towards alternatives that give similar services but at a cheaper price.
^^ the level progression would be terrible, the latter much more prefered,
but, some games you need to be using the newest, latest, greatest to be able to do anything it seems and be in the popular areas. i understand original GW has never been like this at all with the exceptions of some new builds definately being much more effective than old ones and the common nerf that occurs with time. the other thing that worries me slightly with new content always being added is, your friends might move on, leaving you in the dust of an older chapter of the game with no incentive or desire to come back to the 'noob' areas. again, just basing it off my experiances. heck, i remember when VAnquishing was the big thing to do in GW, i was still working on getting all the elite parts of the missions done in hard mode and it was a real bother it seemed for some guildmates to take time away from VQ'ing to do missions again.
i realize this is a completely new game and expansions are likely going to play a much bigger role in the game than in the previous guild wars, i just highly doubt it will be a 'major' expansion every month, and to my original post fall under the 4-6 month bracket.
i'm not sure how many character slots will be available at launch, i'll guess 4-6, even as a hardcore player basing off of GW1 Prophesies, it would take at least 4 months to accomplish everything on a PvE basis accross all your characters. GW2 appears to be much bigger.
It's a joke. Seriously, some people think subscriptions are something super major, when in reality, it's just 15 bucks a month. It won't change anything in your life unless you're severely debilitated economically, in which case you shouldn't even be thinking about games. Since it's charged automatically, you don't even need to worry about it after pressing the "Subscribe" button. You just have fun and use the service the way you see fit. If you are constantly bothered by not making full use of those $15, I think the problem is not with the model, but with you. Just take it easy and play when you feel like it. These things are so simple and easy to control that it has become the least my of preocupations.
OP is from the future.
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$15 wouldn't be that much if that was all we were talking about, but firstly, it's not always just $15. If you have a spouse and kids who you want to play with, it can quickly get to be $30, $45 or $60 a month. And that's just one game. If you want to play more than one game in that month, you've got to double up on subscriptions.
It's not so much about the money as it is about the principle of it. A subscription is worth it to the person if they feel like they're getting value for it, but there's not really a correlation between the subscription and what you're getting. You can even go further and say that it can breed lazyness in the developer. Trion is a young, hungry company who very much wishes to maintain their 500k subs. They're putting out expansion content nearly every month. WoW on the other hand had over 20x the number of subscribers. Don't they bring in something like 100 million dollars per month? With that kind of money they could almost have 60 development teams running at the same time, each with a 5 year cycle, so that they could eventually start putting out an entire vanilla WoW every single month. But they don't, because they don't have to. People are going to pay for the "free dungeon" that shows up every 4 months, and then pay again when the yearly expansion comes.
B2P forces the developer to come out with a quality product that people will voluntarily pay for, which is a much harder thing than just a recurring sub. It also gives the customer access to everything they've bought indefinitely. I could log on to GW1 right now for 2 minutes, without digging out a credit card. It makes populations more stable because people aren't inclined to quit at the end of whatever month. You can give the game as a gift.
It's just a much better system for the customer and that's why we think people should start demanding it instead of just being content to pay subscriptions every month.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
That is a good point about family. I failed to observe it as your typical brazilian family rarely has more than one gamer. While B2P does force the developer to create an excellent expansion, it also gives them the ability to "slack off" in between them. Also, while subscription-based games don't depend solely on box/expansion packs sales, they still represent a very significant amount of money to any company. For instance, Cataclysm in its first month sold 5 million copies. That is 200 million dollars in a single month we are talking about! So yes, they also do matter for subscription-based models. Furthermore, it's completely unrealistic to consider a company getting a developer team that big. People would be downloading gigabytes worth of patches every month and that would be just plain annoying. There would be loads of content people would never even touch. Also, the more you grow as a company, the harder it becomes to standardize the quality of your product.
I'm sure ANet would allow anyone who wants to send them 15 bucks every month electronically.
Charr: Outta my way.
Human: What's your problem?
Charr: Your thin skin.
You're often right? Cool. You're wrong this time. Want to know why? Because I'm always right and if I say you're wrong, then you're wrong.
As I say. It's not necessarily a bad thing that will be seeing expansions just weeks after the first is released.
I'm just saying that's what there gonna do !.......Understand that you will have the game for life, and be able to play for the most part years without paying a sub price. Who will profit the most?.... the ones that play for years.
Why do I think they will release expansions so often ?....It's simply taking too long for release for starters, second, it would be a smart move for more profit.
Advantages of quick expansions :
1) Make the first release shorter than people would expect. Make it a good quality, they will buy the expansions.
2) Video game sales and hype are quick fads. Then players move on to the next ( catch them when players are the most interested. Get expansions out while there interested ).
3) Lay off workers. Yes that's what companies like to do. Sorry thats how America works...why have them linger around paying health care.
Disadvantage of quick expansions :
..................Can't think of any !
Remember a few things. THIS IS NOT GW1, Guild Wars 1 was a huge unexpected success. Developers are smarter now, lessons have been learned. Developers will pump more money into a sure thing like GW2....This is not really a bad thing for the players. I'm just saying what they are gonna do !
Your assessment of Arena Net and proposed market strategies are simply flawed on the basis that Guild Wars 2 is not taking too long to release. It just seems that way because they chose to anounce the game when they JUST started development. This was back in early 2007 when the company chose to hault development of their standalone campaigns for the first game so they could make a full blown sequel. Full-time development hadn't started until after Eye of the North released, which was in August of 2007. That would put us at just over 4 years, which is not a lot of time considering that they heavily updated the original game's engine as well to incorporate and support all of their innovative features.
Most MMORPG's take 4-6 years to develop. The Austin studios for Bioware's Star Wars The Old Republic opened up back in 2006 and in 2008 when the game was anounced, Bioware told fans that 12 full-time writers had been working on the story for the game for two years prior. That would put SWTOR in the same window, over 5 years. Blizzard's World of Warcraft took approximately 5 years to develop as well, from 1999 to 2004.
Community Managers for Guild Wars 2 constantly remind players about everything I just said, so I honestly don't feel like hunting down links/sources for this. The fact remains it's highly unlikely for Arena Net to go a route that would hit a sensitive nerve in the gaming community, which is, essentially, launching with DLC. They also would not rush expansions that had no quality or longevity to them. Their continued success depends on whether or not they're making content that players want to play and pay for. And no one wants to pay for garbage.
That being said, there's absolutely no reason Arena Net shouldn't put a lot of effort towards expansions for the game post-release. That's how the business model works. They continue making large amounts of content for players to enjoy, and they make their money that way.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that Arena Net's going into closed beta with Guild Wars 2 by the end of the year, so there's no reason to suspect the game will take much longer than 5 years to complete, if at all.