SWTOR opened beta signs up for over a year and got 1.6 million sign ups.
GW2 opened beta sign ups for 48 hours and got over a million.
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
You offer no choices below 2 million copies. Which is insane.
I don't think GW2 will sell anywhere near that many copies in the first week.
Well, Anet didn't spend 200 million on marketing, so you're probably right
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
Wow, it has to do at least twice as good as TOR be a failure? Hey, why not just say they need to sell more in the first week than Warcraft sold copies, like ever? It will be a failure if they don't bring in enough to keep it alive. Wether that lies at 2M copies, more or less is for ArenaNet to know and for us to guess at. The first week won't decide wether this game fails or not, because I think it'll be great, unlike TOR that saw it's sales drop like a rock once it was clear what it was.
Wow, it has to do at least twice as good as TOR be a failure? Hey, why not just say they need to sell more in the first week than Warcraft sold copies, like ever? It will be a failure if they don't bring in enough to keep it alive. Wether that lies at 2M copies, more or less is for ArenaNet to know and for us to guess at. The first week won't decide wether this game fails or not, because I think it'll be great, unlike TOR that saw it's sales drop like a rock once it was clear what it was.
Agreed. The first Guildwars didn´t sell so good the first week but it continued to sell copies with a good pace and became a huge hit.
A buddy told me about GW, I told a bunch of my friends and the game slowly became a hit.
Recent MMOs have on the other hand sold great the first month and then just stopped while the players have been leaving like rats on a sinking ship.
I am not sure how many copies they need to sell to start earning money, but i think they will. The first GW was a low budget CORPG, this is a high budget MMORPG and the first GW still sold more copies that Diablo 2 (counting seperate accounts), a lot more. I just don´t see GW2 selling less than GW.
But ANET have always been a mouth to mouth company that don´t advertise the way Blizzard do. If they use the same technique here initial sells wont be that huge but the number of players will rise and rise. Wows first month were nowhere near 2 million copies either.
2 million easily. "Well over"? I think that depends on whether people can tear themselves away from tradition and buy a game to enjoy themselves instead of thinking "What would the people on MMORPG.com think of me if I bought this"?
Not in the first year unless they release on consoles.
Well said... With all the hype surrounding GW2, it surely sounds like it will move alot in the 1st yr, but MMO's all together are mostly (not all) bound to Pc. And for guild wars to sell well over 2mil copies in first year its hard, because MMO players also play console games and you got some nice AAA console game coming out over the year too..
There is just too much diversion out there for it to move that many in less than a year and its not on console also.. I also think the console version will be launched for next xbox/ps and maybe even Wii U..
Development cost break even theroycrafting. So my calculations are just with assumed numbers, if anyone has actual numbers I would really like those to make calculations that are founded on real numbers not just assumed numbers.
The average development costs of a single platform game are about $10 million. Since GW2 isn`t a usual single platform game lets just assume three times the cost so 30 Million.
Lets assume the price of a single game will be $60 for a box (I´m not calculating digital sales which are cheaper). Let`s also assume a box costs $10 to press the dvd and make the box etc, which would be quite expensive. Leaves $50 to cover the development costs and running costs for the employees etc. For sales you usually calculate for the comming 3 years.
On average you sell anything with an average of 40% profit. That would be $24 for a $60 box. So we would have 60 - 10 -24 = $26 per box to cover development costs.
If Arenanet even calculated with 1 million boxes sold in 3 years that would be 26 million Dollars for development and running costs. That is a bit below what I assumed. But as you can see even with 1 million sold you easily break even.
Obviously the real numbers will be a lot different. But you can see you don`t have to sell 2 million copys to be successfull.
To show another example:
Quote Wikipedia:
Although BioWare has not disclosed development costs, industry leaders and financial analysts have estimated it to be between $150 million and $200 million. If accurate, this would make it the most expensive video game ever developed.[12][13] The game had 1 million subscribers within three days of its launch.
I`m guessing they didn`t break even even on 2 million copys sold.
Not voting because I'm pretty sure the number will be lower than 2 million. But it won't fizzle out quickly like most MMO box sales do.
Agreed.
They have spent most of their time with Europe and foreign countries, with no real US compaining for it to do crazy insane sales like SWTOR here. However if they come out with a bunch of commercials in all areas it could sell better. They did not do this with the orginal GW so I doubt they will do it here.
My personal Vote would be 700k within the first month US sales and 7 months later or near the first holiday of release 1.5 million slowly rising or falling based on consumer reviews and not biased site reviews. Lets down to much lately.
Development cost break even theroycrafting. So my calculations are just with assumed numbers, if anyone has actual numbers I would really like those to make calculations that are founded on real numbers not just assumed numbers.
The average development costs of a single platform game are about $10 million. Since GW2 isn`t a usual single platform game lets just assume three times the cost so 30 Million.
Lets assume the price of a single game will be $60 for a box (I´m not calculating digital sales which are cheaper). Let`s also assume a box costs $10 to press the dvd and make the box etc, which would be quite expensive. Leaves $50 to cover the development costs and running costs for the employees etc. For sales you usually calculate for the comming 3 years.
On average you sell anything with an average of 40% profit. That would be $24 for a $60 box. So we would have 60 - 10 -24 = $26 per box to cover development costs.
If Arenanet even calculated with 1 million boxes sold in 3 years that would be 26 million Dollars for development and running costs. That is a bit below what I assumed. But as you can see even with 1 million sold you easily break even.
Obviously the real numbers will be a lot different. But you can see you don`t have to sell 2 million copys to be successfull.
To show another example:
Quote Wikipedia:
Although BioWare has not disclosed development costs, industry leaders and financial analysts have estimated it to be between $150 million and $200 million. If accurate, this would make it the most expensive video game ever developed.[12][13] The game had 1 million subscribers within three days of its launch.
I`m guessing they didn`t break even even on 2 million copys sold.
GW2 will have cost ~$100m at least. Paying 250 developers/artists for 5 years isn't cheap.
Also, retail generates roughly £12 per 'box' ($18) regardless of platform and digital generating around £30 ($45) for a £35 (~$50) game on steam for a big release. 50% of sales will be via digital at least, which we can see has massively bigger profit margins.
We can see that if this was a console release they'd need ~5m sales to break even. But because it's PC they need about 2-3m instead.
Seeing that there were 1 million beta sign ups, I would say 2 million IF the majority of people enjoy their experience.
That was also only the first sign up window, there'll be a couple more
But yeah, this game is more popular than skyrim so far amongst my friends in terms of numbers going to be playing it (looking at around 15-20 people on my steam friends list), it's not like we all played GW1 either, only 3 of us did.
The game will certainly do well though across the board.
Development cost break even theroycrafting. So my calculations are just with assumed numbers, if anyone has actual numbers I would really like those to make calculations that are founded on real numbers not just assumed numbers.
The average development costs of a single platform game are about $10 million. Since GW2 isn`t a usual single platform game lets just assume three times the cost so 30 Million.
Lets assume the price of a single game will be $60 for a box (I´m not calculating digital sales which are cheaper). Let`s also assume a box costs $10 to press the dvd and make the box etc, which would be quite expensive. Leaves $50 to cover the development costs and running costs for the employees etc. For sales you usually calculate for the comming 3 years.
On average you sell anything with an average of 40% profit. That would be $24 for a $60 box. So we would have 60 - 10 -24 = $26 per box to cover development costs.
If Arenanet even calculated with 1 million boxes sold in 3 years that would be 26 million Dollars for development and running costs. That is a bit below what I assumed. But as you can see even with 1 million sold you easily break even.
Obviously the real numbers will be a lot different. But you can see you don`t have to sell 2 million copys to be successfull.
To show another example:
Quote Wikipedia:
Although BioWare has not disclosed development costs, industry leaders and financial analysts have estimated it to be between $150 million and $200 million. If accurate, this would make it the most expensive video game ever developed.[12][13] The game had 1 million subscribers within three days of its launch.
I`m guessing they didn`t break even even on 2 million copys sold.
GW2 will have cost ~$100m at least. Paying 250 developers/artists for 5 years isn't cheap.
Also, retail generates roughly £12 per 'box' ($18) regardless of platform and digital generating around £30 ($45) for a £35 (~$50) game on steam for a big release. 50% of sales will be via digital at least, which we can see has massively bigger profit margins.
We can see that if this was a console release they'd need ~5m sales to break even. But because it's PC they need about 2-3m instead.
This, and that why i say everyday ArenaNet is lucky they choose a publisher like NCsoft, because if it was EA or Activision i'm sure they would say, at least charge $5 a month..
Comments
If every GW1 player buys GW2 we'll have at least 1.7mi. But i think theres much more hyped people that have never bought a GW1 copy.
2 million easily.
SWTOR opened beta signs up for over a year and got 1.6 million sign ups.
GW2 opened beta sign ups for 48 hours and got over a million.
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB
Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP
Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
Well, Anet didn't spend 200 million on marketing, so you're probably right
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB
Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP
Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
I put 2 million, but it will be more like 500k-1mil the first week if not less. It's the first WEEK for crying out loud. 4 million first year.
Wow, it has to do at least twice as good as TOR be a failure? Hey, why not just say they need to sell more in the first week than Warcraft sold copies, like ever? It will be a failure if they don't bring in enough to keep it alive. Wether that lies at 2M copies, more or less is for ArenaNet to know and for us to guess at. The first week won't decide wether this game fails or not, because I think it'll be great, unlike TOR that saw it's sales drop like a rock once it was clear what it was.
I"ll say between one or two million,which is pretty good for a B2P/free online MMO game,
since GW 2 has no subs of any kind.Now,if NCSoft comes out with a really good advertising campaign,(which they should)
it could even sell more.advertising a game is not cheap of course,but it would help tremendously.
I"ll second that
.
You second yourself?
That's weird.
The polygon speaks the truth!
I'm going to say 3 million.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Agreed. The first Guildwars didn´t sell so good the first week but it continued to sell copies with a good pace and became a huge hit.
A buddy told me about GW, I told a bunch of my friends and the game slowly became a hit.
Recent MMOs have on the other hand sold great the first month and then just stopped while the players have been leaving like rats on a sinking ship.
I am not sure how many copies they need to sell to start earning money, but i think they will. The first GW was a low budget CORPG, this is a high budget MMORPG and the first GW still sold more copies that Diablo 2 (counting seperate accounts), a lot more. I just don´t see GW2 selling less than GW.
But ANET have always been a mouth to mouth company that don´t advertise the way Blizzard do. If they use the same technique here initial sells wont be that huge but the number of players will rise and rise. Wows first month were nowhere near 2 million copies either.
At least they sold 2 copies to me ^_^
2 million easily. "Well over"? I think that depends on whether people can tear themselves away from tradition and buy a game to enjoy themselves instead of thinking "What would the people on MMORPG.com think of me if I bought this"?
Not in the first year unless they release on consoles.
Well said... With all the hype surrounding GW2, it surely sounds like it will move alot in the 1st yr, but MMO's all together are mostly (not all) bound to Pc. And for guild wars to sell well over 2mil copies in first year its hard, because MMO players also play console games and you got some nice AAA console game coming out over the year too..
There is just too much diversion out there for it to move that many in less than a year and its not on console also.. I also think the console version will be launched for next xbox/ps and maybe even Wii U..
Development cost break even theroycrafting. So my calculations are just with assumed numbers, if anyone has actual numbers I would really like those to make calculations that are founded on real numbers not just assumed numbers.
The average development costs of a single platform game are about $10 million. Since GW2 isn`t a usual single platform game lets just assume three times the cost so 30 Million.
Lets assume the price of a single game will be $60 for a box (I´m not calculating digital sales which are cheaper). Let`s also assume a box costs $10 to press the dvd and make the box etc, which would be quite expensive. Leaves $50 to cover the development costs and running costs for the employees etc. For sales you usually calculate for the comming 3 years.
On average you sell anything with an average of 40% profit. That would be $24 for a $60 box. So we would have 60 - 10 -24 = $26 per box to cover development costs.
If Arenanet even calculated with 1 million boxes sold in 3 years that would be 26 million Dollars for development and running costs. That is a bit below what I assumed. But as you can see even with 1 million sold you easily break even.
Obviously the real numbers will be a lot different. But you can see you don`t have to sell 2 million copys to be successfull.
To show another example:
Quote Wikipedia:
Although BioWare has not disclosed development costs, industry leaders and financial analysts have estimated it to be between $150 million and $200 million. If accurate, this would make it the most expensive video game ever developed.[12][13] The game had 1 million subscribers within three days of its launch.
I`m guessing they didn`t break even even on 2 million copys sold.
Not voting because I'm pretty sure the number will be lower than 2 million. But it won't fizzle out quickly like most MMO box sales do.
Agreed.
They have spent most of their time with Europe and foreign countries, with no real US compaining for it to do crazy insane sales like SWTOR here. However if they come out with a bunch of commercials in all areas it could sell better. They did not do this with the orginal GW so I doubt they will do it here.
My personal Vote would be 700k within the first month US sales and 7 months later or near the first holiday of release 1.5 million slowly rising or falling based on consumer reviews and not biased site reviews. Lets down to much lately.
They could sell even more, but not at release. People are to skeptical. But in time.
GW2 will have cost ~$100m at least. Paying 250 developers/artists for 5 years isn't cheap.
Also, retail generates roughly £12 per 'box' ($18) regardless of platform and digital generating around £30 ($45) for a £35 (~$50) game on steam for a big release. 50% of sales will be via digital at least, which we can see has massively bigger profit margins.
We can see that if this was a console release they'd need ~5m sales to break even. But because it's PC they need about 2-3m instead.
Seeing that there were 1 million beta sign ups, I would say 2 million IF the majority of people enjoy their experience.
That was also only the first sign up window, there'll be a couple more
But yeah, this game is more popular than skyrim so far amongst my friends in terms of numbers going to be playing it (looking at around 15-20 people on my steam friends list), it's not like we all played GW1 either, only 3 of us did.
The game will certainly do well though across the board.
100k maybe?
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So only slightly more than dear esther?
Yeah...
This, and that why i say everyday ArenaNet is lucky they choose a publisher like NCsoft, because if it was EA or Activision i'm sure they would say, at least charge $5 a month..