The markets are totally different now and then. Back in 2004 if WoW sold about 200,000 copies, it would've been equivalent to today selling 20 million. Since back in 2004 there was maybe 250,000 people that played MMOs, not the multi-millions that do now hehe.
Note: These are just made up numbers, none of them are correct, but it's just to show the difference in the market.
Originally posted by evilprey don't know about sellings but GW2 is without question best MMO on the market and he was redefinned the genre . Wow was only a better looking Everquest clone
Gw2 was nice looking but Wow is still by far the better mmo and I have come to hate wow over the past few expansions. As for defining the genre what has it actually done, action combat tera died it better, story swtor beat it by a mile, content well wow still wins ( hate to admit this), pvp well many games do this better. Sorry apart from looking good this game is a play through once single player RPG.
comparing wow's expansion units sold to gw2's base game.
comparing chinese sales to western-only sales.
comparing the "different" market scene from 10 years ago.
etc.
..to invalidate gw2's success.
I thought people were saying WoW's target audience was different, or an anomaly, and they don't play other mmos. So which is it? Where did these new people come from to play gw2? According to some here, they weren't players from wow.
However, one could argue, that WoW had it much easier in the past:
1. EQ, UO, AC, DAOC and SWG had opend the market already.
Many people were interested in playing an MMO.
2. WoW was released exactly at the same time, when highspeed internet became affordable.
Everybody could finally try playing an MMO.
3. WoW was the first casual oriented, well polished MMO with a big brand behind it. And it ran on older PCs.
WoW was everybody's first option.
Now let us talk about GW2:
1. GW2 was released at the same time as TERA, TSW and MoP. Some were still playing SWTOR.
GW2 faced much greater competition than WoW.
2. These days the whole enthusiasm for MMOs is decreasing. After many big disappointments (WAR, VG, etc.) the playerbase is much more critical.
GW2 earned a lot of critique for everything it tries to do differently whereas WoW was praised for almost everything they did then. Directly after the big failure of SWTOR it was almost impossible to win a lot of new players in a short period.
I don't think you understood the point. WoW did something none of the MMO's before it really did. It made the genre popular. Sure WoW had lots of help, but there is no comparison between the amount of people that were interested or played mmos back then, than there is now. That's what I'm getting at, WoW flooded the market with people interested in MMO's.
To say that it was hard to win a lot of new players after SWTOR is silly because GW2 wasn't released long after SWTOR. I think it might be harder for the upcoming AAA MMO's like wildstar, TESO, EQN, Archeage, etc, because of the failures of both GW2 and SWTOR.
I can agree with your POV on the first part. You lost credibility with me when you generalized and claimed GW2 was a failure. Maybe it was for you, but by what criteria of failure would GW2 have accomplished for you to generalize the toughness of a genre because of said failures?
My reasoning for why it failed is due in part to the fact that there is no class synergy in the game. It has nothing to do with the lack of holy trinity, because there have been games that did not have the holy trinity that still had some kind of class synergy. It all boils down to the fact that at the base of each class, they are all the same. They all have similar amounts of survivability, can do similar amounts of damage, and gear is all similarly powerful. So it created something many people called the unholy trinity, Ranged, Regeneration, and Run the hell away. In WvW people reverted to more realistic warfare tactics, or in other words where you sit back and range all day. Melee is obsolete in large group pvp battles.
So then, when you take the lack of class synergy, and combine it was PvE that is meant to have the holy trinity, (dungeons are a perfect example), you get relatively dumbed down and easy gameplay.
Not to mention that many of the things ArenaNet said didn't come to fruition, such as dynamic events. They really weren't dynamic. The are essentially open world quests that happen over and over again, much like WAR's public quest system.
So that's why the game failed to me, and many others. You could look at the success of the game and maybe come to a different conclusion, but when you look at the basic mechanics of the game, they come out flawed.
That is such a ridiculous claim.
You are saying a whole game failed because of your opinion?
A failure would be Swtor. A $100+ million budget, yet it went to f2p and merged down to 8 NA servers. That's what i call a failure. I haven't seen anything as drastic as that in GW2.
It's fine if you dislike the game and it's mechanics, because i dislike some aspects of gw2 too, but you can't claim it's an economic failure for Arena-net.
comparing wow's expansion units sold to gw2's base game.
comparing chinese sales to western-only sales.
comparing the "different" market scene from 10 years ago.
etc.
..to invalidate gw2's success.
I thought people were saying WoW's target audience was different, or an anomaly, and they don't play other mmos. So which is it? Where did these new people come from to play gw2? According to some here, they weren't players from wow.
I don't base a game's success on boxes sold. I base it on player retention. If selling tons of boxes equates to success, then SWTOR is up there with WoW and GW2 also.
I'm not trying to discredit Anet on their achievement, but I'd like some real statistics. No I didn't like the game, but if millions of people are still playing, even I could admit that the game was a success because they reached they audience they intended to reach. I didn't even like WoW that much, but I can definitely say that it was a successful game.
If GW2 is going to persuade me, I'd like to hear how many unique logins they have every week or month. I just find it interesting that the game has been out for a while now, and we haven't gotten any news on what the player population looks like, particularly when Mike O'Brien was so keen on GW2 being a WoW killer.
Originally posted by Volkon So basically, no matter how you slice the numbers, WoW and GW2 are the two big dogs in the kennel surrounded by packs of yipping chihuahuas.
Fastest selling MMO doesnt mean a single thing....SWTOR was also the fastest selling MMO in history its first few months...look where that ended up...
How many of those 3 million players are still playing a year in? THAT is the question that needs answering....Untill they get serious and announce active players like Blizz did with D3 (when they totally didnt have to), im going to ignore these announcements lol.
(Full disclosure: Ex-wow player; playing GW2 since beta... and loving it!)
All these kind of anti-GW2 comments remind me of "one-uppers"; you just can never win. And true to the "one-upper personality", most of the people making these comments don't even play the game!
I just don't get this "my game vs your game" mentality; play and let play!
P.S. This goes to everyone: WOW, GW2 and all other players (including myself)
How on earth can you intrepret my comment as being anti GW2, let alone "my game vs your game" (seeing as i didnt mention another game as being better or more populated).
Im stating facts....facts that are apprently ignroed by some when it comes to GW2 on these forums....SWTOR had the same title of fastest selling MMO of all time before GW2 came out, and as we all know, it ment nothing. Why do we know it ment nothing? Because Bioware announces subs/active players.....untill Anet does the same, you are a fool for eating these headlines up.
Nothing in that statement implies GW2 is doing poorly, not even remotly close...
Timelines cannot compare. At all. WoW opened up a market. It was the 1st MMO that sold enormous amounts of copies. Props to Anet, but if we were to look at Blizzard total sales you know what would happen. As few people pointed out, GW2 sold 90% of their copies when the game was still hyped up. WoW was gaining subs for 7 years. You literally can't compare the two.
WoW - new market, not a lot of people play MMOs
GW2 - old market, tens of millions people playing
It's like pointing out Smart in 2012 outsold Ferrari in 1920 when there were like 100 people buying cars in total.
You can only compare them to a certain extent; I think there is validity to the argument that the online gaming market in 2004 was very different than it is today.
Though WOW did propel the genre to new levels in the following years after release, they were by far not the only game in the market doing so. With the internet becoming more accessible and more affordable, you could almost say that WOW was just at the right place and at the right time. I’m not discrediting WOW, just trying to introduce a certain level of realism into the picture. WOW was a good game (sorry fan-boys) for its time, but it is fast approaching the end of its rope; as evidenced in their consistent decline in subs.
When WoW came out, it was not a new market; though definitely “newer” than it is today. You could argue that because there are more people playing today and more games available, the competition is tougher, in my opinion making GW2’s achievement greater and more significant than a game almost a decade ago with fewer competitors.
Though there may be more people driving today and thus more people by default buying Smart cars, the competition now is definitely tougher than it was in the 1920’s. Back then, if you could afford to purchase a car, your options were few and far between; having said that, you would have had to wait till 1947 to buy a Ferrari anyway, because they were not available to the public in 1929, when Enzo founded the automobile company; Ferrari was originally exclusively a racecar.
P.S. As an ex-WOW player, it does make me a bit sad to see WOW decline, I have wonderful memories and I even have WOW to thank for my wife. However, once my wife and I player GW2, we knew we just couldn’t go back. It is our personal opinion (not fact) that GW2 is indeed better than WOW; and that’s coming from an ex-WOW fan-boy/girl.
The market when WoW came out and the market, years later, when GW2 came out are so vastly different
i agree its not a fair comparison - comparing numbers from WOWs launch 10 years ago
But you can also state that there is much more competition in the MMO market today than there was in 2004. So while we can give WoW a lot of credit for making the genre more popular, we have to also look at the fact that there are a lot more titles because of this and for GW2 to sell the way they have is a feat. But feel free to discount.
When a genre grows it means more people are playing, which in turn means more people are buying.... Competition means nothing to most gamers, it's not about a specific game it's about a specific type of game. I didn't stop buying other RPG's because Skyrim released. Most folks don't approach games like many on this forum do, in gaming people tend to like both the Redskins and the Cowboys. It's not really a team based mindset.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
However, one could argue, that WoW had it much easier in the past:
1. EQ, UO, AC, DAOC and SWG had opend the market already.
Many people were interested in playing an MMO.
2. WoW was released exactly at the same time, when highspeed internet became affordable.
Everybody could finally try playing an MMO.
3. WoW was the first casual oriented, well polished MMO with a big brand behind it. And it ran on older PCs.
WoW was everybody's first option.
Now let us talk about GW2:
1. GW2 was released at the same time as TERA, TSW and MoP. Some were still playing SWTOR.
GW2 faced much greater competition than WoW.
2. These days the whole enthusiasm for MMOs is decreasing. After many big disappointments (WAR, VG, etc.) the playerbase is much more critical.
GW2 earned a lot of critique for everything it tries to do differently whereas WoW was praised for almost everything they did then. Directly after the big failure of SWTOR it was almost impossible to win a lot of new players in a short period.
I don't think you understood the point. WoW did something none of the MMO's before it really did. It made the genre popular. Sure WoW had lots of help, but there is no comparison between the amount of people that were interested or played mmos back then, than there is now. That's what I'm getting at, WoW flooded the market with people interested in MMO's.
To say that it was hard to win a lot of new players after SWTOR is silly because GW2 wasn't released long after SWTOR. I think it might be harder for the upcoming AAA MMO's like wildstar, TESO, EQN, Archeage, etc, because of the failures of both GW2 and SWTOR.
I can agree with your POV on the first part. You lost credibility with me when you generalized and claimed GW2 was a failure. Maybe it was for you, but by what criteria of failure would GW2 have accomplished for you to generalize the toughness of a genre because of said failures?
My reasoning for why it failed is due in part to the fact that there is no class synergy in the game. It has nothing to do with the lack of holy trinity, because there have been games that did not have the holy trinity that still had some kind of class synergy. It all boils down to the fact that at the base of each class, they are all the same. They all have similar amounts of survivability, can do similar amounts of damage, and gear is all similarly powerful. So it created something many people called the unholy trinity, Ranged, Regeneration, and Run the hell away. In WvW people reverted to more realistic warfare tactics, or in other words where you sit back and range all day. Melee is obsolete in large group pvp battles.
So then, when you take the lack of class synergy, and combine it was PvE that is meant to have the holy trinity, (dungeons are a perfect example), you get relatively dumbed down and easy gameplay.
Not to mention that many of the things ArenaNet said didn't come to fruition, such as dynamic events. They really weren't dynamic. The are essentially open world quests that happen over and over again, much like WAR's public quest system.
So that's why the game failed to me, and many others. You could look at the success of the game and maybe come to a different conclusion, but when you look at the basic mechanics of the game, they come out flawed.
That is such a ridiculous claim.
You are saying a whole game failed because of your opinion?
A failure would be Swtor. A $100+ million budget, yet it went to f2p and merged down to 8 NA servers. That's what i call a failure. I haven't seen anything as drastic as that in GW2.
It's fine if you dislike the game and it's mechanics, because i dislike some aspects of gw2 too, but you can't claim it's an economic failure for Arena-net.
I never stated anywhere that it failed economically. I stated that the game failed because it didn't keep its promises and its core mechanics are flawed in their nature. If you'd like to discuss why you believe my opinions are wrong or should be different, feel free to pm me. This isn't the thread to discuss what is wrong with GW2's mechanics. I was merely justifying why I felt the game failed. The game can fail in my eyes, but still be successful. If the player retention rate is still high, and millions of people are still playing the game, then I wouldn't have a problem admitting that ArenaNet reached their target audience and was thus successful. Of course we've never been given those numbers, and I wonder why. That still doesn't mean that their core mechanics that drive the game didn't fail no matter how successful they were.
Originally posted by Volkon So basically, no matter how you slice the numbers, WoW and GW2 are the two big dogs in the kennel surrounded by packs of yipping chihuahuas.
Fastest selling MMO doesnt mean a single thing....SWTOR was also the fastest selling MMO in history its first few months...look where that ended up...
How many of those 3 million players are still playing a year in? THAT is the question that needs answering....Untill they get serious and announce active players like Blizz did with D3 (when they totally didnt have to), im going to ignore these announcements lol.
(Full disclosure: Ex-wow player; playing GW2 since beta... and loving it!)
All these kind of anti-GW2 comments remind me of "one-uppers"; you just can never win. And true to the "one-upper personality", most of the people making these comments don't even play the game!
I just don't get this "my game vs your game" mentality; play and let play!
P.S. This goes to everyone: WOW, GW2 and all other players (including myself)
How on earth can you intrepret my comment as being anti GW2, let alone "my game vs your game" (seeing as i didnt mention another game as being better or more populated).
Im stating facts....facts that are apprently ignroed by some when it comes to GW2 on these forums....SWTOR had the same title of fastest selling MMO of all time before GW2 came out, and as we all know, it ment nothing. Why do we know it ment nothing? Because Bioware announces subs/active players.....untill Anet does the same, you are a fool for eating these headlines up.
Nothing in that statement implies GW2 is doing poorly, not even remotly close...
apologies, I think I quoted the wrong post haha!
Having said that, I think you're right in that Anet needs to release/announce their active playerbase. Obviously no company in any indurstry is going to release damning numbers (business 101), unless they legally have to.
The market when WoW came out and the market, years later, when GW2 came out are so vastly different
i agree its not a fair comparison - comparing numbers from WOWs launch 10 years ago
But you can also state that there is much more competition in the MMO market today than there was in 2004. So while we can give WoW a lot of credit for making the genre more popular, we have to also look at the fact that there are a lot more titles because of this and for GW2 to sell the way they have is a feat. But feel free to discount.
When a genre grows it means more people are playing, which in turn means more people are buying.... Competition means nothing to most gamers, it's not about a specific game it's about a specific type of game. I didn't stop buying other RPG's because Skyrim released. Most folks don't approach games like many on this forum do, in gaming people tend to like both the Redskins and the Cowboys. It's not really a team based mindset.
RPG's are not mmo's.
Most people do not play more than one mmo at a time. If you can play more than one mmo at the same time then you should get a job, if you still can, then get an education, if you still can, then get a life, if you still can, then get married and have kids...
If you can play more than one mmo while working, studying, having a life outside of the computer, being married and with kids then you are f*cking amazing and you need to tell me how you do it!
Originally posted by Kyleran Another thing to be wary of is that if you hire a marketing firm they tend to validate whatever conclusions they think will keep you happy and paying them their fees. I'd prefer a more independent source but can't happen, so these results are more "guesses" than anything else.
Exactly. A PR firm's sole purpose is to find things to help make their clients look good. Interesting statistic? Sure.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
Timelines cannot compare. At all. WoW opened up a market. It was the 1st MMO that sold enormous amounts of copies. Props to Anet, but if we were to look at Blizzard total sales you know what would happen. As few people pointed out, GW2 sold 90% of their copies when the game was still hyped up. WoW was gaining subs for 7 years. You literally can't compare the two.
WoW - new market, not a lot of people play MMOs
GW2 - old market, tens of millions people playing
It's like pointing out Smart in 2012 outsold Ferrari in 1920 when there were like 100 people buying cars in total.
On the other hand WoW was the only car and there were a few chariot makers at the time.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
SWTOR.
-> merged servers
-> people fired
-> change in monetizing model.
GW2
-> Server increase during launch, capacity increase afterwards
-> no people fired
-> cash shop delivering $25M+ per quarter
In fact is making more money than the second biggest subscription game, EvE.
See, SWTOR was not a success because EA/Bioware aimed and invested for a certain plateau that was clearly not reached, in fact SWTOR probably has less active players than GW2 and probably makes less money than GW2 despite having a team several times bigger and invested much more money.
Additionally Star Wars IP vs Guild Wars IP.
Bioware (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Night's, Kotor, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, MDK 2) vs Arenanet (Guild Wars).
Really?
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
SWTOR.
-> merged servers
-> people fired
-> change in monetizing model.
GW2
-> Server increase during launch, capacity increase afterwards
-> no people fired
-> cash shop delivering $25M+ per quarter
See, SWTOR was not a success because EA/Bioware aimed and invested for a certain plateau that was clearly not reached, in fact SWTOR probably has less active players than GW2 and probably makes less money than GW2 despite having a team several times bigger and invested much more money.
Why are you turing this inter a GW2 vs SWTOR thing, saying GW2 wasnt a faileur? Why are you defending GW2s active player numbers? Did anything in my post imply GW2 wasnt doing well? Why are listing reason why SWTOR failed? None of that has antyhing to do with what i said.
I seem to recall saying this whole boxes sold sctick is getting stale, when they can simply announce active players, like all other major MMOs out there. Oh, but they cant because there is no sub you say? D3 doesnt have a sub either, and bliz still released active player numbers a year in.
Nothing in your post refutes what I said, so not sure why you quoted me...
You are basically confirming my point....SWTOR held the title of fastest selling MMO in history before GW2 came along, yet we know its a faileur not by getting all insector gadget on their "staff layoffs and server merges", but because they announce active subs/pplayer....Any company announcing "fastest selling" with regards to an MMO, when player retention is all that matters, is a farce.
Originally posted by VolkonSo basically, no matter how you slice the numbers, WoW and GW2 are the two big dogs in the kennel surrounded by packs of yipping chihuahuas.
Fastest selling MMO doesnt mean a single thing....SWTOR was also the fastest selling MMO in history its first few months...look where that ended up...
How many of those 3 million players are still playing a year in? THAT is the question that needs answering....Untill they get serious and announce active players like Blizz did with D3 (when they totally didnt have to), im going to ignore these announcements lol.
A game with over two million active players? A game with nearly half a million active subscribers? Compared to other games in the industry, it doesn't seem all that bad.
And you get this from where? Don't say that posting on the Chinese site. That was taken down and replaced with some YouTube and Facebook numbers which are also wrong. As a matter of fact, there were even some native chinese speakers on these forums that said it wasn't translated properly.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Originally posted by VolkonSo basically, no matter how you slice the numbers, WoW and GW2 are the two big dogs in the kennel surrounded by packs of yipping chihuahuas.
Fastest selling MMO doesnt mean a single thing....SWTOR was also the fastest selling MMO in history its first few months...look where that ended up...
How many of those 3 million players are still playing a year in? THAT is the question that needs answering....Untill they get serious and announce active players like Blizz did with D3 (when they totally didnt have to), im going to ignore these announcements lol.
A game with over two million active players? A game with nearly half a million active subscribers? Compared to other games in the industry, it doesn't seem all that bad.
And you get this from where? Don't say that posting on the Chinese site. That was taken down and replaced with some YouTube and Facebook numbers which are also wrong. As a matter of fact, there were even some native chinese speakers on these forums that said it wasn't translated properly.
I think he was referring to SWTOR in that post, not GW2....SWTOR has 500k subs and about 2 million FTP players as per EA's last investor call.
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
SWTOR.
-> merged servers
-> people fired
-> change in monetizing model.
GW2
-> Server increase during launch, capacity increase afterwards
-> no people fired
-> cash shop delivering $25M+ per quarter
See, SWTOR was not a success because EA/Bioware aimed and invested for a certain plateau that was clearly not reached, in fact SWTOR probably has less active players than GW2 and probably makes less money than GW2 despite having a team several times bigger and invested much more money.
Why are you turing this inter a GW2 vs SWTOR thing, saying GW2 wasnt a faileur? Why are you defending GW2s active player numbers? Did anything in my post imply GW2 wasnt doing well? Why are listing reason why SWTOR failed? None of that has antyhing to do with what i said.
I seem to recall saying this whole boxes sold sctick is getting stale, when they can simply announce active players, like all other major MMOs out there. Oh, but they cant because there is no sub you say? D3 doesnt have a sub either, and bliz still released active player numbers a year in.
Nothing in your post refutes what I said, so not sure why you quoted me...
You are basically confirming my point....SWTOR held the title of fastest selling MMO in history before GW2 came along, yet we know its a faileur not by getting all insector gadget on their "staff layoffs and server merges", but because they announce active subs/pplayer....Any company announcing "fastest selling" with regards to an MMO, when player retention is all that matters, is a farce.
Didn't you brought SWTOR?
Why is SWTOR a failure?
Because of the things I listed.
GW2 had none of those things, did it?
GW2 seems to be a profitable game for NCSoft and Arenanet (when they aren't firing people is the first thing in the book - see SWTOR, TSW, TERA) and it has more than enough players so that everyone can play with other people.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Being the fastest selling MMO in nine months proves what? SWTOR was the fastest selling over some period of time also.... You saw what that got them. Also, comparing a sub game to some B2P game isn't really relevant. Most parents I know are not as apt not to buy a game for their kid if it requires a subscription over a long term. That also applies to some people. The real tale is how much money does the game make for the developers. In this case WoW hit it out of the park. The revenue continued to grow over many years. In GW2, it is remaining "stable" to use their words.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
I agree and many are just seeing through the spin while others are sucking it down like mana from heaven. I do think GW2 is a success its just how much of one we would like to know but with the recent financials from Ncsoft showing a 20% revenue drop for GW2 this announcement was probably timed to overshadow that negative news.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Originally posted by VolkonSo basically, no matter how you slice the numbers, WoW and GW2 are the two big dogs in the kennel surrounded by packs of yipping chihuahuas.
Fastest selling MMO doesnt mean a single thing....SWTOR was also the fastest selling MMO in history its first few months...look where that ended up...
How many of those 3 million players are still playing a year in? THAT is the question that needs answering....Untill they get serious and announce active players like Blizz did with D3 (when they totally didnt have to), im going to ignore these announcements lol.
A game with over two million active players? A game with nearly half a million active subscribers? Compared to other games in the industry, it doesn't seem all that bad.
And you get this from where? Don't say that posting on the Chinese site. That was taken down and replaced with some YouTube and Facebook numbers which are also wrong. As a matter of fact, there were even some native chinese speakers on these forums that said it wasn't translated properly.
I think he was referring to SWTOR in that post, not GW2....SWTOR has 500k subs and about 2 million FTP players as per EA's last investor call.
Okay, my bad. I thought he was trying to use that ludicrous post from the other day trying to claim that GW2 had 2 million unique logins per week.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
I agree and many are just seeing through the spin while others are sucking it down like mana from heaven. I do think GW2 is a success its just how much of one we would like to know but with the recent financials from Ncsoft showing a 20% revenue drop for GW2 this announcement was probably timed to overshadow that negative news.
It obviously isn't pulling in the revenue that they thought it would. There is a reason for their "change in direction" of development. They have obviously figured out which type of added content brings players in steadily and results in higher profits. I applaud them for not giving up or just trying to sustain.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
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The markets are totally different now and then. Back in 2004 if WoW sold about 200,000 copies, it would've been equivalent to today selling 20 million. Since back in 2004 there was maybe 250,000 people that played MMOs, not the multi-millions that do now hehe.
Note: These are just made up numbers, none of them are correct, but it's just to show the difference in the market.
Gw2 was nice looking but Wow is still by far the better mmo and I have come to hate wow over the past few expansions. As for defining the genre what has it actually done, action combat tera died it better, story swtor beat it by a mile, content well wow still wins ( hate to admit this), pvp well many games do this better. Sorry apart from looking good this game is a play through once single player RPG.
I love reading all the excuses..
That is such a ridiculous claim.
You are saying a whole game failed because of your opinion?
A failure would be Swtor. A $100+ million budget, yet it went to f2p and merged down to 8 NA servers. That's what i call a failure. I haven't seen anything as drastic as that in GW2.
It's fine if you dislike the game and it's mechanics, because i dislike some aspects of gw2 too, but you can't claim it's an economic failure for Arena-net.
I don't base a game's success on boxes sold. I base it on player retention. If selling tons of boxes equates to success, then SWTOR is up there with WoW and GW2 also.
I'm not trying to discredit Anet on their achievement, but I'd like some real statistics. No I didn't like the game, but if millions of people are still playing, even I could admit that the game was a success because they reached they audience they intended to reach. I didn't even like WoW that much, but I can definitely say that it was a successful game.
If GW2 is going to persuade me, I'd like to hear how many unique logins they have every week or month. I just find it interesting that the game has been out for a while now, and we haven't gotten any news on what the player population looks like, particularly when Mike O'Brien was so keen on GW2 being a WoW killer.
How on earth can you intrepret my comment as being anti GW2, let alone "my game vs your game" (seeing as i didnt mention another game as being better or more populated).
Im stating facts....facts that are apprently ignroed by some when it comes to GW2 on these forums....SWTOR had the same title of fastest selling MMO of all time before GW2 came out, and as we all know, it ment nothing. Why do we know it ment nothing? Because Bioware announces subs/active players.....untill Anet does the same, you are a fool for eating these headlines up.
Nothing in that statement implies GW2 is doing poorly, not even remotly close...
You can only compare them to a certain extent; I think there is validity to the argument that the online gaming market in 2004 was very different than it is today.
Though WOW did propel the genre to new levels in the following years after release, they were by far not the only game in the market doing so. With the internet becoming more accessible and more affordable, you could almost say that WOW was just at the right place and at the right time. I’m not discrediting WOW, just trying to introduce a certain level of realism into the picture. WOW was a good game (sorry fan-boys) for its time, but it is fast approaching the end of its rope; as evidenced in their consistent decline in subs.
When WoW came out, it was not a new market; though definitely “newer” than it is today. You could argue that because there are more people playing today and more games available, the competition is tougher, in my opinion making GW2’s achievement greater and more significant than a game almost a decade ago with fewer competitors.
Though there may be more people driving today and thus more people by default buying Smart cars, the competition now is definitely tougher than it was in the 1920’s. Back then, if you could afford to purchase a car, your options were few and far between; having said that, you would have had to wait till 1947 to buy a Ferrari anyway, because they were not available to the public in 1929, when Enzo founded the automobile company; Ferrari was originally exclusively a racecar.
P.S. As an ex-WOW player, it does make me a bit sad to see WOW decline, I have wonderful memories and I even have WOW to thank for my wife. However, once my wife and I player GW2, we knew we just couldn’t go back. It is our personal opinion (not fact) that GW2 is indeed better than WOW; and that’s coming from an ex-WOW fan-boy/girl.
Cheers!
When a genre grows it means more people are playing, which in turn means more people are buying.... Competition means nothing to most gamers, it's not about a specific game it's about a specific type of game. I didn't stop buying other RPG's because Skyrim released. Most folks don't approach games like many on this forum do, in gaming people tend to like both the Redskins and the Cowboys. It's not really a team based mindset.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I never stated anywhere that it failed economically. I stated that the game failed because it didn't keep its promises and its core mechanics are flawed in their nature. If you'd like to discuss why you believe my opinions are wrong or should be different, feel free to pm me. This isn't the thread to discuss what is wrong with GW2's mechanics. I was merely justifying why I felt the game failed. The game can fail in my eyes, but still be successful. If the player retention rate is still high, and millions of people are still playing the game, then I wouldn't have a problem admitting that ArenaNet reached their target audience and was thus successful. Of course we've never been given those numbers, and I wonder why. That still doesn't mean that their core mechanics that drive the game didn't fail no matter how successful they were.
i learned mine with tera, swtor, and rift. The only thing ive preordered in the last few years that to me was worth every peny was GW2.
apologies, I think I quoted the wrong post haha!
Having said that, I think you're right in that Anet needs to release/announce their active playerbase. Obviously no company in any indurstry is going to release damning numbers (business 101), unless they legally have to.
RPG's are not mmo's.
Most people do not play more than one mmo at a time. If you can play more than one mmo at the same time then you should get a job, if you still can, then get an education, if you still can, then get a life, if you still can, then get married and have kids...
If you can play more than one mmo while working, studying, having a life outside of the computer, being married and with kids then you are f*cking amazing and you need to tell me how you do it!
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Haters gonna hate.
Honestly, if GW2 is considered a failure, I would like to know how many mmos make the metric mark for success.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
I dont think many are saying its not a success....just that they need to start announcing active player numbers and stop with the "box sales" pitch.
With that logic, SWTOR was also a huge success, seeing as it sold just under 3 million copies...but we all know it wasnt a huge success, because Bioware announces active sub/player numbers. See what I mean?
On the other hand WoW was the only car and there were a few chariot makers at the time.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
SWTOR.
-> merged servers
-> people fired
-> change in monetizing model.
GW2
-> Server increase during launch, capacity increase afterwards
-> no people fired
-> cash shop delivering $25M+ per quarter
In fact is making more money than the second biggest subscription game, EvE.
See, SWTOR was not a success because EA/Bioware aimed and invested for a certain plateau that was clearly not reached, in fact SWTOR probably has less active players than GW2 and probably makes less money than GW2 despite having a team several times bigger and invested much more money.
Additionally Star Wars IP vs Guild Wars IP.
Bioware (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Night's, Kotor, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, MDK 2) vs Arenanet (Guild Wars).
Really?
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Why are you turing this inter a GW2 vs SWTOR thing, saying GW2 wasnt a faileur? Why are you defending GW2s active player numbers? Did anything in my post imply GW2 wasnt doing well? Why are listing reason why SWTOR failed? None of that has antyhing to do with what i said.
I seem to recall saying this whole boxes sold sctick is getting stale, when they can simply announce active players, like all other major MMOs out there. Oh, but they cant because there is no sub you say? D3 doesnt have a sub either, and bliz still released active player numbers a year in.
Nothing in your post refutes what I said, so not sure why you quoted me...
You are basically confirming my point....SWTOR held the title of fastest selling MMO in history before GW2 came along, yet we know its a faileur not by getting all insector gadget on their "staff layoffs and server merges", but because they announce active subs/pplayer....Any company announcing "fastest selling" with regards to an MMO, when player retention is all that matters, is a farce.
And you get this from where? Don't say that posting on the Chinese site. That was taken down and replaced with some YouTube and Facebook numbers which are also wrong. As a matter of fact, there were even some native chinese speakers on these forums that said it wasn't translated properly.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
I think he was referring to SWTOR in that post, not GW2....SWTOR has 500k subs and about 2 million FTP players as per EA's last investor call.
Didn't you brought SWTOR?
Why is SWTOR a failure?
Because of the things I listed.
GW2 had none of those things, did it?
GW2 seems to be a profitable game for NCSoft and Arenanet (when they aren't firing people is the first thing in the book - see SWTOR, TSW, TERA) and it has more than enough players so that everyone can play with other people.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
I agree and many are just seeing through the spin while others are sucking it down like mana from heaven. I do think GW2 is a success its just how much of one we would like to know but with the recent financials from Ncsoft showing a 20% revenue drop for GW2 this announcement was probably timed to overshadow that negative news.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Okay, my bad. I thought he was trying to use that ludicrous post from the other day trying to claim that GW2 had 2 million unique logins per week.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
It obviously isn't pulling in the revenue that they thought it would. There is a reason for their "change in direction" of development. They have obviously figured out which type of added content brings players in steadily and results in higher profits. I applaud them for not giving up or just trying to sustain.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?