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Guildwars hit 2.5 million :D

exanimoexanimo Member UncommonPosts: 1,301
in The Pub at MMORPG.COM

Also a good read from gigaOM

http://gigaom.com/2006/10/26/guild-wars/

Inside the World of Guild Wars
Written by
Wagner James Au
- Posted Thursday, October 26 at 10:30 AM 1Unless you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ve probably never heard of Guild Wars2, and that would be strange, because after World of Warcraft, it’s arguably the biggest success story in MMORPG gaming. Its 2.5 million player base makes it second only to Warcraft, but it’s not even listed on MMOGchart.com3, the online world tracker that’s become, if only by default, the industry standard. Guild Wars isn’t strictly an MMO (the publisher, NCsoft4, refers to it as a CORPG, for “competitive online role-playing game”), and that might partly explain the relative dearth of attention: the industry isn’t sure how to categorize it. Then again, the lack of monthly subscriptions is probably another part of the problem: the industry isn’t sure how Guild Wars makes money, or is nervous that they do.

But how exactly can a company profit from a game with millions of players online, without charging regular fees? That’s something I wanted to know too. To get that answer, I talked with Robert Garriott, CEO and President of NCsoft of North America (and brother to Ultima creator Richard “Lord British” Garriott), and asked.


5

Guild Wars from the Server Side


When NCSoft acquired Arena Net, Guild Wars’ developer, Garriott and his team discerned an audience not being served by the traditional subscription-based MMO. (“There’s a large number of people who don’t want to pay 15 dollars a month”, as he puts it.) Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to capture that niche, with community and help tools that minimized the need for frequent customer service– a key money sink for MMOs. By Garriott’s estimate, Guild Wars incurs 80% less support costs than NCsoft’s more traditional MMOs, like their Lineage6 series. There are no Game Masters in Guild Wars, wandering around the world settling disputes and helping players—and charging NCsoft by the hour.


The other cost-saving feature comes from economy of bandwidth. MMO players know all about long download times, when a game has an update, with patches that often exceed 100 megabytes, and thousands of players simultaneously piling on, to get it. (“It can cost us a million dollars for an update patch,” Garriott says of other NCSoft MMOs. “You peak when you release a giant download.”) By contrast, Guild Wars streams its updates in small chunks, depending on what part of the world you’re in. “Instead of having peaks of bandwidth usage… [the update] streams it evenly over time, so the costs don’t peak.” Numerous areas and quests in the world are “instantiated”, meaning specially created only for a small group of players, and that also minimizes bandwidth, since it means tracking less player data across the wider world. Garriott estimates 100,000 people play Guild Wars across the US and EU at any given time, and 1.5-2 million total every month—and still, connection costs remain manageable.


MMO as Book Series


But how does NCsoft make money without monthly subscriptions? Here, Garriott likens the Guild Wars revenue model not to other MMOs, but a series of fantasy novels. The game comes with numerous sequels and expansions, which add to the world and the larger narrative. “You buy one book, you buy number one, number two… We figure people will read all of the chapters.” The risk is that a player buys just one, but, says Garriott, “If we can provide a compelling enough game, people want to play through the whole game.” As of a few months ago, 2.5 million people have bought Guild Wars. (The next standalone edition, Nightfall, goes on sale this week.)


Guild Lessons <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]-->So far, most MMOs based in the US/EU are monthly subscriber-based and adhere fairly closely to design elements innovated by early online worlds like Everquest and Ultima Online. Robert Garriott’s fear is too many developers are rushing to recreate World of Warcraft, and will end up with twenty imitations that don’t grow the market. “People should be taking risks to do different things and try to expand the market and business model and game design,” he says. If Guild Wars keeps succeeding, they may have to.


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Comments

  • RyotRyot Member Posts: 12

    First of all, good for Guild Wars, it's an impressive mark for any PC game, MMO or otherwise.

    That said, I want to point out two things:

    1. 170k subscribers for 12 months is the same profit as 1 million boxed sales.  So by that logic, Guild Wars is making the equivalent of 425k subscribers.  That's still impressive, but not 2.5 million impressive.  (I can't find a link to where I read the 170k subs = 1 mill boxes info, but I'll post it later if I do.)

    2. If you are selling a series of fantasy novels, you don't have to pay for upkeep for your readers to use the servers and customer service.  Similar to single player games that are "fire and forget", the company doesn't have to keep shelling out money to support the game.  That's usually why MMOs have had subscription fees.

  • AwakenedAwakened Member UncommonPosts: 595

    Rofl, they need to sell novels to make money.  Releasing a $50 expansion every 3 months equates to $16.66 dollars a month, the same as if they just had monthly subscriptions.  The GW business model is pretty solid, even favorable.  Not only do they make about the same amount as if they had monthly subscriptions, but the players get a more or less garuanteed new expansion on a regular basis.  Everyone wins - it's just too bad I don't like the gameplay enough to pay for any of it. 

    The do lose the bonus of up front sells if you calculate it into monthly payments, but a lot of games basiacally give their games away to get those monthly subsctiptions coming in.

    What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?

  • BuZZKilgoreBuZZKilgore Member Posts: 525
    Originally posted by Awakened
    Rofl, they need to sell novels to make money.  Releasing a $50 expansion every 3 months equates to $16.66 dollars a month, the same as if they just had monthly subscriptions.  The GW business model is pretty solid, even favorable.  Not only do they make about the same amount as if they had monthly subscriptions, but the players get a more or less garuanteed new expansion on a regular basis.  Everyone wins - it's just too bad I don't like the gameplay enough to pay for any of it.  The do lose the bonus of up front sells if you calculate it into monthly payments, but a lot of games basiacally give their games away to get those monthly subsctiptions coming in.
    The difference is that nobody is forcing you to buy the expansions every 6 months.


  • QSatuQSatu Member UncommonPosts: 1,796

    The most interesting thing about this article is the part about their servers..
    1mil for 1 update? I didn't know it can cost that much.
    I wonder why other companies wont try to use similar technology to cut bandwith costs. I know GW is instanced but why other mmos won't try to stream updates etc.


  • AwakenedAwakened Member UncommonPosts: 595


    Originally posted by BuZZKilgore



    Originally posted by Awakened

    Rofl, they need to sell novels to make money.  Releasing a $50 expansion every 3 months equates to $16.66 dollars a month, the same as if they just had monthly subscriptions.  The GW business model is pretty solid, even favorable.  Not only do they make about the same amount as if they had monthly subscriptions, but the players get a more or less garuanteed new expansion on a regular basis.  Everyone wins - it's just too bad I don't like the gameplay enough to pay for any of it. 
    The do lose the bonus of up front sells if you calculate it into monthly payments, but a lot of games basiacally give their games away to get those monthly subsctiptions coming in.

    The difference is that nobody is forcing you to buy the expansions every 6 months.


    That's right, and it certainly could backfire on them, but how much more likely are they to gain new subscribers by releasing these expansions on a regular basis as opposed to one every 1-2 years?  It's not pefect, but I still think it's a good approach.

    What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?

  • AelfinnAelfinn Member Posts: 3,857
    Hmm, I guess I still play GW after all, they are counting me as an active subscriber in that estimate. Even though I uninstalled the bloody game and threw away the discs 2 weeks after buying it.

    No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
    Hemingway

  • PrecusorPrecusor Member UncommonPosts: 3,589
    2.5 milll is an empressive amount.. grats
  • GameloadingGameloading Member UncommonPosts: 14,182


    Originally posted by neoteo

    Also a good read from gigaOM
    http://gigaom.com/2006/10/26/guild-wars/
    Inside the World of Guild Wars
    Written by
    Wagner James Au
    - Posted Thursday, October 26 at 10:30 AM 1Unless you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ve probably never heard of Guild Wars2, and that would be strange, because after World of Warcraft, it’s arguably the biggest success story in MMORPG gaming. Its 2.5 million player base makes it second only to Warcraft, but it’s not even listed on MMOGchart.com3, the online world tracker that’s become, if only by default, the industry standard. Guild Wars isn’t strictly an MMO (the publisher, NCsoft4, refers to it as a CORPG, for “competitive online role-playing game”), and that might partly explain the relative dearth of attention: the industry isn’t sure how to categorize it. Then again, the lack of monthly subscriptions is probably another part of the problem: the industry isn’t sure how Guild Wars makes money, or is nervous that they do.
    But how exactly can a company profit from a game with millions of players online, without charging regular fees? That’s something I wanted to know too. To get that answer, I talked with Robert Garriott, CEO and President of NCsoft of North America (and brother to Ultima creator Richard “Lord British” Garriott), and asked.

    5
    Guild Wars from the Server Side

    When NCSoft acquired Arena Net, Guild Wars’ developer, Garriott and his team discerned an audience not being served by the traditional subscription-based MMO. (“There’s a large number of people who don’t want to pay 15 dollars a month”, as he puts it.) Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to capture that niche, with community and help tools that minimized the need for frequent customer service– a key money sink for MMOs. By Garriott’s estimate, Guild Wars incurs 80% less support costs than NCsoft’s more traditional MMOs, like their Lineage6 series. There are no Game Masters in Guild Wars, wandering around the world settling disputes and helping players—and charging NCsoft by the hour.

    The other cost-saving feature comes from economy of bandwidth. MMO players know all about long download times, when a game has an update, with patches that often exceed 100 megabytes, and thousands of players simultaneously piling on, to get it. (“It can cost us a million dollars for an update patch,” Garriott says of other NCSoft MMOs. “You peak when you release a giant download.”) By contrast, Guild Wars streams its updates in small chunks, depending on what part of the world you’re in. “Instead of having peaks of bandwidth usage… [the update] streams it evenly over time, so the costs don’t peak.” Numerous areas and quests in the world are “instantiated”, meaning specially created only for a small group of players, and that also minimizes bandwidth, since it means tracking less player data across the wider world. Garriott estimates 100,000 people play Guild Wars across the US and EU at any given time, and 1.5-2 million total every month—and still, connection costs remain manageable.

    MMO as Book Series

    But how does NCsoft make money without monthly subscriptions? Here, Garriott likens the Guild Wars revenue model not to other MMOs, but a series of fantasy novels. The game comes with numerous sequels and expansions, which add to the world and the larger narrative. “You buy one book, you buy number one, number two… We figure people will read all of the chapters.” The risk is that a player buys just one, but, says Garriott, “If we can provide a compelling enough game, people want to play through the whole game.” As of a few months ago, 2.5 million people have bought Guild Wars. (The next standalone edition, Nightfall, goes on sale this week.)

    Guild Lessons <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]-->So far, most MMOs based in the US/EU are monthly subscriber-based and adhere fairly closely to design elements innovated by early online worlds like Everquest and Ultima Online. Robert Garriott’s fear is too many developers are rushing to recreate World of Warcraft, and will end up with twenty imitations that don’t grow the market. “People should be taking risks to do different things and try to expand the market and business model and game design,” he says. If Guild Wars keeps succeeding, they may have to.



    Wrong.
  • AethiosAethios Member Posts: 1,527

    Originally posted by Ryot
    1. 170k subscribers for 12 months is the same profit as 1 million boxed sales. So by that logic, Guild Wars is making the equivalent of 425k subscribers. That's still impressive, but not 2.5 million impressive. (I can't find a link to where I read the 170k subs = 1 mill boxes info, but I'll post it later if I do.)

    2,500,000 boxes x $50 each = $125,000,000
    $125,000,000 / $15 per month = 8,333,333 total months of subscriptions
    8,333,333 / 20 months (since original release) = 416,666 subscribers per month

    I agree, the numbers aren't bad, and indicative of a game on solid footing. Why is it then that there have been so many reports of ArenaNet going broke?

    Personally I can't stand the game, but it's not easily dismissed as a major MMO title.

  • AelfinnAelfinn Member Posts: 3,857


    Originally posted by Aethios




    Originally posted by Ryot
    1. 170k subscribers for 12 months is the same profit as 1 million boxed sales. So by that logic, Guild Wars is making the equivalent of 425k subscribers. That's still impressive, but not 2.5 million impressive. (I can't find a link to where I read the 170k subs = 1 mill boxes info, but I'll post it later if I do.)

    2,500,000 boxes x $50 each = $125,000,000
    $125,000,000 / $15 per month = 8,333,333 total months of subscriptions
    8,333,333 / 20 months (since original release) = 416,666 subscribers per month

    I agree, the numbers aren't bad, and indicative of a game on solid footing. Why is it then that there have been so many reports of ArenaNet going broke?

    Personally I can't stand the game, but it's not easily dismissed as a major MMO title.



    I bought the box for $20 myself

    No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
    Hemingway

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