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Why I Didn't Buy Guild Wars 2
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It does doesn't it. This has to be one of the first times I ever heard of a company selling out of digital copies, especially the cheaper version.
I'm sorry that you face this difficult situation, but ANet CAN'T tell Best Buy and other retailers to not sell the already in-store copies unless there's a major problem with them, i.e. a product recall. Retailers purchase the box copy and while none of the actual game software belongs to them, the box copies they purchase do. ANet really didn't have any other options. It sucks that you got hurt by it, but your situation is fairly individual and sometimes the "needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," to quote Star Trek.
As a clinical social worker, I get that you're upset, and that this is one more pain-in-the-ass your situation has thrown you, but your rant isn't reasonable. They had to do something, or the whole project would have gone south. It is your misfortune that this happened, but you also chose to live in an area that is so remote that Amazon can't deliver directly to you. As someone who lives in rural Northern Arizona and can have mail brought directly to my door step, I have an idea what the locale you live in has to be like. And I accept that there are conviences in Phoenix and Flagstaff that I do not have access to, let alone what you have chosen to go without. But you chose to go without them. Yes, it's difficult to move, even harder if you're disabled, but it's not impossible. Our decisions have consequences. You have picked a place you want to be home, and you have to tolerate the inconviences that come with it, just like the rest of us in rural America.
Btw, looks like Best Buy actually has digital edition in stock.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Guild+Wars+2+-+Windows+%5BDigital+Download%5D/1000002442.p?id=1000002441&skuId=1000002442&st=guild%20wars&lp=2&cp=1
How about you come out and admit you went out specifically to look for retailers that are sold out. huh?
The title of this thread should read:
"I didn't buy Guild Wars 2 because I didn't wanted to and never intented to!"
Why? Because of the following points:
- if he really were looking forward to play this game he would had bought it from a retailer in either digital or box form
- he wouldn't had started a obvious argument in the forums with everyone that tells him otherwise in such a selfish and childish manner
- last but not least, he wouldn't immediately put down every single explanation given to him because "he knows all better anyway", marking it as a excuse.
Due to this I would suggest to everyone to stop wasting their time with such people cause no matter what you guys would bring up to prove him wrong or give him other possibilities he wouldn't care anyway.
It's one thing to be dissatisfied with something and voice your opinion but a totally different one when you set your opinion above everyone elses no matter what, even there were various ways to actually satisfy yourself in the first place.
If they've sold past expectations.... they've broken their sales targets and can tolerate the lost future-sales resulting from shutting down digital sales. The damage to their credibility from doing that is likely far, far lower than the damage done by server instability as a result of massive overpopulation. You'll spread some bad press via word of mouth, and so will a few others, but that's nothing compared to what would happen if they let the servers crash and make the game experience miserable for those who have bought in already.
It sucks, I know, but from their end: pissing you off is the lesser of evils.
Also: I've worked in retail, and your expectations of what is possible with regards to "paying attention to their customer base" with regards to level of demand are somewhat unreasonable. Even with the best tools at our disposal, it's still a big guessing game at the end. Of course, this is not something I'd ever tell you to your face while you were in my store because that's just drilled out of us. But I'd be thinking it the whole time you were there.
As I see it you are the one missing out, but that is not really my problem. There are new servers out now even though some of the prelaunch servers are still full, my guild just moved a medium server this weekend.
That digital copies were down for a few days does not seem that odd, buying and setting up new servers actually take a few days and you could easily have bought a hard copy instead. Wow was really hard to get for several months here after launch as well because Blizzard didnt think the game would be so large.
...?
Do you have any proof that Arenanet is sending out more shipments of boxes? Even if they are, do you have any proof that they were not shipments they guaranteed to send out?
Also, they probably make more profit off a digital copy they sell at their own store, than even a collector's edition they sell out of somebody else's store.
I mean, they get ALL the digital copy money, after all.
Just look how low collector's editions drop when they prove unpopular at retail stores. The retail stores aren't giving 140 dollars to Arenanet, not even 100 dollars... or even 60 bucks.
All other things aside for a moment, I think you at least should man up and admit your 'making more money' conspiracy theory doesn't make any sense. Digital copies sold by Arenanet are 100% profit. Boxes they sell at stores are considerably less money. You can still get regular editions at places like Gamestop.
Maybe you should consider that some of these "morons and jerks" (thanks for the insults btw) understand Business and now how Marketing, Sales and Buys work which you obviously don't after you say it's all a "justification".
The german Amazon had many boxes ordered for sale prior to april 2012. I got my copy (a box with a code only since I had to download the game after I registered the code) at the 7th april.
Before the beta events were done, Amazon were sold out already.
They linked to other retailers that might have a copy.
Some overpriced it by cause to make more money out of the situation which wasn't ANets fault since the retailer can apply the price they think is right to them.
Before launch another huge amount of copies were delivered to all retailers that had ordered copies so if some of them still have copies available that doesn't mean that they can still place orders to ANet and get further copies, it means that they still have some available from their last order.
Depending on the game, the deals available(amount of boxes per order), a retailer orders 10 or even 100s of copies.
So it definately can be the case that some retailers still have copies from their last delivery which in that case it could had been a order placed like 2 days before the decision on ANets part has falled that no more copies are getting sold for now.
Ever thought of that?
You also placing it as a excuse and call other "fanboys" (immature much?) only because they are telling you that putting up more servers or expanding the already huge infrastructure of their databases is not as easy as you think.
Yet you put them down only because you think everything can be done in a snap as if it were nothing, as a IT-Supporter and a Data Processing Commercial Clerk I can tell you for sure that it's NOT as easy as you think it is.
So maybe you should put some thought into all of these things, before putting everyone that tells you are wrong with your assumptions down insulting them in one of the most immature ways ever.
If you don't have a retailer near you there are many online ones with downloadable digital versions.
I'm sure you could had been having fun by now with the product for a long time instead of wasting so much time insulting other people in the forums.
Have a good life and all the best for you!
I don't see why this is difficult to grasp as to why there are still physical copies out there. Arenanet sells X number of physical copies. Lets say X equals 500k. So We have a constant value out there that can represent X physical copies. Disclaimer these numbers below are just arbitrary for abstraction purposes.
The Digital copies are Y number of copies from various third party distros. Y can also be quantified because generally software developers provide batches of keys and will replenish them upon request. So Let's say Y equals 200k keys floating out there. So again we have a constant value that can represent Y digital 3rd party copies.
Arenanets first party keys are Z number of digital copies. Arenanet is the first party company and may very well have a system to generate keys on the fly and store them in their database (I know my company does for our digital products). So Z is a dynamic variable in the equation and is solely based on how many copies they sell first hand.
So we have X(500k) + Y(200k) + Z = (Number of Copies Sold)
So we know that Z = (Number of Copies Sold) - 700k
So at a minimum the initial (Server Capacity) = 700k + Z
There can be forecasts as to how much Z is, so lets just say Arenanet predicts Z will equal 200k, and therefore they can build there server capacity around that number. More then likely they padded the number for room to grow, but as to how far that grows no one can realistically know.
In the present scenario Z (number of 1st party copies sold) must have exceeded their estimates. Thus the reason to disable first party sales. It would also make sense that they stop providing new batches to 3rd parties, and halt new physical copies from entering the wild. As to the CE being available, it must be within their forecasts that sales of CE's will not spike significantly enough to harm server performance. Although sales for CE's may be slightly boosted due to the scarcity.
So TL:DR I used some basic high school algebra to show why it would make sense that physical copies are still being sold. The physical copies are still within the bounds of their initial server capacity requirements figures and limiting sales will allow them to readjust their equation when they are ready.
My personal opinion on the matter. I think that they are trying to avoid adding new servers unless absolutely necessary. As it has been demonstrated throughout the years, all new MMO's inevitably decline harshly after the first few months. If you over expand, then you have dead servers which result in lower morale and people leaving
After that they announce merges, which in turn cause another morale hit and people leave. Which lead into another set of merges which lead to more people leaving! I think they are just trying to mitigate this inevitable death spiral that has plagued many overly enthusiatic MMO's.
I see, so needing to "rearrange your complete infrastructure" a few weeks after release doesn't support my statements of bad business decisions and poor planning? lol Actually, it's a perfect example. An excuse is a justification for failure. They dropped the ball. As someone else pointed out, they don't care. That person spoke as if their only choices were to have poor game quality or stop selling digital copies.
My assertion is there were options, they just did not take advantage of them. They were simply not prepared and it is glaringly evident. While my first instinct was "greed", that was because I falsely assumed they knew what they were doing. Listening to all the excuses here it's evident the problem was incompetence.
Doesn't matter how good a game is, if the first impression is a bad one. Look at Age of Conan. That's actually a very good game. It has a lot of content, player built guild cities, a fun and unique to MMOs combat style, amazing graphics, blood, gore, decapitations and other types of fatalities, adult content (nudity as well as mature subject matter quests) and F2P with subscriptions also. Tons of stuff to set it apart from others in the genre. But the game is dying. Why? Because its launch was horrible and few people even look at it because of that.
I may be the only one posting here about my first experience with this company, but I'm not the only one who won't even look at it because of that. Ask Funcom, they learned the hard way just how many people don't look back once they move on to something else.
And even when they are offering the $14.95 digital download version in six to eight months, I'll remember the responses I got here and say to myself, no way.
Except the $150 version. That IS kinda shady if you ask me.
you know U CAN BUY RETAIL VERSION FROM SHOP easily for 60 $ ? -___- BIG BIG *face palm*
EDIT:PS: I was watching videos and previews long long time ago,more than a year ago -__- and if u really wanted to play you could just simlpy buy it pre-purchase that I did on April 10. it was long time ago sersily ;/ ur kind of SLOW doing it now... if u really wanna play just wait for Digital version be for sale again... simple?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYEQRAoY6alUmaO3ey3E+5Ex2jdqTey9woKtpdFwKA;TwAg0CnowxgjAHbNOck4siYMyGiJGA
Another great post reflecting poor judgement of the company. Artificially limiting the number of sales because you are afraid of "losing people" later on down the road due to server mergers makes absolutely no sense in a game that has no monthly subscriptions. The company does not need to be concerned with long term player retention. This is a completely free to play game. They can count on a good chunk of the people sticking around because, well, they've already invested.
Initial sales is where you make your big bucks. Every month out is a month closer to wholesale. As I've pointed out, look at SWTOR. That game sells for $14.95 now at stores. You can get the Guild Wars platinum edition (with expansion) for $19.99 now. The window for maximum revenue per sale is a short one. Losing countless numbers of sales so close to the launch is a serious blunder, no matter many excuses you make for why they were not prepared.
You obviously didn't bother to read the thread you posted in.
*returns your face palm* You need it more than me.
*Snip*
dp
This post does not add up.
They did not stop retail versions and the CE is not a digital version unless you want to believe that physical items can be downloaded and of course the fact that the most expensive 'supahduhluxe' versions will always be the last ones still availlable when the game is sold out otherwise.
Also you dont just add a couple of servers, this is not your bedroom webhosting notebook and there are other reasons to not to want a X amount of servers since if you make to many you will have to start server mergers soon after and it will be all over the media and then you will be crying here that 'the game is dyingz'.
And GW2 had more then TWICE the amount of players loggin in on the official launch day then WoW did for instance. It had nothing to do with greed , it was exactly like they said for quality concerns.
They held back sales how is that greed? lol
In any buiseness you know you never want to run out of stock of a popular product because ppl will simply walk over to the other side of the street and buy something similar on that same day or nothing at all and let it pass. If anything they are aware that it loses sales.
You being a prime example of this.
economics 101
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Yep.
GW2 is selling too much too fast.
I remember the days when people said "1 million sign ups for a free-beta doesn't equate to 1 million pre-purchases. Many entered several sign-ups. Maybe they will sell 250K pre-purchases with luck"
Come release.
Anet: "We sold over 1 million pre-purchases".
People: "Pretty much everyone that wants to play the game pre-purchased. They won't sell that many more".
Game almost sold out.
"Anet faills! They should know that GW2 would have the biggest population of any MMORPG at launch".
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
OP you joined this forum in 2007 and only posted 18 times..... you surely started the hate posts in time for GW2.... If you cant understand that you are wrong then just go away and dont buy anything.... The way you sound when rambling about gw2 and the sales shows that you know nothing and someone told you some crap about it and you went out of your mind making assumptions and stories to blame about.....
people told you 32453453453453455 times in this thread that you dont have to buy a 150 bucks CE..... you can get the 60$ version from Amazon, gamestop, etc etc etc etc etc etc..... AND etc.
Take it or leave it, your the only one leaving a bad taste here. By the way.... dont buy the game... cant imagine you crying on general chat as well.
EDIT: do you work for EA by any means? lol