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GW2, does the current financial system work as expected?
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
I found this article from a few months back on eurogamer.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2
and while the game is still running, people at NC soft agree the game is underperforming financially after the initial release.
Sure there is a payed expansion pack upcomming, which will sell big, but its not even announced yet, so my best bet is a late 2015 release. Their current shop items do not sell well, real money exchange slowly drops in numbers. They are selling story parts now to people that havent logged in timely... Indicating they broke their promise of free content updates a lttle..
with an expansion pack so far away, it just got me wondering how they want to make money to pay their current bills, after all they still have 350 people working on the game...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
They did sell a huge amount of games in China recently and even if they get a lot less from that it should still have put in a healthy sum to ANET.
As for guessing the expansion or new campaigns release I just wouldn't, with the first game they released 2 huge campaigns with just 6 months between them and we have no clue whatsoever how far their work have come now.
GW2 do get less for each player than Wow but so far they have increased personal, not fired people unlike certain other companies so I wouldn't worry too much about the finances. There is no way NC soft would allow then to increase the workforce if they were losing money.
Game should have focussed on what it supposed to be dynamic events in open world not dungeons runs.
Also should have kept the difficulty as it was in first beta weekend.
Reasons i quit was dumb down so it was easy and dungeon grind and result empty world.
Ive played beta weekends which where great and 5 months into launched game. But when world was empty and only saw people running mist dungeon i quit.
Shame i liked GW2 and thought it was great looking diverse game world one of the best under water worlds and combats(which btw also so many complained about sadly) no i won't ever comeback.
I still have my charr statue standing here. Yes i payed 150 euros for collectors edition only because i realy believed in this game but was betrayed by devs and gamers who only whined and complain result dumb down and grind dungeons which i hate.
Now i don't believe in MMO'S anymore sadly:(
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
My thoughts on the subject: -
They went for an extremely casual game design- and the problem is that when players are not invested in a game they are unlikely to drop money on the cash shop.
The living story was also an odd decision in a B2P monetisation model as it costs money to produce and makes little back (particularly when it is only an hour/ two hours of content a fortnight, it isn't going to keep people in the game very long or compel them to spend in the cs). They could have used the same resources to make a larger expansion/ DLC and then sold it, as they did in GW1
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Yeah, the cash shop is crap as well. Take aesthetic items as an example. Every time you change a piece of armour you have to buy some cs token to alter its appearance; as a result the vast majority of people who aren't at cap are never going to bother with cosmetic items because they become a chore rather than a pleasure.
If they had just made a costume tab, and made it free to use they could have then sold costume pieces on the cs and people might actually buy them. I know I certainly would have.
I have looked at the rest of the cs and there is just a plethora of potions and boosts, and I just don't know or care what they do. I can't be bothered looking at them all to find out let alone buying them. The range of items and the related systems are unecessarily complex; and if you want to sell stuff you should make it easy for the buyer.
No offense... but have u actually read the article?
Not only is that article written before the game launched in China (which appears to have actually been a big success), but the one point you focus on is only referencing to their sales numbers dropping since launch.
Something that literally EVERY game goes through. Immediately after that Anet talks about how their sales numbers were dropping, but they weren't dropping nearly as quickly as they had predicted. Which is a good thing.
- As for numbers from their actual cash shop, I haven't seen any real figures. Last I checked the exchange rate for gems hasn't fluctuated drastically in either direction (which indicates that around the same amount of gems are still being purchased and traded in game). I know there are quite a few items in the shop that I personally have no interest in. And I wouldn't be surprised if most others didn't either. However, they do have some stuff in there that I know a lot of people wanted (like some of their PvP finishers, and some of the skins).
Honestly, I logged in a few days ago just to check out the new content. Not only has the game changed a lot, (though the core gameplay is still the same) but there are still a ton of people playing, even though my server has dropped down to like the 8-10th slot tier-wise.
If this is a game that's supposed to be dying, it looks to be in MUCH better shape than most other mmos on the market currently. It may not appeal to everyone, but it definitely doesn't appear to be struggling. And if you are to trust your own article, Anet's hiring as well, which indicates growth.
Thus far every recent major update has centered around dynamic events, and giant open-world boss fights.
Heck the new zone is literally just a series of boss fights, jumping puzzles, and dynamic events.
I agree with you on dungeon difficulty (too many babies whined about it), but there is still some challenge (though mostly from fractals). However, aside from dungeons the rest of the game is what you just said u wanted.
So, who knows what you're actually looking for.
I'm a bit puzzled now.
I didn't see Anet agreeing that they are financially underperforming.
Every other company is having big layoffs and Anet is still hiring people instead and you point that out as something negative.
Is your post meant to be ironic and we just didn't get it?
Well, all those companies with big layoffs are obviously making enough money they can afford the severance packages.
While Arenanet is losing so much money they are desperately hiring lots of extra employees in an attempt to keep from going under, which is pretty standard business practice.
It makes more sense when you think about it that way.
I honestly don't think he read his own link.
I think he got to the second paragraph, where it says in bold 'Anet sales dropped after initial launch' and called it a day.
A lot of people do that on these forums. They want to make a point, so they find something they think backs up their own point, and link to it as proof, without actually reading / listening to the full thing to make sure it actually says what they assume it does.
What you describe with the transmutation charge with the skins is unforgivable You buy a skin but its not a cover, it takes on your current armors stats, then you have to buy additional stuff to take the skins off that armor. I can not tell you how many issues have come up and upset players. I have used the cash up but only to upgrade my bank to an additional slot. The whole skins debacle and listening to what people have gone through has left me sour on the cash shop.
LOL
How many of those laid off do you actually believe got a severance package. Most don't. Furthermore, I don't know if you're trying to be sarcastic, but hiring employees to 'keep from going under' is not only an incredibly stupid idea, but far from standard business practice. Unless you're job is to deliberately tank companies. Except, even then they typically do it by gouging the company's employee base, to maximize profits, and then liquidate it after it has no chance to recover.
I'm not sure what world you're living in, but I hope you didn't pay for that business degree ;p
I think that was a pretty good example of Poe's Law in action, I guess. :c
The transmutation thing is indeed kind of annoying, but it doesn't work exactly how you described. And indeed it's actually better than the old system once you understand it (except for the fact that you could sometimes randomly get transmutation stones as a drop in the past. Though maybe they'll do the same w/ charges in the future).
When you buy a skin off the store it isn't unlocked yet. You get an item mailed to you. You then can choose when you want to apply it, and what item you want to apply it to. So if you want specific stats, u can then craft / buy an exotic (or w/e) with the stats you want, and THEN apply the skin.
The transmutation charges literally work like transmute stones. The difference is that you now have all your unlocked skins 'stored' to use whenever. You don't have to buy a new weapon with a skin you want every time you want to transmute. It's just saved in your wardrobe tab for future use. You still have to transmute to apply the skin (just like u needed to use the stones when the game first launched), but you can reapply that same skin (regardless of where it came from) as many times as you have charges.
You can also (just like the rest of the shop) still use in-game currency to buy charges. And making money in this game is really not that hard (I played for a day yesterday, first time in about a year, and I made 20g without even really trying).
Indeed.
Sarcasm doesn't often carry over well
Uhm, transmutation stones were never drops. They were rewards for dailies/map completion. Which you can still get!
There's a lot of way to get transmutation charges without getting gems, too. Map completion (Guaranteed from city maps, in fact), finishing dailies, black lion key farming, or just playing spvp.
Because I do my dailies every day and do a decent amount of spvp, I have over a hundred charges, and that's AFTER I've dressed up and made a couple outfit sets for 10 different characters.
Which is a far, far worse system than the straight forward costume slots in most other mmo's.
Because it's a good chunk of their monetization system, so of course that'd end up being annoying.
Having to pay money is annoying.
... but all those MMOs have SOMETHING where they gouge you for money, and that's where their annoying parts are.
Yeah, if you took all the annoying monetization out of games that'd be great! They'd also be 100% free!
And the companies would go out of business.
No, that's not what is annoying about it. As I said before it actually acts a disincentive to buy cosmetic items because it makes the entire process a chore rather than something that is fun.
If they just had straight-forward costume slots then I would happily buy cosmetic items off their cs, but with the current system I simply can't be bothered.
Yes, it's annoying to have to spend money on a game. However they need money to exist.
That said, while it would be nice to just have costume slots, at the same time you don't have to spend any actual money to get these items. Which is a feature no other games really have atm. Most games (including the top F2P ones) have little-no customization that you can get without spending real money.
GW2 on other hand gives you the option to do either. Which, personally I'd rather be able to use ingame gold to do. The game practically throws money at you, it's really not that hard to afford most of these things.
It doesn't need to suck a subscription from your veins to stay afloat like some other game out there... that alone makes it a <yeah you read right, that game> killer!
This is the third time I've stated this: -
No, that's not what is annoying about it. As I said before it actually acts a disincentive to buy cosmetic items because it makes the entire process a chore rather than something that is fun.
If they just had straight-forward costume slots then I would happily buy cosmetic items off their cs, but with the current system I simply can't be bothered.