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Guild Wars 2 Game Director and VP of Marketing Both Leave ArenaNet
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Guild Wars 2 Game Director and VP of Marketing Both Leave ArenaNet
It looks like Guild Wars 2 Game Director, Mike Zadorojny, and VP of Marketing, Mike Silbowitz, have both departed ArenaNet.
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(Also, how many Mikes does Anet have?!)
To be honest, my Feels about Anet, were that they had a very talented staff or very creative people, that totally lacked any direction, and pretty much everything after Core was reactionary content, not pre-planned, and I firmly believe they had originally planned to dump GW2 within 5 years, and make a GW3, just like they did with the GW1, because that is all they knew, and really understood.
So I can't blame many of their long standing people to jump ship when they realized they were being saddled with a game far longer then they ever planned to be.
This would explain their willingness to toss out all kinds of IMHO stupid ideas, and things that would directly hurt the longevity of the game, and flop around all over the place to whoever cried the most.
I legit, at this point, believe all the original people expected this project to be maintenance mode by now, and be launching a GW3 either already, or within the next year.
Mike drops... and they walk off.
Unfortunately for them, the bottom dropped out of the MMO market and transitioned heavily to MOBA's and then Hero Shooters...
Remember, NCSoft also published the dumpster fire known as WildStar and I think that after it crashed and burned a horrible death with such a huge investment, that they and ArenaNet both got cold feet about investing in GW3 just for it to get buried a few months after launch.
Better to keep GW2 running for as long as possible since those development resources have already been spent and its still earning money.
In the MassivelyOP article, the writer suggests that Mike Z apparently left in October and never announced it, and some guy named John Taylor is actually the new game director now.
I couldn't find John Taylor on Linkedin to confirm if he changed his title to new game director. I'd find it quite puzzling that Mike Z would just leave without saying anything. I'd honestly wait for more information coming from the actual source rather then spread what looks to be a rumor.
They had that whole second tree for the sylvari lined up, with Malyck, it was all already set up from the start.. So.. Yah.. I could totally buy into the fact they had those first 5 years of living world/living story planned.. and when HoT came to launch.. they were just flying by the seat of their pants, flinging out whatever they thought would sell.
I really remember Mike O, overselling HoT, and then after it went live, it was like a huge clusterfuck of issues, and problems, and what have you.
So.. yah.. I'd buy into your point with this.
My take and sure seems obvious to me is these people got to see first hand just how easy it can be to put out alot of the games we see making money.
Like all the ARPG games like the Diablo's,POE's are VERY easy games to make for any startup developer.
Another type game would be Moba's or a game like Starcraft,again very low cost,low risk,easy to pull off with a very small team.
So then what these small upstart devs do is use their past portfolio to sell themselves ..like "look at me,i worked on Diablo etc etc".Then of course they invite the press,media outlets in hopes of getting some endorsements,some favorable write ups.They wine and dine,pay for the media's boarding,give them a tour of the studio,really butter them up.
So then after all is in place,the hype meter goes up for no reason at all,just some pre marketing hype and it assures enough pre order sales will roll in or in case,some crowd funding in forms of founders packs.
So these devs have seen how easy it is to pull off GW2,imo a rather shallow game,so they figure they can do this on a much smaller scale,you know maybe a BR or some cheap shooter.You can bet these guys have seen all the tropes,they know all the simple gimmicks to hype up their game by using simple terms like ...RAIDS...open world....lots of loot...mounts..etc etc.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
did you really say that in 2020? /facepalm
But in case you didn't know, the name Guild Wars comes from the War between the different Human Guilds in the lore. It has nothing to do with player made guilds in game.
Yeah, in the same way Darth Vader was ALWAYS supposed to be Luke's father
The comparison here makes no sense.
But I can see how the game could come across as mislead, but then again, IIRC, the original GW, was PvE only.
I never had any sympathy for this game. I tried it when they made it F2P and I hated it the moment I began playing.
It's hard to describe how horrible and low effort that game is. From the pretentious looking UI that looks like it was made with a paint brush, which looks both very ugly and confusing to navigate, to the dumb engine they used for the game that makes it run poorly on pretty much anything, to the uninspired gameplay ... and worst of all - the art style - being set in a world that's at the brink of an industrial revolution or whatever with the most unpleasant looking architecture, gear and weapons... especially "boomsticks" ... er, I mean rifles.
And don't even get me started on how ugly their races look - mushrom/tree people? ... some cat-like creatures that are so ugly my monitor broke? ... some inbred, prematurely delivered small fetuses? The hell?!?! I've seen games like Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k) where the grim art style direction is not for everyone, but at least it looks nice even if it's not your cup of tea... but GW2.... holy shit, that one dumpster fire of a game every way you look at it. Wow!
Maybe for some the game was good and they liked it, but I could not find a single thing about it that looks fine. I've seen F2P Asian games from like 2003 that look and play better than this garbage.
With that said, I don't care the slightest what happens to it, I will be somewhat glad if everyone leaves the company and the game shuts down, because it's one huge stain in the MMORPG market.
I have no idea how this new expansion will turn out in the end but one of my favorite developers from anet is coming back to the company because of the new expansion. I don't have high hopes but they are doing pretty good job these days with the new releases. 2v2 arena was pretty enjoyable and I really like their balance chances. I like their announcements for the future updates, especially wvw and pvp focused ones, and now we have Cantha coming back to the game which is a huge positive for me. I'm hopeful but not delusional and thank god I'm no a negative nancy. So I'm gonna follow the updates and see what they're gonna do with the new changes to the game.
I wish him good fortune, but, keep in mind, when a turnover at the top happens, IE: MO leaving, and a new person coming in, there will often be a huge turnover going down the ranks. This is not anything to worry about, it is, just the way a things happen.
Matthew Medina chose to leave like people like Josh Foreman, Gaile Gray and a lot of older Anet devs to give the younger and newer generation to stay.
I completely agree with you not just because Z is the game director but he has been a part of Anet since before Factions release. He went through the ranks going from QA tester, to QA lead to designer all the way to Game Director the fact the community has not heard anything about this is disrespectful to both Z and the community.
Original gw had the main focus as pvp not pve.
But just like GW2, it did an excellent job of separating PvE and PvP, such that you could play one without ever needing to dip into the other.
I wouldn't go that far. PvP was a major component of the game, but the PvE component was substantial. They wouldn't have made multiple entire story campaigns if their main focus was PvP.