Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
And what if Anet does the same and even better in terms of updates with no monthly fee and minimlastic cash shop? which is not even 'necessary' for players to use in order to play the game? what then? GW2 already dwarfs Rift in content and world size at release.
Sub fee pays for a lot of content updates in most games. TSW is aiming for monthly content updates and Trion has bi-monthly. Afaik you need to purchase the individual content updates in GW2. In the end, the result is the same. They money to pay the programmers has to come from somewhere.
Nowhere has it ever been stated that they guaranteed selling content updates at all. They had brought up the idea of releasing some mission packs similar to the Bonus Pack in GW1 a couple years back, but only if the community wanted it that way. They've much more recently stated they will be pushing for monthly updates to content to keep people interested, which includes adding in new Dynamic Events (which is something you definitely can't sell).
As for the idea that they'll be releasing an expansion every 6 months? Pure and utter nonsensical dribble. They've already stated that they hate that kind of release model, and was them hating that model was the big reason in the first place that led to Guild Wars: Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2. Adding an expansion to a mainly co-op online game in that time frame is one thing, its a whole new ballpark to try that with an actuall MMO, something that again makes even the idea of that possibility being nothing less than idiotic.
Was "15 bucks a month is needed for development and maintenance of MMOS" merely an excuse?
No more then 'we need a cash shop' is. Both are simply ways to monetise a service.
If a sub is not needed then neither is a cash shop.
If you are arguing for a B2P game with no further means of monetising or making a profit past the intial sale then your OP starts to make more sense.
Exactly.
Some time back, months ago in fact, one of the folks at ANet came out with the whole "Oh, subscription MMO people have to justify their subscriptions, because we don't have them and we don't need them. We only have the box fee and you pay no sub" (to paraphrase). Without actually saying it, he basically tried to imply that subscription MMO devs were ripping off their customers.
What he failed to mention (strategically neglected is more like it) is that they have a cash shop that will, most certainly, be stocked up with items that "aren't necessary" but are very much desirable to a good portion of players - enough to generate revenue for ANet.
I posed the same challenge back then. If they truly can maintain and support the game on the box fee alone, then why do they need a cash shop at all? Why not include all that content as part of the box fee that people are paying?
The answer is obvious. Because the individual who made that remark I paraphrased above was being completely dishonest and doing a PR spin-job.
Either he was lying in stating that ANet only needs the box fees to support the game and the cash shop sales are in fact necessary. Or, they really can continue on box sales alone, and the cash shop is pure profit on top of that - pretty much what he characterized subscriptions as being.
Now, before someone says "oh but the cash shop sales are optional!", let me explain something. Cash Shops being optional is completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that they work. Consistently. What's relevant is that they potentially generate far more revenue than a subscription model ever could.
There's at least two key reasons for this:
1. A cash shop is flexible. They can create and add new items. They can track what people buy the most of and put more of that kind of item on the shop to attract more business. They can remove items that aren't good enough movers.
2. A cash shop has no limit to its potential revenue. A $15 sub is a $15 sub. That's all they're going to get from each player, so their potential recurring revenue has a "hard cap" based on how many paying subscribers they have. A cash shop, on the other hand, is unlimited. It's limited only by how well the items are selling and, as I noted in #1, ANet can track and adjust the cash shop to maximize their revenue from it.
So, for those who are walking around gloating about how ANet are "all that" and how they're "not charging a sub fee which makes them better and makes sub-based MMOs look bad", blah blah blah... take a step back, look at the situation objectively - as in, not through the biased eyes of a fan (I'm asking the impossible for many, I know) - and realize ANet aren't getting by on Box Fees alone. Not by a long shot. What they've been giving people is a slick dose of semantic double-speak.
They implemented that cash shop with every intention of earning a significant revenue from it. They didn't invest the time and resources to plan, create and implement it "just for the hell of it".
Not only are they not getting by on box fees alone, the revenue model ANet has chosen stands to make them *more* money than they'd make with a subscription fee, not less.
Think about that.
Them going on about "no sub fees!" is intended to do two things:
1. Divert your attention away from the fact that they're *still* asking for more money beyond the box fee, even though they claim not to be.
2. Convince people that somehow they're doing them a favor by not having a sub-fee.
Here's another way of looking at it...
There are 100% F2P MMOs out there that dont' even charge you the box fee, but are making enough money off the cash shop to maintain and develop their games. And all those F2P cash shops are "optional" too. So if they can get by with a cash shop and no box fee, why can't ANet?
To answer the OP's question... the "secret" here is that ANet's marketing and PR are doing an A-Grade spin job on their fans/customers. And it's working.
Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
To early to answer this question .. Come back after the first content update and we might have a better idea if only the box price is enough to allow for worth while additions
They are trying to reproduce the success that was learned from Turbine in DDO and LOTRO. If you have a quality game. People will pay for it. If you have a crappy game, F2P is not going to keep it alive. Just look around at the F2P titles now pulling the plug.
Fact is, this game is not going to be cheaper than SUB games. It's just a different way to generate revenue.
I posted this before. Look at WoW and Rift. Bith games have had some very sweet deals recently. For someone who's never played MMO's before, wants to chose between the 3, with the way the deals work, playing for a year and assuming you unlock the basic comonents of GW2 that put its offerings on par with sub fee games. (Character and bank slots) Also if you consider Trion's ability to crank out content like it was on an assembly line, Even if ANet competes with that, Those added content patches inbetween expansions, that you won't pay for in Rift most likely will be DLC for gems in GW2. you are looking at 3 games all roughly in the same ball park to play for a year. I'd also be willing to bet for the vast majority of players, GW2 will be even more expensive.
Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
read the dev blogs they stated many times they will not be doing what they did with GW1 in regards to content updates. They want this game to run like a full fledged MMO with monthly DE updates.. new content in the way of new dungeons and such every couple months or so and expansions around a year to 1.5 years apart
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I agree making good game is first thing to do otherwise what payment model you use means a little... but what do you really think about all the money that you paid fin monthly fee for years? you really think it was really needed to keep servers up and developing future content? not to mention revenues of cash shops on top that + money from expansions? i don't know but for me there is new level of admiration for Anet now.
It's not just developing content or servers they have to facilitate with their monthly income, it's the whole operation, be it dev costs (salaries), support costs (customer service staff) etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
read the dev blogs they stated many times they will not be doing what they did with GW1 in regards to content updates. They want this game to run like a full fledged MMO with monthly DE updates.. new content in the way of new dungeons and such every couple months or so and expansions around a year to 1.5 years apart
There are already a few things that have not gone exactly the way the had said they wanted earlier on. Like upscale leveling. Etc. We'll see, they have stayed true to their word on a great number of things so far so. I'll believe it until proven otherwise.
Anet makes a MMO, AAA in quality. Jam packed with content. All the features that one would expect from a themepark MMOS and more. And yet it is not asking customers 15 bucks a month for it? what is it that Anet knows and rest don't?
Was "15 bucks a month is needed for development and maintenance of MMOS" merely an excuse?
I keep thinking about it and i just can not explain this. If Anet can do it (they are surely not going bankrupt now are they)...so why does other companies need monthly fee for? and for what i have been paying 15 bucks a month for last 10 years? and where did all that money of you and me go? was it really used in the development of those games?
So many questions. Please tel me i am not the only one who thinks about this and feels a little stupid for spending all that money for monthly access to MMOS. Were we just conditioned into thinking all these years that monthly fee is 'necessary' for long life of a MMO? were we being fooled?
p.s English isn't my first language so bear with me
Anet is making loot from there shop, not only that they will most likly add expacs every 6-8 months for $50 a pop to pretty much be on par with a monthly sub game.
That is what i am surprised about,. other MMOS charge monthly fee + cash shops.
So is Anet merely being nice? generous? honest? doesn't like more money? because after all its business and NCSOFT has a reputation of being 'profit oriented' maybe not to the extent of EA..but still what suits in these companies don't like more money?
So is Anet sitting on some 'board room statistical secret' which it is not sharing with other companies? or other companies already knew it and they just kept fooling us for all these years?
I would hardly call WoW selling a few pets and 2 mounts a cash shop.
Guild Wars 2 sells hundreds of things, WoW sells less than 10?
WoW Is the only sub game worth talking about, all the others are dead or dying fast.
Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
read the dev blogs they stated many times they will not be doing what they did with GW1 in regards to content updates. They want this game to run like a full fledged MMO with monthly DE updates.. new content in the way of new dungeons and such every couple months or so and expansions around a year to 1.5 years apart
There are already a few things that have not gone exactly the way the had said they wanted earlier on. Like upscale leveling. Etc. We'll see, they have stayed true to their word on a great number of things so far so. I'll believe it until proven otherwise.
fair enough but it has been their goal to run this game like a full fledged P2P game in regards to content updates so hope they keep true to that..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
read the dev blogs they stated many times they will not be doing what they did with GW1 in regards to content updates. They want this game to run like a full fledged MMO with monthly DE updates.. new content in the way of new dungeons and such every couple months or so and expansions around a year to 1.5 years apart
There are already a few things that have not gone exactly the way the had said they wanted earlier on. Like upscale leveling. Etc. We'll see, they have stayed true to their word on a great number of things so far so. I'll believe it until proven otherwise.
fair enough but it has been their goal to run this game like a full fledged P2P game in regards to content updates so hope they keep true to that..
I didn't really want to get locked into discussing weather future content wil be free or not. Because either way, I still don't see GW2 as the free or even cheaper alternative for the majority of players. Some will as they will have limited income or will have the self discipline, but I think more than will admit will buy the gems. I've already dropped more to get 3 char slots, the bank slots and the rest, I wil sell for gold to buy crafting mats.
That is...once they get this damned thing fully operational.
Originally posted by Krytycal The secret is that you will not see much content added outside of paid expansions. Whereas a lot of sub-based games charge you $15 a month and then add free content every couple of months, Anet only charges you for the box and then charges you again 6 months down the road for new content.
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
read the dev blogs they stated many times they will not be doing what they did with GW1 in regards to content updates. They want this game to run like a full fledged MMO with monthly DE updates.. new content in the way of new dungeons and such every couple months or so and expansions around a year to 1.5 years apart
There are already a few things that have not gone exactly the way the had said they wanted earlier on. Like upscale leveling. Etc. We'll see, they have stayed true to their word on a great number of things so far so. I'll believe it until proven otherwise.
fair enough but it has been their goal to run this game like a full fledged P2P game in regards to content updates so hope they keep true to that..
I didn't really want to get locked into discussing weather future content wil be free or not. Because either way, I still don't see GW2 as the free or even cheaper alternative for the majority of players. Some will as they will have limited income or will have the self discipline, but I think more than will admit will buy the gems. I've already dropped more to get 3 char slots, the bank slots and the rest, I wil sell for gold to buy crafting mats.
That is...once they get this damned thing fully operational.
ha! yea ill be buying more bank slots for sure very soon
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I believe that thanks to the non sub model, gw2 will update content much better and more reliably than other MMOs. With the no sub model, if they are late on updates as many MMOs with subs seem to be ( blizzard...) the player rages and doesn't play the game. This is unlike the sub model where people are told to wait a week after the expected updates update and it is t worth it to cancel the sub, you are pretty much forced to wait even though it was promised earlier. And if someone puts down gw2, then that is one less potential buyer from the shop.
Well Blizzard's just GREEDY. That's all. The servers do not cost 9 million x $15 per month. A good chunk of it is profit for them. I guess part of it is also to keep all their GW1 veterans. Frankly it's nice because I won't feel like I'm wasting money cause I'm too busy to go online.
Was "15 bucks a month is needed for development and maintenance of MMOS" merely an excuse?
No more then 'we need a cash shop' is. Both are simply ways to monetise a service.
If a sub is not needed then neither is a cash shop.
If you are arguing for a B2P game with no further means of monetising or making a profit past the intial sale then your OP starts to make more sense.
Exactly.
Some time back, months ago in fact, one of the folks at ANet came out with the whole "Oh, subscription MMO people have to justify their subscriptions, because we don't have them and we don't need them. We only have the box fee and you pay no sub" (to paraphrase). Without actually saying it, he basically tried to imply that subscription MMO devs were ripping off their customers.
What he failed to mention (strategically neglected is more like it) is that they have a cash shop that will, most certainly, be stocked up with items that "aren't necessary" but are very much desirable to a good portion of players - enough to generate revenue for ANet.
I posed the same challenge back then. If they truly can maintain and support the game on the box fee alone, then why do they need a cash shop at all? Why not include all that content as part of the box fee that people are paying?
The answer is obvious. Because the individual who made that remark I paraphrased above was being completely dishonest and doing a PR spin-job.
Either he was lying in stating that ANet only needs the box fees to support the game and the cash shop sales are in fact necessary. Or, they really can continue on box sales alone, and the cash shop is pure profit on top of that - pretty much what he characterized subscriptions as being.
Now, before someone says "oh but the cash shop sales are optional!", let me explain something. Cash Shops being optional is completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that they work. Consistently. What's relevant is that they potentially generate far more revenue than a subscription model ever could.
There's at least two key reasons for this:
1. A cash shop is flexible. They can create and add new items. They can track what people buy the most of and put more of that kind of item on the shop to attract more business. They can remove items that aren't good enough movers.
2. A cash shop has no limit to its potential revenue. A $15 sub is a $15 sub. That's all they're going to get from each player, so their potential recurring revenue has a "hard cap" based on how many paying subscribers they have. A cash shop, on the other hand, is unlimited. It's limited only by how well the items are selling and, as I noted in #1, ANet can track and adjust the cash shop to maximize their revenue from it.
So, for those who are walking around gloating about how ANet are "all that" and how they're "not charging a sub fee which makes them better and makes sub-based MMOs look bad", blah blah blah... take a step back, look at the situation objectively - as in, not through the biased eyes of a fan (I'm asking the impossible for many, I know) - and realize ANet aren't getting by on Box Fees alone. Not by a long shot. What they've been giving people is a slick dose of semantic double-speak.
They implemented that cash shop with every intention of earning a significant revenue from it. They didn't invest the time and resources to plan, create and implement it "just for the hell of it".
Not only are they not getting by on box fees alone, the revenue model ANet has chosen stands to make them *more* money than they'd make with a subscription fee, not less.
Think about that.
Them going on about "no sub fees!" is intended to do two things:
1. Divert your attention away from the fact that they're *still* asking for more money beyond the box fee, even though they claim not to be.
2. Convince people that somehow they're doing them a favor by not having a sub-fee.
Here's another way of looking at it...
There are 100% F2P MMOs out there that dont' even charge you the box fee, but are making enough money off the cash shop to maintain and develop their games. And all those F2P cash shops are "optional" too. So if they can get by with a cash shop and no box fee, why can't ANet?
To answer the OP's question... the "secret" here is that ANet's marketing and PR are doing an A-Grade spin job on their fans/customers. And it's working.
This exactly. Anet's highly successful viral marketing campaign is based on an apparent "moral" superiority campaign to leverage higher box sales and consequent greater number of bites on an aggressive cash shop. Aggressive in the sense that many FTP games survive solely on similar content cash shops as this without the box price.
yes it is true that you may not need to buy anything in the cash shop to play, but there is enough inconvenience in the game to push people in that direction. Then at the end of the day the balance between the whales plus the minnows equals the recurring revenue, and the suits at Anet are banking on this current arrangement to exceed what they would have made as a sub game (in adition to lost marketing spin by losing this moral superiority argument). If Anet were really looking after the gamer then it would have been straight up FTP not b2p.
It's sparse right now but I'm sure they'll keep adding stuff to it. They don't ever really have to be statistical advantages either. Cosmetic stuff is plenty, people will buy it.
Back in the day when bandwidth and server cost was significant they came up with the $15/month. Most have "forgotten" to adapt to the new prices and stuck ith that price to increase profit. Since people are willing to pay it, then hy not? Continued development is a possible reason, though many companies tend to think more about thei own profit than giving the players what they pay for.
Originally posted by JoeyMMO Back in the day when bandwidth and server cost was significant they came up with the $15/month. Most have "forgotten" to adapt to the new prices and stuck ith that price to increase profit. Since people are willing to pay it, then hy not? Continued development is a possible reason, though many companies tend to think more about thei own profit than giving the players what they pay for.
No. Most are struggling to stay afloat and are being forced to search for more profitable models. Hence, why so many end up experimenting with FTP. Now whether that is a reflection of quality or not is moot. Quality does not always equal quantity sold. (VHS vs beta anyone)
personally in my experience I spend way more money on F2P games that I ever have on a subscription game with the exception of Secret World that is so greedy they hit you with both the subscription and the cash shop.
less than a month and I've already spent $120 on the GW2 cash shop.
personally in my experience I spend way more money on F2P games that I ever have on a subscription game with the exception of Secret World that is so greedy they hit you with both the subscription and the cash shop.
less than a month and I've already spent $120 on the GW2 cash shop.
The proverbial whale. Thank you, you keep these games up and running for the rest of us.
TangentPoint said it well. Basically all Arenanet did was remove the barrier that customers have traditionally had to give them more money. It increases the chance they will get a lot more money from "super fans" or heavy fans that tne $15 a month they use to be capped at (what business would not love that). This model also allows them to get potential cash from players that would have never paid a sub to begin with, so it is far better than the $0 they would have gotten from people that would have never been their customer.
They basically increased their earning potential a great deal, although it will be more sporadic. By having people pay $10 here and there, before you know it they will loose track and spend more money than they would have with a sub. This is why i prefer sub games, although i am enjoying this one right now and have enjoyed another F2P type model before. However, it is very clear to me to get what i would have had in a sub game, it will cost me more by the end of the year.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
For those of you comparing "F2P" cash shops to the GW2 Cash Shop, you might as well stop. Normally you would be right about some of the things wrong with a cash shop, but theres 3 major differences in GW2 vs a normal Cash Shop
1) All of the boosts and stuff, just about everything besides character/bank slots, are also available completely free as drops, quest rewards, daily/monthly task rewards, and 100% map completion rewards. Most games have only 1 option, spend $
2) If you dont have the money to spend, there are those that have money and are willing to exchange it for in-game gold to save them time. Thats where gem trading comes in, allowing you to buy EVERYTHING (like character and bank slots) in the cash shop completely free you invest the time to make some gold and buy gems.
3) Just about any cash shop I can think of in any F2P MMO ive ever tried has amongst other things (like massive stat boost) either a) the ability to directly buy better equipment than everyone else , or b) the ability to buy upgraders, allowing you to craft your own equipment to higher grades and much easier than everyone else. GW2 has neither of those
Also consider this. Its pretty easy to guess that theve sold at least 2-3m copies of the game so far in its 1st week, most likely closer to 3. Even if they dont retain 1/3 of those players, they would have around 2m active players. Even if only 10-20% of the players (200-400k) spend an average of $10 a month for buying various things or trading for in-game gold, thats still bringing in 2-4 million bucks per month for them. Thats kind of lowballing it too, since most likely they probably will have somewhere around that percent or higher spending $10, theyre likely also going to have some of the more dedicated players spending quite a bit more than that (ive played with many who wind up spending sometimes $100-200 and more a month on cash shops just cause they have the cash to blow and enjoy the game )which will add a few mor emillion to their profit. This is all, if the game doesnt continue to grow in popularity, which it hopefully will.
Add in things like expansion sales down the road, and they can very easily turn a profit as well as suppor tthe game well and continue further development, all while over half of the players dont even need to spend a penny in the cash shop unless they really want to. Its win-win for both the players and Anet. They can still turn a decent profit, and we can all play the full game and access everything in the shop without being forced to pay at any time to play.
Comments
they already said many times that's not how its going to work for GW2... they said for GW2 they will be releasing free content updates at around the same pace as P2P games so every couple of months then expansions would be a year or so between them not 6 months
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Nowhere has it ever been stated that they guaranteed selling content updates at all. They had brought up the idea of releasing some mission packs similar to the Bonus Pack in GW1 a couple years back, but only if the community wanted it that way. They've much more recently stated they will be pushing for monthly updates to content to keep people interested, which includes adding in new Dynamic Events (which is something you definitely can't sell).
As for the idea that they'll be releasing an expansion every 6 months? Pure and utter nonsensical dribble. They've already stated that they hate that kind of release model, and was them hating that model was the big reason in the first place that led to Guild Wars: Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2. Adding an expansion to a mainly co-op online game in that time frame is one thing, its a whole new ballpark to try that with an actuall MMO, something that again makes even the idea of that possibility being nothing less than idiotic.
Exactly.
Some time back, months ago in fact, one of the folks at ANet came out with the whole "Oh, subscription MMO people have to justify their subscriptions, because we don't have them and we don't need them. We only have the box fee and you pay no sub" (to paraphrase). Without actually saying it, he basically tried to imply that subscription MMO devs were ripping off their customers.
What he failed to mention (strategically neglected is more like it) is that they have a cash shop that will, most certainly, be stocked up with items that "aren't necessary" but are very much desirable to a good portion of players - enough to generate revenue for ANet.
I posed the same challenge back then. If they truly can maintain and support the game on the box fee alone, then why do they need a cash shop at all? Why not include all that content as part of the box fee that people are paying?
The answer is obvious. Because the individual who made that remark I paraphrased above was being completely dishonest and doing a PR spin-job.
Either he was lying in stating that ANet only needs the box fees to support the game and the cash shop sales are in fact necessary. Or, they really can continue on box sales alone, and the cash shop is pure profit on top of that - pretty much what he characterized subscriptions as being.
Now, before someone says "oh but the cash shop sales are optional!", let me explain something. Cash Shops being optional is completely irrelevant. What's relevant is that they work. Consistently. What's relevant is that they potentially generate far more revenue than a subscription model ever could.
There's at least two key reasons for this:
1. A cash shop is flexible. They can create and add new items. They can track what people buy the most of and put more of that kind of item on the shop to attract more business. They can remove items that aren't good enough movers.
2. A cash shop has no limit to its potential revenue. A $15 sub is a $15 sub. That's all they're going to get from each player, so their potential recurring revenue has a "hard cap" based on how many paying subscribers they have. A cash shop, on the other hand, is unlimited. It's limited only by how well the items are selling and, as I noted in #1, ANet can track and adjust the cash shop to maximize their revenue from it.
So, for those who are walking around gloating about how ANet are "all that" and how they're "not charging a sub fee which makes them better and makes sub-based MMOs look bad", blah blah blah... take a step back, look at the situation objectively - as in, not through the biased eyes of a fan (I'm asking the impossible for many, I know) - and realize ANet aren't getting by on Box Fees alone. Not by a long shot. What they've been giving people is a slick dose of semantic double-speak.
They implemented that cash shop with every intention of earning a significant revenue from it. They didn't invest the time and resources to plan, create and implement it "just for the hell of it".
Not only are they not getting by on box fees alone, the revenue model ANet has chosen stands to make them *more* money than they'd make with a subscription fee, not less.
Think about that.
Them going on about "no sub fees!" is intended to do two things:
1. Divert your attention away from the fact that they're *still* asking for more money beyond the box fee, even though they claim not to be.
2. Convince people that somehow they're doing them a favor by not having a sub-fee.
Here's another way of looking at it...
There are 100% F2P MMOs out there that dont' even charge you the box fee, but are making enough money off the cash shop to maintain and develop their games. And all those F2P cash shops are "optional" too. So if they can get by with a cash shop and no box fee, why can't ANet?
To answer the OP's question... the "secret" here is that ANet's marketing and PR are doing an A-Grade spin job on their fans/customers. And it's working.
Look at what they did with GW1. The great majority of updates where nothing but bug fixes and balancing changes. Most of the actual content came from paid expansions. What makes you think they won't do the same in GW2?
They are trying to reproduce the success that was learned from Turbine in DDO and LOTRO. If you have a quality game. People will pay for it. If you have a crappy game, F2P is not going to keep it alive. Just look around at the F2P titles now pulling the plug.
Fact is, this game is not going to be cheaper than SUB games. It's just a different way to generate revenue.
I posted this before. Look at WoW and Rift. Bith games have had some very sweet deals recently. For someone who's never played MMO's before, wants to chose between the 3, with the way the deals work, playing for a year and assuming you unlock the basic comonents of GW2 that put its offerings on par with sub fee games. (Character and bank slots) Also if you consider Trion's ability to crank out content like it was on an assembly line, Even if ANet competes with that, Those added content patches inbetween expansions, that you won't pay for in Rift most likely will be DLC for gems in GW2. you are looking at 3 games all roughly in the same ball park to play for a year. I'd also be willing to bet for the vast majority of players, GW2 will be even more expensive.
read the dev blogs they stated many times they will not be doing what they did with GW1 in regards to content updates. They want this game to run like a full fledged MMO with monthly DE updates.. new content in the way of new dungeons and such every couple months or so and expansions around a year to 1.5 years apart
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
It's not just developing content or servers they have to facilitate with their monthly income, it's the whole operation, be it dev costs (salaries), support costs (customer service staff) etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There are already a few things that have not gone exactly the way the had said they wanted earlier on. Like upscale leveling. Etc. We'll see, they have stayed true to their word on a great number of things so far so. I'll believe it until proven otherwise.
I would hardly call WoW selling a few pets and 2 mounts a cash shop.
Guild Wars 2 sells hundreds of things, WoW sells less than 10?
WoW Is the only sub game worth talking about, all the others are dead or dying fast.
fair enough but it has been their goal to run this game like a full fledged P2P game in regards to content updates so hope they keep true to that..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I didn't really want to get locked into discussing weather future content wil be free or not. Because either way, I still don't see GW2 as the free or even cheaper alternative for the majority of players. Some will as they will have limited income or will have the self discipline, but I think more than will admit will buy the gems. I've already dropped more to get 3 char slots, the bank slots and the rest, I wil sell for gold to buy crafting mats.
That is...once they get this damned thing fully operational.
ha! yea ill be buying more bank slots for sure very soon
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
If 15$ per month will give me a customer service number I can call, I'll pay it.
No excuse sub or not, not to have a live customer support number.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
This exactly. Anet's highly successful viral marketing campaign is based on an apparent "moral" superiority campaign to leverage higher box sales and consequent greater number of bites on an aggressive cash shop. Aggressive in the sense that many FTP games survive solely on similar content cash shops as this without the box price.
yes it is true that you may not need to buy anything in the cash shop to play, but there is enough inconvenience in the game to push people in that direction. Then at the end of the day the balance between the whales plus the minnows equals the recurring revenue, and the suits at Anet are banking on this current arrangement to exceed what they would have made as a sub game (in adition to lost marketing spin by losing this moral superiority argument). If Anet were really looking after the gamer then it would have been straight up FTP not b2p.
The cash shop will get it done.
It's sparse right now but I'm sure they'll keep adding stuff to it. They don't ever really have to be statistical advantages either. Cosmetic stuff is plenty, people will buy it.
You guys DO realize that a cash shop is FAR more profitable than $15 a month right?
Most people who use cash shop will end up spending far more than $15 a month.
Anyone who uses the cash shop, will agree with me.
Its true.
No. Most are struggling to stay afloat and are being forced to search for more profitable models. Hence, why so many end up experimenting with FTP. Now whether that is a reflection of quality or not is moot. Quality does not always equal quantity sold. (VHS vs beta anyone)
personally in my experience I spend way more money on F2P games that I ever have on a subscription game with the exception of Secret World that is so greedy they hit you with both the subscription and the cash shop.
less than a month and I've already spent $120 on the GW2 cash shop.
The proverbial whale. Thank you, you keep these games up and running for the rest of us.
TangentPoint said it well. Basically all Arenanet did was remove the barrier that customers have traditionally had to give them more money. It increases the chance they will get a lot more money from "super fans" or heavy fans that tne $15 a month they use to be capped at (what business would not love that). This model also allows them to get potential cash from players that would have never paid a sub to begin with, so it is far better than the $0 they would have gotten from people that would have never been their customer.
They basically increased their earning potential a great deal, although it will be more sporadic. By having people pay $10 here and there, before you know it they will loose track and spend more money than they would have with a sub. This is why i prefer sub games, although i am enjoying this one right now and have enjoyed another F2P type model before. However, it is very clear to me to get what i would have had in a sub game, it will cost me more by the end of the year.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
For those of you comparing "F2P" cash shops to the GW2 Cash Shop, you might as well stop. Normally you would be right about some of the things wrong with a cash shop, but theres 3 major differences in GW2 vs a normal Cash Shop
1) All of the boosts and stuff, just about everything besides character/bank slots, are also available completely free as drops, quest rewards, daily/monthly task rewards, and 100% map completion rewards. Most games have only 1 option, spend $
2) If you dont have the money to spend, there are those that have money and are willing to exchange it for in-game gold to save them time. Thats where gem trading comes in, allowing you to buy EVERYTHING (like character and bank slots) in the cash shop completely free you invest the time to make some gold and buy gems.
3) Just about any cash shop I can think of in any F2P MMO ive ever tried has amongst other things (like massive stat boost) either a) the ability to directly buy better equipment than everyone else , or b) the ability to buy upgraders, allowing you to craft your own equipment to higher grades and much easier than everyone else. GW2 has neither of those
Also consider this. Its pretty easy to guess that theve sold at least 2-3m copies of the game so far in its 1st week, most likely closer to 3. Even if they dont retain 1/3 of those players, they would have around 2m active players. Even if only 10-20% of the players (200-400k) spend an average of $10 a month for buying various things or trading for in-game gold, thats still bringing in 2-4 million bucks per month for them. Thats kind of lowballing it too, since most likely they probably will have somewhere around that percent or higher spending $10, theyre likely also going to have some of the more dedicated players spending quite a bit more than that (ive played with many who wind up spending sometimes $100-200 and more a month on cash shops just cause they have the cash to blow and enjoy the game )which will add a few mor emillion to their profit. This is all, if the game doesnt continue to grow in popularity, which it hopefully will.
Add in things like expansion sales down the road, and they can very easily turn a profit as well as suppor tthe game well and continue further development, all while over half of the players dont even need to spend a penny in the cash shop unless they really want to. Its win-win for both the players and Anet. They can still turn a decent profit, and we can all play the full game and access everything in the shop without being forced to pay at any time to play.