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Why did they stop selling...?

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  • AstropuyoAstropuyo Member RarePosts: 2,178
    Originally posted by Uhwop
    Originally posted by Astropuyo

    Simple facts to consider.

     

    Of course things are spun positively, on the flip side to that is when things go baddly if you accept the responsibility for it..the base will forgive you. (Bet you didn't see that did you guru's?)

    GAMES: Games compete with manufacturers (publishers) this is a rarity in the world where buying direct from manufacturer is not generally allowed, only in software is this really able to be done.

     

    This cuts into your retailers bottom lines, your retailers will give you the fist of god via a anti-trust (As you guys have bound together under an agreement). You undermine your "partners" and you'll get sued.

    You may not lose the case but the case against you is usually enough for retailers to be wary and enough cases and bam you look like a terrible lot with great lawyers.

     

    So while it's cute to hear artificial demand/supply the facts are you can still buy them from the retailer.

     

    This is one of the reasons the game market is tanking, direct from publisher effects many jobs in retail.

    Start thinking like adults and less like every company is out to kill/steal from you.

    This is simply them abiding by the law and looking cool doing it.

     You should maybe look at where job growth is occuring in the U.S.  In most states it's retail, and then nursing.  My state alone is expected to have some ridiculous increase in the number of retail jobs needed within the next 10 years.  Stores are being built all over the damn place, it's insane considering we're supposed to be in a recession.

    True> Jobs are at a low, retail is service. When someone works for a industry they are serving, too many think service means you serve fries. It means you provide no products for money, you provide your SERVICE.

    You are thinking markets, retail,food,medical. These are a market.

    This is a huge problem in journalism even they've misinformed a population on the difference between product based and service based because they hear SERVE.

     

    Obviously online sales is going to have some impact on box sales, but to think that any company is stopping their digital distribution for the sake of box sales is beyond idiotic.  It benefits Anet more to sell the digital copies then it does to supply retail stores with boxes.

    And what law?  Where do you people get this stuff from.

    There are contracts drawn, i have one drawn with ---- right now that states they cannot undermine my pricepoints and me theirs. It's an agreement. Bound by law. The results of infringement are very clear.

    Where do "we" people get it from, this is my industry. Software Sales, digital downloads, games. I have a retailers agreement with another unmentioned mentioned company that is pretty much the standard, hint: This topic.

     

    It's real simple. 

    When I log into a game, on a U.S. server, at 10 in the morning EST time and I'm getting dumped into an overflow map, there's to damn many people on. 

    So true, imagine how many box sales for retailers that is?

    When I log in in the early afternoon, and I have to wait over an hour to get off the overflow map, and then more then hour after that just to do WvW pvp, the problem gets pretty obvious.

    Tell me about it

    There's to damned many people in the game.

    Yep, it's pretty popular, it's economy stimulating.

    Believe it or not, and I know many people here refuse to believe anything but their own jaded opinions, GW2 is a pretty good MMO.  It caters to pretty much everyone, and there's no subscription fee. 

    It's freaking awesome, and I have two active paid for subs, TOR and TSW.

    The servers are way overcrowded, new account registration can't keep pace, and customer service isn't able to keep up.  GW2 isn't another ToR, TSW, or TERA, it's pretty much another WoW like event and they don't have 100+ servers to for everyone.  Getting new servers up, hiring personel, expanding the current server limits, all these things take time; they don't happen over night. 

    It literally is wow as far as sales goes, you people clearly have no idea but the sales alone is enough to put one of your kids through college ...in a month....margins are crazy big.

    I wouldn't be suprised if they already limitted restock orders, but didn't say anything to anyone.  Going into a store and hearing we're sold out is pretty common and easy to understand.  Going to a website and trying to buy a digital copy of something, and instead getting a sorry we're sold out message is a little harder to swallow as a consumer. 

    They've issued no orders as of yet, and are still providing copies to retailers.

    You have to announce halts to digital distribution, retail distribution doesn't require them to say anything.  Retailers are rarely ever informed when a product is being intentionally delayed, they usually only get a notice of backstock issues, but rarely an actual explenation for it.  They can't exactly stop letting people buy current stock, but they can tell retailers they're only allowed to restock to a specific amount. 

    ^this is un true, you don't have to announce anything, most of the time things go un noticed because they aren't polarized, for instance how many of you know of when the samsung483958392 tv is halted in production? They never say anything, it goes into "we do not support" mode. Quietly.

    You need to recognize only in software can you go straight to the manufacturer. (Publisher).

    I challenge you to do that with TV's , stereo's , or whatever without a tax ID and/or business ID.

     

    For fun: Just imagine @65 dollars per box, 1 million sold (that's a min number I think?).

    Don't scoff at the cuts a publisher takes from the economy when they break the mould.

    Now take in taxes lost to the state (I pay so many taxes it's insane, I pay for 50% of my customers taxes even! ARRRG)

    Take into account VAT,etc and you will see how much money direct from publisher takes from the economy. Business is a symbiotic relationship. That's consumerism, you have to have consumers and they must have places to consume from. Imagine if you bought all your meat from the farm. What would happen to super markets.

     

    There is a very real battle being played out in the market over this and  Anet recognizes how much damage they are doing to their partners.

  • AstropuyoAstropuyo Member RarePosts: 2,178
    Originally posted by MosesZD
    Originally posted by TsaboHavoc

    @Snarlingwolf

     

    you re not alone pal, the corporate world is full of wolfs and snakes in sheepskin,anet is not any diferent. they just have a shiner and more inocent disguise. only a fool take a PR stuff seriously.  

     

    No, but I will say this phony, 'sophisticated I see through this' position you and some of the other 'cool kids' take is pretty laughable.   Being skeptical is one thing...   But all things considered, you've taken it beyond the event horizon.

     

    I always say "when you've worked a day in corp american, come talk to me".

    Truth is: Corp America is too into their late's and promotions to give a crap about if they can wrong you. Hell you aren't even a blip on the radar, you are literally a number.

    A figure, a figure no one can hate, dislike, love, or like. You are a number. You are most likely in the billions.

     

    Would you like your name declared and people to get personal with you in this setting? Because they have access to all your data from crim history to credit history. All of it.

    You want to be a number. You don't want to have your face behind that, you don't want personal.

     

    Imagine every bad call with a customer service ending with you being arrested for FBI related things? Such as you know..fraud..

    Just saying, don't look down on the system. It's designed for security, from the ground up to protect you.

     

    Corp America thrives on vampirism, once you get the mind there you realize you can hate CHAD , it's hard to hate 5482812-248211A though.

    I can't hate 5482812-248211A, they are just a number...but I HATE THE NAME CHAD. :D

  • SnarlingWolfSnarlingWolf Member Posts: 2,697
    Originally posted by Orphes
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf
    Originally posted by Dfix
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

    I will say I am amazed at how many people will just accept what a company says at face value.

    Sorry, but not all of us run around with tin foil hats in our back pockets. 

     Difference between tin foil hats and rational thinking.

     

    Physical copies are still for sale -> therefore stopping digital sales doesn't stop queues from increasing. -> their reasoning makes little sense.

     

    How many products have you bought where the commercials say something like "Best coffee ever" or other similar things. Since it would apparently require a tin foil hat to think that maybe they are exagerating the claims that it is the best coffee ever.

    I am not really sure if you are thinking rationally there.

    Yes of course they will slow down the expansion of the game by not offering the game digitally from their own store.

    That is the only reasonable thing they can do, right?

    It would be horrible wrong if they stopped the possibilty to registrering a retail copy... imagine the situation when people come home from the store and tries to register their game key.

     

    But now they do not stop physical copies, hinder the business of 3rd party retailers, hence you think their resoning doesn't make sence. That is not rational thinking.

     You can buy a digital download version from places that aren't ANet. That means there is an infinite supply available so anyone who would buy from ANet will just buy it digitally somewhere else. That means no influx is actually slowed down at all. Which means that can't be the actual reasoning.

  • KeyloggerKeylogger Member Posts: 250

    Artificial demand + hype.

    "Look at us, our game is such a fantastic, polished and well executed WOW-Clone that we had to stop selling DIGITAL versions of it! You can't buy it, but you want to!"

  • dariuszpdariuszp Member Posts: 182
    Originally posted by Zeymere

    So why did they stop selling the digital copy?  For a game that is not subscription based this really concerns me.  It is very odd.  Please enlighten me.

    They said it on twitter at some point. Don't have a link to that anymore. Too much people on servers. Game was huge success. They are having problems managing all that traffic.

    Do you remember trade post issues and login server issues ? That was it. Right not both work like a charm so in some time we should expect to see digital version back in action.

    I can't complain. Today I was resurected by some guy on very very remote location that I was just checking out to see what is out there :) You can't have enough people in MMO right ? But server can have too many of them. That's why sales stopped. Retail copy is still selling if it's not sold out. And they said that GW2 is on top in 10 european countries.

  • bcbullybcbully Member EpicPosts: 11,838
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

     

     

    My theory is it involved the deals with the brick and mortar stores. In order to make sure the stores can make some money they might have signed an agreement on how many digital copies they could sell compared to physical copies and are waiting for the physical copies to catch up.

    this is what I was thinking. 

    "We see fundamentals and we ape in"
  • AstropuyoAstropuyo Member RarePosts: 2,178
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf
    Originally posted by Orphes
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf
    Originally posted by Dfix
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

    I will say I am amazed at how many people will just accept what a company says at face value.

    Sorry, but not all of us run around with tin foil hats in our back pockets. 

     Difference between tin foil hats and rational thinking.

     

    Physical copies are still for sale -> therefore stopping digital sales doesn't stop queues from increasing. -> their reasoning makes little sense.

     

    How many products have you bought where the commercials say something like "Best coffee ever" or other similar things. Since it would apparently require a tin foil hat to think that maybe they are exagerating the claims that it is the best coffee ever.

    I am not really sure if you are thinking rationally there.

    Yes of course they will slow down the expansion of the game by not offering the game digitally from their own store.

    That is the only reasonable thing they can do, right?

    It would be horrible wrong if they stopped the possibilty to registrering a retail copy... imagine the situation when people come home from the store and tries to register their game key.

     

    But now they do not stop physical copies, hinder the business of 3rd party retailers, hence you think their resoning doesn't make sence. That is not rational thinking.

     You can buy a digital download version from places that aren't ANet. That means there is an infinite supply available so anyone who would buy from ANet will just buy it digitally somewhere else. That means no influx is actually slowed down at all. Which means that can't be the actual reasoning.

    They are supplied out.

     

    IE they send 40,999 keys to gamestop, game stop can only sell so many of those keys right?

     

    They upload the keys as products and create the end path (Download link) to a download licensed version of the client.

     

    This is handled EXACLTY like real world goods, you need to understand that part because if that is the basis of your debate there is no basis.

     

    People will always believe what they want and not the facts. It's some dark conspiricy made by a game maker to ....rule the world? Make 560,000 dollar more?

    Come on folks, get with it. Unless you have seriously done business in this sector of business I think it comes down to ..common sense.

     

    Common sense indicates the demand is there, no need to pump it.

    Supply is there, on 3rd party sites/stores.

    Supply is no longer on 1st party shelves.

     

    Maybe because I live business it seems derp derp, I just can't seem to fathom how this can be seen anything as a "oh snap we've undermined the market to people WE HAVE SOLD KEYS to" that's what you folks aren't getting.

     

    We generally buy these keys. At a good rate and then Anet pubs the game and undermines our sales. This causes a huge reaction, it's like selling us great dirt and then offering to customers directly.

     

    Like I said there is a huge battle going on, you just don't see it because..well you aren't educated to. You don't have the experience to. That is ok. Nothing wrong with that. Just STOP trying to be experts on things you have no idea on. It's one thing to role play an expert it's another to create a constant chain of misinformation.

     

    Edit: Did I mention we BUY these keys from Anet? I did mention that part right? With contracted terms?  If anyone else has a vested interest here for INFORMING the public it's me.

    You guys cannot be made to believe these keys cost nothing and there are infinite amounts, because that is just wrong on so many levels, it's literally my duty to educate you that digital downloads cost equal to physical and it's the business owner giving you a BUY option , digital downloads do not need be provided and are in general more costly to you the consumer as you pay the bandwidth cost, it also costs us alot to host a 5 gig file.

    Just saying there is cost to digital that goes beyond the box. We have to maintain your download for up to a term, (We do it for a year as we're really cool about that) and we lost that much in hosted data. Basically we lose money with digital but business is not about bilking for dollars, it's about providing service and products people want and accepting the cut on the bottom dollar.

  • DoomedfoxDoomedfox Member UncommonPosts: 679

     

    I guess it has something to do with Physical copys having to sell.

    They claim that the game got more attention than they expected but who in there right minds would believe that if you have 1mil purchases already i doubt that they anticipated anything less but a huge crowd.

    Seeing how huge sells numbers are one of the best sells tools do i dare question why no such numbers were used yet if the game really did in fact exceed expectations in sells.

    I also think that as long as you can register a new gaming account it is not really doing anything in regards to try and get the players to have an as stable experience as possible.

    But maybe i am wrong completely and NCsoft really did just screw up and were not able to draw the right conclusions based on preorders/purchases

  • DrachasorDrachasor Member Posts: 2,678
    Originally posted by MosesZD
    Originally posted by TsaboHavoc

    @Snarlingwolf

     

    you re not alone pal, the corporate world is full of wolfs and snakes in sheepskin,anet is not any diferent. they just have a shiner and more inocent disguise. only a fool take a PR stuff seriously.  

     

    No, but I will say this phony, 'sophisticated I see through this' position you and some of the other 'cool kids' take is pretty laughable.   Being skeptical is one thing...   But all things considered, you've taken it beyond the event horizon.

    Agreed.  I'm all for people realizing that corporations, when treated as people, pretty much always act like sociopaths.  You honestly can't trust them when they are out of sight.  The bigger they are, the worse they are, typically.  One reason why we need government there representing the people.

    That said, the overall situation with GW2 seems pretty straightforward.  They sold a lot more a lot faster than they expected and their hardware is stretched thin.  So they had to clamp down on sales while they caught up.  A lot of facts in and out of the game back it up.

  • roo67roo67 Member Posts: 402
    Originally posted by Murtak

    Artificial demand + hype.

    "Look at us, our game is such a fantastic, polished and well executed WOW-Clone that we had to stop selling DIGITAL versions of it! You can't buy it, but you want to!"

     

    Sorry not to be nasty but what an ignorant comment . When I say that I mean your ignorant of the facts

    A) GW2 plays nothing like WoW its UI is totally different . WoW  has no dynamic events and certainly not the same type of PvP as GW2 . WoW has no personal story aspect to it in the way GW2 does .

    B) Prior to WoW there were loads of mmorpgs that WoW borrowed its gameplay from . Ultima Online when you died had the same sort of ghostly grey look to is as WoW does . Everquest and Anarky Online had all the go out and kill X number of beasts type quests etc WoW borrowed nearly everything it is now and just polished it up and got rid of some of the boring bits .

    WoW was just a part of an evolving style of game which started in 1996 with a game called Meridian 59 followed in 1997 by Ultima Online whos creator Richard Garriot coined the phrase massive multiplay online roll playing game . I could be wrong but I think the only original things WoW did was have two oposing factions that spoke different languages and had battle grounds . ( although dark age of camelot may have had them ? ) Every other idea in WoW had been done before in some way or another in every mmo released before WoW ever opened its first server .

    As for artifical demand and hype wheres your proof of that ? Just because you think something( like you think WoW the first orginal mmo and everything else is a copy ) dosn't make it fact .

    Just a little history lesson for you so you don't make ill informed comments in future .

  • TeknoBugTeknoBug Member UncommonPosts: 2,156

    The quote has already been posted, they stopped sales until they can expand the server capacities, also it's possible they ran out of digital keys. This happened when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out, they sold out on digital keys.

    image
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  • Stx11Stx11 Member Posts: 415
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

     You can buy a digital download version from places that aren't ANet. That means there is an infinite supply available so anyone who would buy from ANet will just buy it digitally somewhere else. That means no influx is actually slowed down at all. Which means that can't be the actual reasoning.

    Actually Amazon stopped selling the Digital Standard version of the game 5 days ago, and as of this morning Amazon has ceased sales of the Digital Deluxe Download as well.

    You can be cynical and conspiracy-focused all you want, but it is a fact that ANet is reducing availablity of the game.

    My guess is that they do have a plan. In a game without subscription fees it makes a lot of sense for them to limit access as the current population expands across Zones and then let more people in after, especially as "hard-charging" early adopters declare "victory" over the game at 80 and quit (not all will, but even as a fan I expect many "content locusts" to leave the fold over the next weeks and months). Doing it that way allows them to operate with a steady hardware operating cost.

    Also, if they are truly confident in their product (and I think they are) they know that "sustainable demand" will continue for quite some time. It did with GW1 and it did with WoW as well.

    Think just for a moment how much better SWTOR would have been received as a B2P game. People would have enjoyed the Class Stories. PvP would've been mixed. People would have generally enjoyed the Flashpoints and Raids but questioned longevity with easy gear access. But NO ONE would have questioned whether it was or wasn't worth $15 a month, and it would probably still be selling decently today. GW2 is designed around a different business model than we are used to analysing and that has to be taken into account when viewing their decisions.

  • MaelkorMaelkor Member UncommonPosts: 459

    I think it has more to do with the fact they really screwed up their security for their software. As a result accounts are getting hacked right and left. The CS department is about 3 to 4 days behind in trying to resolve all of the issues from hacked accounts. Untill they get a handle on that, they probably wont be pushing out copies too hard.

    I would say at least half the people playing right now have had a hacker attempt to change their password. This is based off the fact the username is an email address. I would guess that hackers are using programs to try every email address variant they can find and are making a list of good ones and then doing whatever they do to try to hack the account.

    I only hope whoever was in charge of the software end of things for security stuff was fired and they got a new team in their fixing things.

  • AstropuyoAstropuyo Member RarePosts: 2,178
    Originally posted by Doomedfox

     

    I guess it has something to do with Physical copys having to sell.

    They claim that the game got more attention than they expected but who in there right minds would believe that if you have 1mil purchases already i doubt that they anticipated anything less but a huge crowd.

    Seeing how huge sells numbers are one of the best sells tools do i dare question why no such numbers were used yet if the game really did in fact exceed expectations in sells.

    I also think that as long as you can register a new gaming account it is not really doing anything in regards to try and get the players to have an as stable experience as possible.

    But maybe i am wrong completely and NCsoft really did just screw up and were not able to draw the right conclusions based on preorders/purchases

     ^-- this right here.

    Logical and correct.

     

    They messed up big on distro and practices, they never should of done direct sales while selling keys in the early phase.

    Some owners i know are sitting on 50,000 keys I kid you not.

    Now they got those keys at a reasonable whole sale rate, the rate isn't as low as you think (think 2 dollars profit after cost).

    I know businesses that are looking at 100k+ lost, and that's small time.

     

    It's a very critical thing, it's the difference between a law suit and addmitance. If they admit publically they messed up every single one of us vested in this will jump a claim.

    Once you look at it like a vampire you realize how brutally scared they are.

     

    You cannot sell to a market and then undermine their marketing. Suppliers/manufacturers MUST stay out of the primary economy.  There is a reason. We do it better.

     

  • Eir_SEir_S Member UncommonPosts: 4,440
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf
    Unfortunately I would also never quote a company to find the real answer either. PR is big in the corporate world and everything is spun into a positive no matter what it is.

    Is that why Funcom announced that TSW did poorly compared to their own expectations and that Metacritic users are big meanies?

  • adam_noxadam_nox Member UncommonPosts: 2,148

    Anyone who knows business knows not to accept selling 'too well' as an excuse for turning down money.  It's outright ridiculous. 

     

    If a company is turning away money, it's because they absolutely HAD TO, not because they CHOSE TO.

  • AstropuyoAstropuyo Member RarePosts: 2,178
    Originally posted by adam_nox

    Anyone who knows business knows not to accept selling 'too well' as an excuse for turning down money.  It's outright ridiculous. 

     

    If a company is turning away money, it's because they absolutely HAD TO, not because they CHOSE TO.

        ^--- Another logical response.

     

    Put the pieces together folks.

    I literally am invested to informing you guys, it's a matter of money to me.  (Won't ever shameless promote though)

     

    These guys are posting out of care and ugc response.

    Both are correct, supply and the fact they HAD to stop selling.

     

    When has a company ever denied money for "technical" reasons. Come on now. They admit they undermined their distro pattern they get sued, you have to make it spin positive like you care.

    In reality 50 lawyers are barking constantly because of the huge investments being made into these keys and license rights.

  • TibernicusTibernicus Member Posts: 433
    Same reason Darkfall had to do it, too many people want to try the game for them to handle them all.
  • TardcoreTardcore Member Posts: 2,325

    Well keep this on the hush hush but its really because they found out that an ingredient in their online game keys causes cancer so they are quietly getting it fixed to avoid a massive lawsuit.

    . . . .  OR you could believe that malarky that they are trying to stem the deluge of new accounts before it chokes their system, pissing all their customers off, and will start selling keys again once they've caught up to the rush. But where's the fun in that?

     

    image

    "Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "

  • ZeymereZeymere Member UncommonPosts: 210

    I appreciate everyone’s posts.

    I consider myself rather intuitive and something just seemed odd about this whole scenario. I am not trying to play conspiracy theorist or anything of that nature. It just that something feels off, like something is going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about. Maybe we don’t need to but it’s just odd.  

    Thanks Astropuyo for all the “real” information. I didn’t expect this but it’s refreshing to hear this kind of nuts and bolts logic.

    I just wanted to get others thinking and their input.

    That’s all.

  • Creslin321Creslin321 Member Posts: 5,359
    Originally posted by adam_nox

    Anyone who knows business knows not to accept selling 'too well' as an excuse for turning down money.  It's outright ridiculous. 

     

    If a company is turning away money, it's because they absolutely HAD TO, not because they CHOSE TO.

     Exactly, and they are turning down money because their servers cannot handle a larger load.  Isn't that a perfectly reasonable explanation?

    I'm not sure why everyone (not you) is conspiracy theorizing so much here...it seems pretty cut and dry to me.

    1.  Product sells lots of copies, resulting in many concurrent users.

    2.  Servers begin to buckle under the strain.

    3.  Producer temporarily halts selling copies so that can increase their capacity.

    Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?

  • Creslin321Creslin321 Member Posts: 5,359
    Originally posted by Astropuyo
    Originally posted by adam_nox

    Anyone who knows business knows not to accept selling 'too well' as an excuse for turning down money.  It's outright ridiculous. 

     

    If a company is turning away money, it's because they absolutely HAD TO, not because they CHOSE TO.

        ^--- Another logical response.

     

    Put the pieces together folks.

    I literally am invested to informing you guys, it's a matter of money to me.  (Won't ever shameless promote though)

     

    These guys are posting out of care and ugc response.

    Both are correct, supply and the fact they HAD to stop selling.

     

    When has a company ever denied money for "technical" reasons. Come on now. They admit they undermined their distro pattern they get sued, you have to make it spin positive like you care.

    In reality 50 lawyers are barking constantly because of the huge investments being made into these keys and license rights.

     Ever hear of "long-term" strategy?

    Like you know...if we sell all these copies, the servers buckle, and the game becomes unplayable...then yeah we made money now, but it's going to be a huge blackeye for our game and may hurt future sales.

    If you know that more sales may cause massive service denials across the board, then not stopping them is kind of dumb.

    Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?

  • SuperXero89SuperXero89 Member UncommonPosts: 2,551
    Server infrastructure was not prepared for the huge influx of players at launch.  Amazingly, some people spin this is a positive light.
  • NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798
    Originally posted by Astropuyo

    When has a company ever denied money for "technical" reasons. Come on now. They admit they undermined their distro pattern they get sued, you have to make it spin positive like you care.

    In reality 50 lawyers are barking constantly because of the huge investments being made into these keys and license rights.

    Blizzard admits to 'grossly underestimating demand' for World of Warcraft in 2004

    http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/blizzard-admits-to-grossly-underestimating-demand-for-world-of/2

    Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce was quite up-front with the studio's stumbles in 2004 as WoW launched to unprecedented demand; he's admitted that Blizzard execs "grossly underestimated" how many people wanted to play the game, forcing the company to cease shipping boxes to stores while tech was improved to deal with the influx.

    "I don't think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into," Pearce said at the recent DICE executive summit. The studio quickly ramped up from its 500-employee taskforce to 4,700 people in 11 cities across the world.

     

  • Creslin321Creslin321 Member Posts: 5,359
    Originally posted by Nadia
    Originally posted by Astropuyo

    When has a company ever denied money for "technical" reasons. Come on now. They admit they undermined their distro pattern they get sued, you have to make it spin positive like you care.

    In reality 50 lawyers are barking constantly because of the huge investments being made into these keys and license rights.

    Blizzard admits to 'grossly underestimating demand' for World of Warcraft in 2004

    http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/blizzard-admits-to-grossly-underestimating-demand-for-world-of/2

    Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce was quite up-front with the studio's stumbles in 2004 as WoW launched to unprecedented demand; he's admitted that Blizzard execs "grossly underestimated" how many people wanted to play the game, forcing the company to cease shipping boxes to stores while tech was improved to deal with the influx.

    "I don't think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into," Pearce said at the recent DICE executive summit. The studio quickly ramped up from its 500-employee taskforce to 4,700 people in 11 cities across the world.

     Also, in response to Astro's legal theory about sales being stopped...

    If this were true, then ANet would simply say that they will not be selling GW2 directly anymore, but it is available at your friendly neighborhood game store or website.

    Saying that they "sold out" when the real issue is a legal dispute is absolutely stupid because people are going to expect them to start selling again.  If they never sell a single copy of their game directly again, then everyone is going to realize that it was BS...it's not like they could hide that forever.

    No...ANet "sold out" because their servers got slammed.  You can spin that positively by saying that they sold more than expected, or negatively by saying that they failed to forecast demand.  The reality is somewhere in the middle there.

    Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?

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