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NCsoft quarterly report is out... not looking good for gw2...
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[mod edit]
This argument is fundamentally useless as for either side to "win" they would have to sway the other to view success in a different way, which just isn't happening.
At the end of the day, all evidence points towards Guild Wars 2 growing, or at least stabilizing its gem store profits. The releases have gotten bigger. They have gotten better. There is still a veritable army of active players enjoying the game. Anet is still HIRING new staff - the complete opposite of what is typically expected of an MMORPG at this point (or even shortly after launch).
When box and gem sales drop, this may very well happen. When and if - because it hasn't happened yet and therefore can't be used in an argument. More likely than not, however, Anet will release an expansion that will cause a massive spike in sales (just as it did in Guild Wars 1) and the game will be continue to be one of the most successful games on the market.
As for the success of WildStar, that's pure speculation at best right now. I'm predicting that it's going to be just another game that can't compare to WoW and won't even manage to steal thunder from Lineage on NCSoft's revenue reports. There's no evidence that it will be anything but another mediocre title with little to nothing to separate it from other mediocre titles.
Yeah an MMO can put out tons of content but when no one is playing that game, it means nothing. Just an example, not saying GW2 is like that. It is all about active users, period.
Thanks for putting me in your signature, I am flattered.
[mod edit] I just look at ANet sales on page 10 and I see a 20% drop from quarter over quarter, and 80% drop since launch. I look at the number of people on GW2 sPvP servers and see 300 people across all servers during primetime. I look at traffic data for GW2 Guru, Guildwars2.com and /r/guildwars2 and see a 70% to 80% drop since launch. I look at Xfire data and see a 80% drop in players since launch.
I get it, you are a fan of the game. I had arguments with SWTOR fans similiar to this, so I can see where you are coming from. And I don't blame you.
Yea,
I have GW2 I sometimes log in to see what is going on, but very rarely as I do not MMO hop...however Hopping into GW2 is like playing a bit of Diablo it doesn't take as much investment of time and relearning of keys as some games...it also isn't my favorite game though I do like the looks and the mesmer class.
But the cash shop is far and away one of the most tame out there, I don't think I even looked in it more than a couple of times, you just don't need it to level and, I suppose if I liked the game more I might buy cosmetic items like I have in TSW Lotro and Wushu, I just never got that invested in that character I was playing.
I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was constantly talking for me and sounding like an idiot. More than anything in that game I hated the fact that I didn't like my own character no matte which race I rolled because he wouldn't shut up and stop sounding like an idiot...the Asura was ok but it came off like a comic relief arrogant persona.
EQ and EQ2 does it. Regardless, I never said they would do it. I said even if they put out a lot of content with no users, doesn't mean the game is a success. My point was that active users are more a measure of success than the amount of content MMOs put out. I hope that made sense.
The facts that you are trying to ignore. They are constantly providing updates to the game that grow more substantial every month and ArenaNet is hiring. You provide nothing but an ignorant look at a financial report. I swear people look at these things as if they know everything about how the business works. I know I don't and I won't pretend like I do. All I know is what is in front of me; which is that they are giving me nice updates every 2 weeks that keep getting better.
They can't provide updates like this without support, but wait can they? Or can't they?
So you said they will stop supporting the game if the gem sales start to drop and the box sales start to drop. According to this report, this has for the most part come true. These have dropped. But they continue to provide great support? Then you say that they can provide these updates without success. You love to contradict yourself, don't you?
Wait what? If it continues to drop quarter over quarter like it did this quarter, yes. The game makes less revenue thus they won't have enough money. This is not now, but eventually. It will happen to WoW too, but it lasted 10 years.
I never said they would shut it down, although NCSoft has done it in the past. My point is you won't see the big content patches and expansions you saw with GW1. You will see micro-content that can be done in 1 hour.
EQ and EQ2 are also on life support from Sony - a massive company that can afford to play "sugar daddy" for its pet games without feeling any significant pain from the exchange.
Guild Wars 2 is at the mercy of NCSoft. Most NCSoft funding happened during the development of the game. At this point, funds are likely reversed, as NCSoft is no doubt expecting its piece of the pie.
No, Guild Wars 2 would not be pushing out significant content with a low community size. No, they would not be pushing out bigger and better updates if they weren't financially sound. They'd be expected to release an expansion - and if for some reason it didn't succeed, they'd be shut down. NCSoft isn't SOE - they don't baby their subsidiaries - they shut them down without fair warning and without public statements (see City of Heroes / City of Villains).
But evidence points to the contrary performance, at least for the time being. Yes, Guild Wars 2 profits have dropped by 20% (which is actually remarkably good for a b2p game), but Anet is not suffering from the effects of this. They have denied the development of any expansion - direct evidence that they are not suffering for money and are not yet being significantly pressured by NCSoft. They are hiring. They are releasing free update after free update. There's just nothing that would signify that they are performing below their projected profits.
And that's what it comes down to - projected profits, not comparative profits. Guild Wars 2 has likely met its predicted sales and earnings. Guild Wars 1 totaled 6 million sales through the combination of 3 campaigns and one expansion over a 7 year period (and this is counting massively reduced box costs over time). With 3 million box sales (a number that has been outdated for months) without even releasing in China, Guild Wars 2 has surpassed its predecessor's first year. That's a good sign for the game and its future health. No, it hasn't beat World of Warcraft - nothing has. No, it hasn't beaten Lineage, which, for some ungodly reason is one of the largest sustainable games in Korea. That does not imply that it hasn't been a huge success.
Couple of points, the fact that they said they wouldn't have an expansion could also mean that NCSoft will not fund an expansion. It is really stupid to not have a major expansion regardless. It brings back old players, brings in new players, and keeps current players.
You can't compare GW1 to GW2 apples to apples like that in terms of sales. It is probably safe to assume, GW2 cost a lot more to make than GW1. We will not know how it truly is doing for a couple more quarters.
They didn't have expansion packs? Are you selectively reading buddy? 10 years? We will know more about GW2 in the next couple of quarters based on these quarterly sales reports. Based on the current trend it is dropping and based on everyone here it will keep dropping.
Actually WoW has been around for almost 10 years, alpha started Jan '04 and beta started feb/mar '04.
No, but GW1 did have boxed expansions with content that was far superior in quality to the Facebook minigame content that Anet is so fond of in GW2.
Not to say that it is not good that they put content in bi-weekly, I just do not think that 'hit 100 signposts' should qualify as compelling content.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
I never said it did not have expansions. I said it did not have any big content patches. There is a pretty big difference between boxed expansions and free content patches. [mod edit]. As the guy said above you, NC Soft is probably not getting as much out of ArenaNet now that the game has shipped. We don't know what kind of profit ArenaNet is actually making to fund the game and we probably never will. NC Soft does not get all the money from the game; they get a cut..as all publishers do. They aren't going to tell you how much money that ArenaNet is making because, well, that is money ArenaNet is making; not NC Soft. [mod edit].
That is what i was thinking but since this side labels every game that doesnt have a couple million subs (at least) a failure i wonder if we have to count GW2 as a failure as well.
After all if a game with 500k subs is a failure than a game making the same amount of money should be one as well right?
One thing to note is that the minigames were content that had been planned for launch, but were not finished in time. Hell, there are still minigames that were promised which haven't yet been delivered (most notably Bar Brawl.) Guild Wars 2 hasn't shifted its design towards these things - it's simply delivering on unfinished promises.
At the same time, quite a few of the updates have been compelling. Guild Wars 2 had (arguably) the best Halloween event in MMO history, a very strong Christmas event, and 2 more events that went over very well with the fanbase (Zephyr Sanctum and Queen's Jubilee). All four of these are compelling and recurring annual events - not temporary content.
As for the "hit 100 signposts" remark.... are you really stooping as low as to bring up Flame and Frost's first act? That was the first Living Story update. Even Anet has called it nothing more than an experiment to see if and how they can manipulate the system to produce living story content.
I was right, because I know I am right and you are wrong. So there nee ner nee ner. (What you sound like right now) Funny part is, you are still wrong. Again, GW2 continues to push the bar for content updates, if you consider what they put out EVERY TWO WEEKS "micro content" then you have way higher expectations for MMO updates then reasonable. WoW puts out arguably some of the best content updates, yet it takes 2-3 months for the updates that would take GW2 two weeks and 6 months (raid patches) for the content that would take GW2 a couple of months, if that. I am comparing a much smaller game to a game with an absolutely GIGANTIC budget here as well. You act as though NC Soft gets most of what ArenaNet earns. Funny, I bet the 300 employees at ArenaNet would have something to say about that; considering they still have to get paid (which effects NC Soft's bottom line).
Here are the facts: NC Soft takes a cut of ArenaNet's profits. In return, they market the game. We don't know how much of a percentage NC Soft earns.
We know that ArenaNet has probably the biggest MMO company out there at the moment supporting one game.
We know that ArenaNet is hiring.
We know that every month there are two content patches. One is rather large, the other usually being small.
We know no one else has a comparable pace for content. We know that even with the smaller size of some of GW2's updates that they compare to some of the bigger MMOs out there.
We know that NC Soft (Not ArenaNet) profits did not go up this quarter from the funds provided by ArenaNet from their piece of the pie.
We know that the price has only dropped by 10$ since launch. This usually indicates that sales are good enough to not lower the price.
You can draw your own conclusions, but it seems pretty obvious to me that they are doing just fine.
Xfire? 80% drop from launch when they were =the most played MMORPG in the western markets= (Beating out WoW). 80% drop that still makes them the SECOND most played MMORPG? (After WoW), a game that has seen a similarly massive drop since the release of MoP?
You shouldn't bring XFire into it, '#2 MMORPG in the Western game market' is pretty poor evidence for 'dying game'. They in fact, are beating out EVE by a fairly hefty margin of players and profit both, so far as any evidence you'll find goes. Is EVE a failing game?
In fact, other than WoW, what MMORPG is beating out GW2 in western markets for money making? Or where you can prove it has more (active) players with facts?
Go ahead. I'll sit here and wait for you.
We have a winner.
I am not going to read all that, but acouple of things. Technicality or not, I was right in that regard. Yes I consider it micro-content, without question I consider it micro-content.
Games like Tera, FFXIV:AAR and even Neverwinter released with 16-18 dungeons at launch. GW2 released with 8 dungeons. Even if GW2 released a dungeon each patch after release, they would be behind in terms of content compared to these MMOs. So they are playing the catch up game.
And yes NCSoft pays the salaries of ANET off course they do. But they keep the money ANet makes and reinvests it in other games. Which to me is not a bad thing and most companies do it.
Also, page 10 or the report lists ANet's sales not just NCSoft' as a whole. Hope this helps.
XFire shows trends in data month over month. You can take a look at data here in terms of the drop.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AimCXydAYDLYdHUwWGhfWXg2S3pVWFY5QjcxOWlLRUE#gid=0
GW2 = 92,000 players in Sept '12
GW2 = 7,000 players in July '13
If you look at Raptr which has 20 times the sample of Xfire. GW2 is the third most popular MMO in the West, after WoW and Rift. I am guessing after this week it will be 4th after FFXIV:AAR.
http://raptr.com/dashboard/games
Wasn't a long wait, was it? And who said anything about "dying"? Declining? Sure.
The true test for GW2 will be the next 6-12 months.
Since it launched, GW2 has had no significant competition in the form of new AAA MMORPG launches, so it pretty much has had the playing field to itself.
There's been no significant game arrival that has pulled 100's of thousands of players away for 2 or 3 months at a time. But that is about to change...
FFXIV:ARR, Wildstar, ESO, Archeage and EQ:Landmark will most likely all be launching in the next 6-12 months, which will inevitably pull significant player numbers away from GW2. This will impact CS sales the most, and that appears to be GW2's major source of revenue currently.
Once again avoiding the facts. "I won't read your facts" is a great argument. NC Soft keeps the money Anet makes and then reinvests it into other games? Where did you get that idea? Facts? Oh wait, you don't base your argument on those, you base it on speculation. I guess ArenaNet just takes the money they earn and hands it directly to NC Soft. Man I would have loved to see that contract. Okay Colin, sign on this line of the contract that says "100% of the money we make off this game goes to NC Soft. If we like what we see, we may give it back to you". I looked at your post history, seems you are just one of those people who hate on GW2 just to hate it.
Seriously if you don't think its gonna keep going the way it is going, you don't need to keep attacking it; it will fail on its own. It doesn't need your help. Hell, it doesn't need me and all the other white knights in this thread to come defend it, I just love getting a kick out of people like you.
Agreed 100%. And I am curious to see how NCSoft treats GW2 after the launch of WildStar. Even without competition it did drop in sales by a good amount. Now look at games that you mentioned and the landscape gets a whole lot more competitive. And to add to that, most of those games will be F2P or B2P.
Interesting. You'll notice that 2 quarters before, when GW2 came out, there was a huge spike in the other subsidiaries as well. A REALLY huge spike. That was the only NCSoft game that came out in Europe then.
Is NCEurope responsible for GW2 sales in GW2? What's the explanation for this discrepancy? That chart really doesn't explain what each subsidiary is doing. It's not very helpful in a lot of ways.
I'm sure people who actually invest in NCSoft and pay more attention could probably explain this better what all is going on. I'm sort of curious. Can you explain this?
I sure can't.