For the first time in a very long time, I actually expect GW2 to grow post-release as word of mouth gets out about just how good the game is. Few MMOs have managed that over the past decade as most fight merely to retain current subcribers.
This, of course, doesn't mean the naysayers will go away
It's very rare for general video games even to grow much after release, not to meantion mmo's. It's not that it's not possible, but mostly it's the people who are really into the game. The word of mouth thing only works, IMO, if the game is really unkown. GW2 is already well known in the mmorpg community and alot in pc community, but i just don't see it growing into the overall market, like console players and all around people like casual players.
That's not true. Good MMOs do grow for months, if not years. All of these grew for at least 9 months before slowing down then contracting while others grew for years.:
WoW. GW1. EQ2. DAOC. LOTRO. Eve. Ultima Online. Liineage. Lineage II. Runescape. Dofus. FFXI. Even Aion grew until the grind wore too many people out.
Bad MMOs do contract, and they do it right out of the gate:
Rift hasn't contracted and is not a bad MMO - it is 1 yr older than TOR which is contracting after3-4 months.
Don't act like a SWTOR fanboy. Irrational opinions to the contrary, Rift has contracted. It does, IMO, have a chance at rebound. But pretending it hasn't contracted is just BS.
I mean, seriosly, they did all those server mergers for a reason. They went try-before-you-buy for a reason. They went deep discount for a reason. It wasn't because things were growing and they just, out of the goodness of their hearts, wanted people to sponge off them.
Rift has sold close to 2 million boxes to be honest. It is not hard when they price the game at $5. Pay to play games are about the sub fee. Buy to play games are about th box sales and cash shop.
It is pretty damn easy to estimate to be honest considering Guild Wars sold close to 7 million. Take a game that is hyped up to be UO 2.0, DAoC 2.0 + free to play after you buy the box and my guess would be 2-3million sold easily.
The original Guild Wars did not sell close to 7 millions. That number counts the major "content packs" individually. You are welcome to though to show me how many bought Guild Wars Prophecies (the original).
Edit:
Buying the "content packs" is analogous to buying expansion packs and paying subscription. It measures how much players they have retained.
Last I checked the 'to-date' figures It sold 6.5 million base units. I don't include expansions because many of them became bundled with the base-game, so I just count the base-only in those cases.
I will certainly say that purchases have been pretty slow since 2009. They've only sold 500K combo packs since then. And those are fairly heavily discounted, down to $20 for all last time I saw one.
Still, pretending it didn't sell a lot of units... Ok. Sure. Whatever makes you happy...
I am using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_video_games, which is not the most reliable source, but you are welcome to show a more accurate source which explicitily remarks that it is "base units" so that buying prophecies and one of the content packs still only counts as one and not as several.
Comments
Don't act like a SWTOR fanboy. Irrational opinions to the contrary, Rift has contracted. It does, IMO, have a chance at rebound. But pretending it hasn't contracted is just BS.
I mean, seriosly, they did all those server mergers for a reason. They went try-before-you-buy for a reason. They went deep discount for a reason. It wasn't because things were growing and they just, out of the goodness of their hearts, wanted people to sponge off them.
XFIRE Game Rank : 74
Up from 1 yesterday
Highest Rank: 5 on 2011-03-31
Publisher : Trion Worlds
Release Date : 2011-3-1
Genre : Massively Multiplayer Online
http://beta.xfire.com/games/rft
You don't go from #5 to #75 because you stayed the same...
I am using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_video_games, which is not the most reliable source, but you are welcome to show a more accurate source which explicitily remarks that it is "base units" so that buying prophecies and one of the content packs still only counts as one and not as several.
agree, its difficult to count unique players
when Guild Wars announced 2 million a year later, Factions was already released
http://www.guildwars.com/events/press/releases/
there was no bundle packs on the Factions launch - that happened later
when GW announced 3 million, Nightfall had already been released for 2 months
EQ2 fan sites