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How does this game make profits

jusomdudejusomdude Member RarePosts: 2,706

Without a constant flow of income, how does this game make profits?

They have to pay for server upkeep/bandwidth along with who knows what other costs.

Comments

  • kaiser3282kaiser3282 Member UncommonPosts: 2,759

    Mainly through box sales, expansions, and their cash shop which contains things like skill packs, costumes, and other various fluff & optional content stuff.

    Theyve sold several million copies of the game & expansions over the years which is mor ethan can be said of many of the craptastic games weve seen the past few years, so even though the others have subs they never retain a decent % of the numbe rthat originally bought the game so in the long run they probably wind up bringing in less (or at least about the same) profit than Arenanet's system.

  • spikers14spikers14 Member UncommonPosts: 531

    "box" sales...new customers, some addons in their little store too...

  • jusomdudejusomdude Member RarePosts: 2,706

    If Guild Wars can thrive off by just box sales, I think the MMO consumer base is being bamboozled by every other MMO developer out there.

  • MMO.MaverickMMO.Maverick Member CommonPosts: 7,619

    Yeah, well... nothing new here, right?

    Some companies are more resource and cost efficient than others, and some companies are good in making their shareholders and top managers very, very happy.

    The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's

    The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
    Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."

  • kaiser3282kaiser3282 Member UncommonPosts: 2,759

    Originally posted by jusomdude

    If Guild Wars can thrive off by just box sales, I think the MMO consumer base is being bamboozled by every other MMO developer out there.

     That's actually something that was said or at least eluded to by Arenanet in the past :-) Funny thing is, they'r ealso still managing to keep the same model for GW2 which is much more expansive and costing them much more to develop. It will be really interesting to see all these new games coming out with subscription fees, if they get their asses handed to them by GW2 which has no fee.

    Many of us feel the same, that subscription fees, especially in certain games, or the prices they charge are nothing but greed and trying to maximize profits. They claim they need the money to keep things running, rathe rthan facing up to the fact that if they actually produced a worthwhile product they could rely on sales like GW rather than milking the people who actually stick with playing their pile of crap for $15 every month. Very few games are worth the $15 a month, most should be charging more like $5 or a max of $10, but just like with copying/cloning games, too many companies think they ar ebetter than everyone who cam ebefore them and think "well they did it, so we can pull it off too".

  • rahj83rahj83 Member Posts: 77

    I personally believe you get a bit more bang for your buck going the Guild Wars route. You figure, and I'm just gonna use WoW cause we all know it, Wow charges $15 a month and that gets you um...newest patch notes says: Ruby Sanctum and some chat stuff and interface fixes. Plus the usual bug fixes, balancing acts, etc. So, you get a new dungeon every month and that's about it.

    With the GW2 style, you get to play the game for no subscription, so that's cool. Every month they do basic patching things like WoW, bug fixes, interface fixes, balancing acts, etc. Occasionally you'll get a special event or something. So you save $15 for the next four months. Then they release an expansion pack that costs $40...you get all new areas, new dungeons, new quests, new classes all kinds of new stuff.

    So, you save $20 every four months, and get more for the $40 you spend. Not to mention in WoW if you want all the new areas, classes, dungeons, quests, etc...you gotta shell out another $40 for the expansion on top of the $15 a month...

     

    Games like Guild Wars and Global Agenda will get my money over games like WoW every time.

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  • The_GrumpThe_Grump Member Posts: 331

    Originally posted by jusomdude

    If Guild Wars can thrive off by just box sales, I think the MMO consumer base is being bamboozled by every other MMO developer out there.

    Guild Wars did not thrive, it survived. It was dealt a rather large blow, in my mind, when in 2008 Guild Wars 2 was pushed back so NCSoft can push out AION. Support also declined noticably in that time and that was the only time I had to use support, something that pushed me out of the game for all of 2009 and until May of 2010. In the interim, somehow, ArenaNet was able to implement a host of features that helped build the game back up and this largely took place in their 4th Anniversary updates and the new War in Kryta content. The Zaishan Challenges that were introduced have been an absolutely wonderful addition and, forgive me for being realistically pessimistic, I'm honestly not sure how Guild Wars survived to the point it did: somehow NCSoft didn't kill such a brilliant game.

    The fact that Guild Wars is still around, survived AION and is now thriving, gives me great hope for Guild Wars 2 and what will come with that. NCSoft is an incredibly miserly company, a little Googling can uncover that if you don't have experience with it, and this upswing in the 'subscription free' model gives me reason to believe that NCSoft will do better for GW2 than it did for GW1 and may even give it some real degree of support beyond the hype machine.

    (1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
    (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.

  • The_GrumpThe_Grump Member Posts: 331

    Originally posted by rahj83

    I personally believe you get a bit more bang for your buck going the Guild Wars route. You figure, and I'm just gonna use WoW cause we all know it, Wow charges $15 a month and that gets you um...newest patch notes says: Ruby Sanctum and some chat stuff and interface fixes. Plus the usual bug fixes, balancing acts, etc. So, you get a new dungeon every month and that's about it.

    With the GW2 style, you get to play the game for no subscription, so that's cool. Every month they do basic patching things like WoW, bug fixes, interface fixes, balancing acts, etc. Occasionally you'll get a special event or something. So you save $15 for the next four months. Then they release an expansion pack that costs $40...you get all new areas, new dungeons, new quests, new classes all kinds of new stuff.

    So, you save $20 every four months, and get more for the $40 you spend. Not to mention in WoW if you want all the new areas, classes, dungeons, quests, etc...you gotta shell out another $40 for the expansion on top of the $15 a month...

     

    Games like Guild Wars and Global Agenda will get my money over games like WoW every time.

    Well. Said. Period.

    (1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
    (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.

  • KruxKrux Member Posts: 274

    How doesnt this game make a profit, being atop the best-selling PC game charts consistently.  At least selling a million copies with each game.   ArenaNet has said it before that mmorpg players are being sold a bill of goods if they think that server costs and minor updates, fixes, balances, etc; are worth $15 a month.

    Your wrong if you think it is worth $15/month. ArenaNet has proven you wrong and stated it.  In any event, paying 50$ each year for a Guild Wars expansion amounts to paying 4/month for an mmo.  Far less than other mainsteam mmo's that carry far fewer subscibers.

  • SwaneaSwanea Member UncommonPosts: 2,401

    I think they do fairly well with the cash shop too.

    It has nothing to do with giving you an advantage.  You look different, you get extra slots for characters, you can get skills for pvp / unlocked for your heros a little easier.

    It's one of the best cash shops out there right now.  I wouldn't mind a few more costumes, or even different looking armor sets.

  • NailzzzNailzzz Member UncommonPosts: 515

         I seem to remember there was an early interview during the earlier beta's where one of the developers had said that they woud be able to consider the game a success if it sold 250,000 copies and they would be able to keep the game servers up and running well into the forseeable future. So if that is any indication of how inexpensive it is to keep the guild wars servers up than they are making plenty of profit seeing as how they have sold over 6 million. If they can manage there overhead so efficiently on GW1 then i have little reason to doubt there ability to do the same on GW2. And once they prove this, Its going to come across like a huge black eye to those mmo's still charging monthly fee's. Especially given the quality that arenanet seems to be able/willing to put in such games.

  • EdliEdli Member Posts: 941

    Well GW is a bit different from other mmo. It's not an seamless world but divided in instances, like modern warfare or battlefield. They don't have a sub fee too. It doesn't cost that much for that kind of mmo. Although GW2 will be different and we'll see how that we'll work. I agree however with arenanet when they say that 15$ a month to maintain the servers is too much. In this day and age the cost of upkeep has dropped a lot.

  • HalandirHalandir Member UncommonPosts: 773

    Originally posted by Swanea

    I think they do fairly well with the cash shop too.

    It has nothing to do with giving you an advantage.  You look different, you get extra slots for characters, you can get skills for pvp / unlocked for your heros a little easier.

    It's one of the best cash shops out there right now.  I wouldn't mind a few more costumes, or even different looking armor sets.

    At this point (well past GW's 5 year birthday) this is very true.

    Some of us 'veterans' tend to support GW (Anet, their subscriptionless model and -sigh- NCSoft) by buying  most of the stuff you can get in their online store. They sell stuff at decent prices and most  is useful to players that need extra storage or like the convenience of having several PvP characters.

    I DO play other 'real' MMO's (as in: sub-fee for a serverlocked world I cannot enjoy with every other player around the world). In the end I always seem to return to GW, at least for a while because, frankly the game is still a lot better than most 'real' mmo's.

    We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
    (repeat ad infinitum)

  • The_GrumpThe_Grump Member Posts: 331

    Originally posted by Halandir

    Originally posted by Swanea

    I think they do fairly well with the cash shop too.

    It has nothing to do with giving you an advantage.  You look different, you get extra slots for characters, you can get skills for pvp / unlocked for your heros a little easier.

    It's one of the best cash shops out there right now.  I wouldn't mind a few more costumes, or even different looking armor sets.

    At this point (well past GW's 5 year birthday) this is very true.

    Some of us 'veterans' tend to support GW (Anet, their subscriptionless model and -sigh- NCSoft) by buying  most of the stuff you can get in their online store. They sell stuff at decent prices and most  is useful to players that need extra storage or like the convenience of having several PvP characters.

    I DO play other 'real' MMO's (as in: sub-fee for a serverlocked world I cannot enjoy with every other player around the world). In the end I always seem to return to GW, at least for a while because, frankly the game is still a lot better than most 'real' mmo's.

    I say that we simply call NCSoft a handicap. You know, it's like ArenaNet is running the MMORPG race with other developers and has this lead belt around its waist that says 'Published by NCSoft, GOTCHA!' If only they would do more than function as a hype machine. ArenaNet is an amazing developer and has done quite well with the model they proposed. How many games would have sank by now with that model? Clearly, ArenaNet is doing something right.

    (1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
    (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.

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