Guild Wars 2: WTF No Subscription Fee?

Will Guild Wars 2 fail because it lacks a subscription fee?

I did this little video presentation because I keep seeing people insisting this game, and others, will fail without a subscription. While Guild Wars 2 is the focus, I think what I have to say can be applied to all upcoming MMO's.

What do you think?


I've actually done another video like this before - on MMOs without dedicated healers, plus many other videos on Guild Wars. Feel free to check out the channel if you're interested!

http://www.youtube.com/user/WoodenPot...



Credits go to:
Arenanet for the footage and game, http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

4thVariety from http://www.wartower.de/news/ for inspiration for the video with his amazing post and forum PMs to me.

And Magicalmike2 http://www.youtube.com/user/magicalmike2 for some feedback.


You can find the NCSoft information here:
http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earni...

And the Activision stuff here:
http://files.shareholder.com/download...

• Category

  Gaming

[HazaRDReBorn]

Correct. thinking otherwise is silly. They are milking the market with their product simply because they can. And you know what? I may not agree as a consumer, but as a business they do exactly what most if not all companies would in their place. Heck, I would of done the same too, I mean that is A LOT of money. Lets say it's 4million subscribers yearly (it's way more), 15bucks a month for 12 months, that's 720million a year! You can't seriously believe they need that much money for servers XD

[IruyAriviel]

Subscriptions are crap... well, I wouldn't mind if they were cheaper than 1 buck though. But 15? That's bullshit. Give me a new game every 4 months and I might think about it. I play GW2 and after paying 59.99$ that thing is mine, just like that. I can log in or not anytime without caring if I'm playing or not, or how much I'm playing or not. I just get in cause I want fun, and if I'm tired I just close the game, without caring about making my money worth it, cause I can just play it later!

[crzymn246]

Dude, you forgot a third reaction to hearing "no subscription fee": "That fucking awesome!"

That was my reaction when I first heard about Guild Wars 2.

[Garrus Vakarian]

Allow me to compare subscription fees and people getting used to the said fees and even not wanting anything else in MMOs to something in real life:

When the Holocaust was coming to an end, and the U.S. Army's forces were liberating Concentration Camps, they gave the Jewish prisoners a lot of food - the problem is, the Jewish prisoners' bodies were so used to a bare minimum of nourishment that it was incapable of handling so much food, so many of them died.

[MrDentalFloss1108]

there's no guild wars in guild wars 2.

[DearestBow]

So do i have have to pay or not?

[dragonwaffles06]

I think the no subscription could have also attracted way more players who don't want to pay monthly, like me and it is a server so they don't need THAT much money to get by, they already have some purchasable things in there and it seems to be going well with them. So subscription fees? I don't think so

[HazaRDReBorn]

btw, to quote and explain my "dev" remark. I have been involved in the planning of quite a few projects, most scraped due to inefficient funds, some are sitting there waiting for budgets to be met, whilst I have also been part of (nothing too big) an iPhone+Android game making company. I left them behind to go a separate way soon as I realised that they where after a "profit only" model and I didn't enjoy my work nor time spent with them. Thus, I can backup my beliefs with my actions as well ;)

[HazaRDReBorn]

haha, I agree. I din't explain it in the best way the 2nd time :P

Allow me to correct myself :)

Firstly, after being involved with gaming projects etc in the past, I am characterized as one of those "devs" that wants to make a good product and not focus on profit.

However, if I was a developer who's main concern was profit and not product, I would use the same tactics. That's what I meant.

Lastly, on the side of the consumer, I don't agree to profit only models ofc since I am the one paying. ;)

[Anthony13USA]

No offense but it's kinda hypocritical to say you dislike companies that use the formula you'd also use if you were in Blizzard's shoes.

[HazaRDReBorn]

Indeed, that is what I said on an earlier post on the same thread ;) All devs want profit and hell, even I would have done the same in their place, lol :P

I'm not picking on Blizzard alone. However it is true that I have more hate for Blizz than other companies, and that is because I used to be an oldtime fan and hated the childish direction they went to. Then I hated their products cause I didn't enjoy them. So, I guess I dislike them because all devs use this formula, but Blizzard overused it.

[HazaRDReBorn]

Again, I was not talking about how a company uses profits. This is a given. The whole idea is buying a product. WoW imho is was always only worth a $5 bi-monthly subscription. This cash is still more than enough for profits, expenses, and every other thing Blizzard wanted to do. If people are paying 5 times that price, the excuse cannot be "it's for the companies expenses". Since when did a consumer become the sponsor for a company? No, consumers are the end users, not the shareholders.