No subscription GW2
- Thread starter Stas823
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Box cost and non pay to win microtransactions.
Arenanet's developers have made it very clear that they do not need to, and will never charge subscription fees for GW2.
No MMO actually needs subscription fees, just about every other one other than WoW / Swtor / Eve have already gone free to play with great financial success.
Arenanet's developers have made it very clear that they do not need to, and will never charge subscription fees for GW2.
No MMO actually needs subscription fees, just about every other one other than WoW / Swtor / Eve have already gone free to play with great financial success.
As others said, launching a pay to play is nothing more than creed now. I can only imagine a monthly free model only being needed if you have a very low player base for a mmo, but even then there has been cases were it's more profitable to just go free to play with micro transactions. Guild Wars did fine without a monthly charge, rolling out 3 large campaigns and had quite a few PvP tourneys with prize money in its highlight.
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I'm pretty sure that it's not next to nothing these days. Obviously Blizzard make far more than it costs them to run from the subscriptions.
I had an article with a full on analysis of the cost that Blizzard incur to run the game, but can't find it. From a random article from 2010 though:
- The server side of WoW consists of 20,000 computers, 1.3 petabytes of storage, 75,000 CPU cores, 5.5 million lines of code.
- The server upkeep costs $136,986 per day, the same as purchasing a sparkling new AUDI R8 every single day.
Yes they could do it cheaper, and the cost of subscriptions are way more than they could charge, but their data centres are far from next to nothing to run.
People that run F2P always make money back through advertising or micro-transactions, those models rely on people playing the game more regularly funding the requirements for those that play irregularly.
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If the servers cost $136,986 to run a day, that's £3,835,608 a 28 day month.
Assuming they have the 11,000,000 paying subscribers they gloat about, that's a few cents a month.
I know that $3m+ a month seems like a lot, but on the scale of it, it's not really. If the game sold for £60, just on sales alone, they'd be able to keep the servers up for several years without worrying about a loss, If you include micro transactions, then it increases that margin evenmore.
Loads of games have dedicated servers and don't charge for their use, FPS, RTS, racing games all usually have their own MP servers. Obviously on PC some are user owned, but a lot aren't.
Assuming they have the 11,000,000 paying subscribers they gloat about, that's a few cents a month.
I know that $3m+ a month seems like a lot, but on the scale of it, it's not really. If the game sold for £60, just on sales alone, they'd be able to keep the servers up for several years without worrying about a loss, If you include micro transactions, then it increases that margin evenmore.
Loads of games have dedicated servers and don't charge for their use, FPS, RTS, racing games all usually have their own MP servers. Obviously on PC some are user owned, but a lot aren't.
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The system seems to be working for LoL. There's nothing you can buy in that game that gives you any kind of advantage. You can speed up stuff like levelling and gaining IP (what you use to buy things with) but you don't get a direct advantage by buying anything.
If GW2 did something like you can get a boost to gain double faction points (if it works on the same basis as GW1) then people would buy that but in the long term, it wouldn't give them any advantage. Hell, in GW that kind of thing is only used for different looks on your armour anyway so even shortterm there'd be no advantage.
I can honestly see things like special armour, new skins for pets etc being for sale and people buying them.
you can also purchase aditional character slots. Lets say there are 8 professions and 4 races (cant think of true numbers off top of my head) but you only initially get 4 slots. you can purchase more for usually £4-5. Doesnt give an advantage but is a desirable purchase. Some cosmetics as well. I believe it will use a similar system to Plex that we see in EvE.
The system works in GW1 also, and also PoE is also using a cosmetic item only cashstore.
You simply don't know how many people buy the optional stuff in the cash store just to support the developers in games like this. In GW1 loads of people would simply buy the costumes because of how much they enjoyed and were willing to support the game.
Not one single MMO nowadays is so expensive to maintain that it needs fees. Arena et have also stated they their servers cost a lot less to run than other MMOs do, and the amount of data passed between the server and your PC is a minimal amount in KBs just containing character and storage data. Everything to do with the graphics and game engine runs off your HDD.
You simply don't know how many people buy the optional stuff in the cash store just to support the developers in games like this. In GW1 loads of people would simply buy the costumes because of how much they enjoyed and were willing to support the game.
Not one single MMO nowadays is so expensive to maintain that it needs fees. Arena et have also stated they their servers cost a lot less to run than other MMOs do, and the amount of data passed between the server and your PC is a minimal amount in KBs just containing character and storage data. Everything to do with the graphics and game engine runs off your HDD.
You'd be amazed how many people are willing to hand over money for cosmetic items. LOTRO is full of people with horses that can only be bought from the store, and WoW's sparkle pony was a massive success for the company.
LOTRO does sell stuff to accelerate the levelling and crafting processes, but that just means you reach 75 quicker. Doesn't make you more powerful once you're there or any better able to play your class. Most likely the only advantage you have over the free to play guy is that you horse is nicer
If I like the game when it is released and play it enough then I will definately be making some micro transactions. I won't be paying a monthly sub like I have for every single MMO i've played so far so have no issue buying bits and pieces. This is the same view of pretty much everyone in the guild i'm in.
You'd be amazed how many people are willing to hand over money for cosmetic items. LOTRO is full of people with horses that can only be bought from the store, and WoW's sparkle pony was a massive success for the company.
LOTRO does sell stuff to accelerate the levelling and crafting processes, but that just means you reach 75 quicker. Doesn't make you more powerful once you're there or any better able to play your class. Most likely the only advantage you have over the free to play guy is that you horse is nicer
Oh, I know people will, but I don't think it will come close to the amount of money made from a subscription based system that has a micro transaction system as well (ie. WoW).
But then, I have zero issue paying a very small fee to play WoW as it has been such a fantastic game over the years.
What only 4 character slots?! That's more than 10 times less what wow has and yes there are people that use that many slots
Also in my opinion at least I think that in game stores kill a game especially when they offer gear or xp as its v.unfair and as to wow fees considering it £8.99 a month its not actually that much considering its a very good form of entertainment with new content released quicker than a new call of duty (very fast!)
Also in my opinion at least I think that in game stores kill a game especially when they offer gear or xp as its v.unfair and as to wow fees considering it £8.99 a month its not actually that much considering its a very good form of entertainment with new content released quicker than a new call of duty (very fast!)
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Edit: Seems someone's already said the same thing.
Don't underestimate the need for many of the the human species in first world countries to spend money on amassing entire swathes of useless trinkets, games are no escape.
It's unfortunate to see happen as a whole, but it's works for those wanting to make money, remember that purchasable wow mount? Sure, some of the proceeds go to charity, but not all of their items, how long would it honestly take their veteran team to make 1 model, animate it, texture and effect it?
Oh that's right, they re-used the animations, used existing models and it wouldn't surprise me if it took someone a day to texture it with some of the work I've seen people do.
It does sort of annoy me that they can spend almost no extra effort and dump millions into their pockets but, hey if it funds them to do better/more for the game, I should shut up. If it works for GW2, all the more better.
I think my original point is people will buy useless ****.
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Yes but GW2 won't be making any money from monthly subs because they aren't charging one. This means that they need to make money in other ways, and character slots is just one of them! Think about it, if a player wants to level 4 characters to max level and pvp with them etc then that is possibly 4 months worth of gameplay. In wow terms thats £32 in monthly subs. So now the guy wants another slot then he pays £5 (IIRC). So if he wanted he could by another 4 slots for £20, plus some vanity items at the same cost as the sub, and then get another 4 months + out of it.
Just because the game HAS stuff you can buy it doesn't mean you have to. If you do want to buy some bits then compare it to how much you would be paying monthly and compare the costs, I bet it works out cheaper unless you go mad!
Anet have said specifically there will be nothing in the shop that will give any player an advantage over another!
It seems in this day and age that Pay monthly subs are a dying thing in MMO's.
I know Tera and the Secret World are charging monthly but that may not last too long (The Secret Worlds business model is mind blowingly weird).