Re: Guild Wars is SO MUCH BETTER than World of Warcraft

Thusly Jan Potocki <cvijaxo@xxxxxxxx> Spake Unto All:

Especally if other companies adopt GWs
paying methods for gaming online (you buy game - you play game as it
should be).
(spelling errors fixed /MC)

The streaming technology & the account-management of GW has impressed
the heck out of me - that you can sit down at any computer with
internet access, download a small client, and play; and that there is
never any downtime... well, I find it damn impressive. Like I've said
before, I've never seen a company as on the ball as Arenanet.

That said, though, and while GW is already a financial success, I
wonder if their financial model will really be all that long-lived.
WoW's subscription fees alone rake in more profit _every month_ than
GW has made over it's entire lifetime. This in *addition* to WoW
costing as much to buy as GW, and outselling GW by a factor of almost
5.

The take-home message is, I think, that
a) people will happily pay full price for a subscription game, and
b) will happily pay a subscription fee of $10-15 per month.

The conclusion of that is that selling a game full price and then
charging subscription is better than selling a game full price and NOT
charging subscription.

The one thing which could change that equation would be if GW turned
out to have more staying-power due to the twice-yearly updates &
streaming updates of engine and graphics than WoW, but somehow I have
a hard time seeing that. Plus Blizzard is raking in so much cash they
could develop two new WoW's per year without breaking a sweat.

Then again, compared to other MMORPGs than the WoW phenomenon, GW
compares quite favorably. So who knows.

--
O
-|- <--- Caricature of Muhammed.
/ \
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