Market Share

I sent a few emails trying to suggest something but i think the proper way to do it is to post it in these forums so here's the email i sent:

I'm not sure i'm sending this to the right place but it's about your press section. Lots of people won't consider Guild Wars when talking about general MMORPG because it doesn't give numbers on subscriptions. I am aware that guild wars has box sales and no subscriptions to give those numbers but it would be nice if a certain level of account activity would quialify for a subscription status and actually put guild wars on the map. Think of it as publicity. The most commonly used compilation on MMORPG is http://www.mmogchart.com/. It uses the games press relases to chart what games gamers play.

I'd like to point out the other 2 threads started by me are the result of lag while submitting the thread. Nothing was happening and i clicked the button many times.

Guild Wars is not an MMORPG.

Its a CORPG.

That's besides the point. Whatever Guild Wars is has ppl playing it. We all know it sold a few boxes but that's not a reference because i myself have quit playing it for many months before comming back to it.

It not beeing on the charts gives the impression it's a bad game. This is about the reputation of the game and as i said free publicity.

MMO or CO. Who really cares? It's an online role playing game, no matter what tag Anet decides to brand it with.

Well... I bought GW because I tried it in an Opend Weekend, I liked it so I bought Prophecies and added the key to my Free Weeknd account.

I think the best way GW has to show itself are those Open Weekends.

However, they need to advertise them more... unless you are actively interested into guild wars, do your research, and discover a free weekend, odds are you'll never know about it, even if you would have done it if you knew.

I think they advertise as 2 million sold pre-Nightfall.

Don't really see how it would help much in advertisting or attracting new player to have a detail up-to-date number all the time... but I am sure they have it shown to the internal shareholders.

I just looked in some pages for non-monthly-coute games, and found GW.
Tried and loved it.
And every single update makes it better. Well... not many people think the sae, but I'm lucky this game is turning into what I want, XD.

So It can't be impossible that they don't advertise, I found them by one of those *ORPG lists.

You don't seem to think it's a big deal. If half of the 2 million ppl who bought guild wars still play that would put it in 4th place as leading online game way ahead of the rest.

Then again maybe this game is just like diablo2 and isnt worth putting on a chart. I'm begining to think it's all in my head.

I don't think the lack of advertisement lies with anet/ncsoft, but the gaming medias aversion to touch something that remotely smells like new (unless it's branded Nintendo). The untested business model GW uses was unreliable to say the least back before it was launched, and since NCsoft lacks the financial backing of, say, Microsoft, the press is afraid of talking too fondly about it because it'll be a "one shot wonder" before it disappears. While the press love WoW (through almost weekly articles on many sites), GW is barely mentioned once a quarter unless something special happens (Nightfall WPE got far more PR then I had imagined, even if half the previews were copy + paste e-mails from NCsoft).

Yes, you should realize this is my view and doesn't necessarily reflect facts

I'm just annoyed at the gaming media in general, not just regarding GW compared to other games.

Even if they tried to get on the guy's website, which they don't care about, the guy might say there's no subscriptions so he won't do it.

They've been doing adequately with the current press relases. Those suggest they have around 500k active players.

The reason i wrote this is i was checking out the WoW forums and someone said some game was not free and some other guy said sarcasticly that this game would kill wow just like Guild Wars did. I waned to respon to him but i wasnt going to reactivate my account just to post on the forums.

Like i said, it's all in my head.

GW has an estimated 2 million players.

I would also like to point out that GW is not a MMORPG.

And in the last free weekend more than 4 million were trying the new stuff.
4 million out of around 500 million having internet connection in the world... is a good number...

It's true that guild wars sold 2 mil copies but that doesn't mean everyone still plays. And if you're refering to this, 500k players played 4 mil hours not the other way around.

If you have a reliable source saying 4 mil players played in the free whatever i'd like to see it.