Idea for increasing population in GW

Hi all,

First I just want to say that I'm normally crawling around in the GameAmp forums so this is my first time here. Howdy!

Recently, I sent a note to the ANet Support kids regarding an idea that I had about trying to increase the userbase in GW. You have to admit, that with roughly one million users between the three games, things are getting spread pretty thin. And although you have Heroes to accompany you on the PvE side of things, as well as the PvP Hero matches, it used to be nice to grab a PuG for those pesky tougher missions like the ones in the Fire Island Chain.

So here was my idea:

The events that ANet has on the weekends are great and all. I really enjoy them, however, these types of events are geared towards the currently registered user community, and not towards the millions of potential gamers out there.

What I would recommend would be weekend events promoting new users trying out the games themselves. Heck, have them with a holiday, or even do something special (like reopening the minigames) during that weekend.

You could promote this by having the current users invite people they know, via e-mail, with a trial key to friends of theirs to use. Put a limit on the key for the weekend, but don't limit the number of hours they can play.

Understandably, I'm sure that some people would be able to clear the an game within a 48-hour timeframe...with a lot of coffee and no sleep. But they won't be able to clear all three. Plus, if they're hooked enough to play that much in a weekend, chances are that they'll purchase at least one of the three games.

One, to two weeks after the event, since you'll have the e-mails of the people that participated in the event (provided they give you permission to e-mail them during registration), send them a coupon...or some type of discount (10% seems to be standard) that they can redeem at their local game shop to purchase one of the three GW games.

If you were feeling really generous, you could increment the discount if they purchase the other two...like 15% for buying two, and 20% for buying all three.

The user base is seriously stretched thin. And with the upcoming fourth installment, it's about to get thinner. One of the big problems with GuildWars is that ANet made the replay value way too good. So many of the people go back to Prophecies, or Factions, and it spreads everyone out. ANet really needs to increase the user base if they're going to get anywhere.

Personally, if they were to do something like this, and I remember that they did once way back when, it could be a potential boost to the player community. OK...yes...there would probably be a lot of lag that weekend from the server loads...but even still...an increase in revenue for them, plus an additional user base benefits us all. It'll give us more people for PuGs, more Guilds, more Guild recruits...and probably boost the economy as well...not to mention that they would probably add additional servers if they got enough people.

And if we get enough people Stateside, we might be able to hold favour for longer than 12am-8am on this side of the planet. :-D

My two cents. I'm looking forward to the replies, and it's nice to meet you all in advance.

It sound like an interesting idea. Perhaps the player's can't actually play the game, but there is some special trial area. Perhaps they can only play in the starting area of each game. I think that it would serve to attract a lot of people to the game, and more people can only be a good thing.
Perhaps they could hand out trial codes at game stores, or sell trial CD's (like the WoW ones).

/signed

I see a very big flaw in the whole discount idea, with regards to new campaigns. A lot of the current players would wait until one of these special weekends before inviting a "friend" (who is really themselves in disguise) to play, and after the weekend the receive their 10% discount and go out and buy the new campaign. You've got to remember a few things with a promotion like this:

1) The only way Anet gains money is through the sales of the game.
2) In my experience, most members of the human race, if offered a way to save a bit of dosh, would take that chance no matter what it means for certain companies that may lose their only revenue as a result.

It's a pretty good idea, I just disagree that these new players should get a discount when actually buying the game.

I can understand that line of thinking...However, the majority of the players already have all three of the games. Thus the reason why you haven't seen much over 3 million sales. And, even at 10%, that's only a few bucks off...about 4.99 where I get mine. I think overall the motivation to purchase the game would offset the possibility of a loss financially.

ANet will be selling the whole Trilogy for one price soon, won't it?

Yeah, but I was thinking more for new campaigns. And with no monthly fees, and a saving of 4.99 each time, and assuming that at least 3 million people do this (3 million is probably a bit high, but it gets my point across), it'd be a loss of $14970000. Almost 15 million dollars lost. That's quite a blow to a company maintaining an online game with no monthly fee.

Or...

People could just use the already existing trial keys that you get with the game and can pass onto friends.

Or...

They could try the games out when they do the beta-tests of expansions, which happen about every 6 months. Something which anyone can take part in.

The facilities to test and try out GuildWars already exist.

And they will be releasing a game-of-the-year edition which will include all 3 games. It happens with every game which has expansions and its just a good marketting ploy to shift more copies. I expect they'l do this at the same time they release the 4th expansion set for the game.

So your discount will be covered anyway.

Anet is a business and they know how to pull in new customers.

Of course, using that math. If they don't sell 3 million copies as a result of not taking the risk, they miss out on making...lets see..

49.99-4.99=45.00x 3,000,000=135,000,000

15 mill would be a drop in the bucket.

But that's assuming that, assuming there are 3 million people who regularly play GW, all decide not to go out and buy the next campaign. People who like a game already are more inclined to buy the next update. However, if there's a chance to get a discount, everyone will try to get it. So yes, there is a chance that with each campaign the company will lose 135000000, but that's a risk with every new product onto the market, and there's only a slight chance that it will happen. But it's pretty much a certainty that if they offered such an easily obtainable discount to the game, then a large percentage of the current player base will get one, as well as any potential new customers.

I think it's safe to say that from an R&D perspective, the game has more than likely made up it's money to at least break even for the company. So even with the discount, even if only a few people buy the game after the event, there's still profit to be made. Even if 100, 1000, or 100,000 people were to make the purchase, ANet wouldn't _lose_ money. And if we, as users, do our part and invite as many people as we possibly can, there's a very good chance that the number of new purchasers would be very high.

WoW proclaims that it has 8.5 million users worldwide. And I know that there are a lot of people that play both GuildWars and WoW. If there was a chance that even that user base could be tapped, even a fraction of it, the benefits to both ANet, and us as players would be astronomical.

Well, mainly I was concerned with new campaigns, which Anet would not have broken even with since they haven't been released yet. Maybe if there were a discount, it should only be on old releases. That would mean that not only would Anet be gaining profit through sales of old games, sales for new campaigns would still be at the same level.

Now that I do agree on. You've gotta make the big money on the new releases.