GW2: No monthly fees - but how to make money?

I did not want to derail the GW.dat thread, but an interesting question has arisen.

I think there is some truth to this argument.

I play only 1 MMO at a time, and monthly fees are not threatening or the deciding factor to me. Sure, there will be players who cannot afford that or just like the idea to pay no fee.

But will they make up for one subscription in the short or long run? Guild Wars seems to be running very well, despite no fees. But could they not make MUCH more money with the traditional model?



But how about GW2? It seems to become much more of classic MMO judging from infos released so far.
They will of course try to keep traffic and other running costs low, but they have to create new content, new GW chapters and keep people buying them to keep that up. For the price of one copy of GW.

ANet seems to be running low on time all the time and working hard to release the next chapter in time. In fact I fear the guys are quite stressed most of the time, leading to some glitches and bugs that could easily have been avoided in the end.


GW2 wants to be an even better GW. People want superb content and additions to that, regardless if the game has a fee or not. It is important to the success of the game in general.


Now did you not ever imagine what would happen if ANet would get much more money?

Would they not be able to hire some more people? Would we not be already at the 23rd implemented God Realm? Have artists take their time and remove glitches from many armors? Get new chapters really every half year, and those being massive compared to the rather tiny Factions and EOTN?

I do not advocate a fee, but I can imagine that to keep the standard high ANet just needs some more money than just the money from selling the game.

We already have the online shop ingame.
Can you not imagine that it will be expanded to accept more payment options and sell more merchandise, optional content like the BMP, horse armor, special items? Basically GW becoming more of a micro-payment game?


I am just curious how they want to make sure GW2 is not only great for the gamers but also making enough profits so that the franchise keeps running. I could not really imagine it for GW1, and GW2 seems to be becoming much more MMO-like like GW1. Which could mean more service required and all that. We could of course say, let ANet and NCSoft support work their butt off... and after all, it is not so much our problem. ANet seems to be confident to do it.

What do you think?

They really can't afford to charge a monthly fee. They would lose many(most?) of their current customers. Furthermore, they have already demonstrated a profitable business model with their current franchise.

Gaile has already said, many times, that GW2 will have no fee.

I, along with many others, would not play GW if it had a monthly fee. I just don't agree with paying to buy a game and then having to pay rent on it. It'd be the same as buying a house and still having to pay to live in there. And I don't like paying for something that may or may not have features added every month.

I think the best option would be to add small features that can be purchasable through the online store (like the BMP. In fact, I think the BMP is just a way to figure out if people are willing to buy small packages of new features through the online store). It's like a fee, but people would feel more comfortable with it, since they can pay for things in their own time, and they would actually get something for their money every time.

looking at nc.soft papers guild wars franchise is already more then profitable, and would be a commercial suicide to change the business model that brought u to success.
is pretty clear that the majority of guild wars playerbase is unwilling to pay a montly fee but has little to nothing against micropayments as long as it doesnt turn the game in a "hey my credit card is bigger then yours festival".

keep the current model, sell more BMP-Sorrow Furnace like material for little $$ -> increase the earnings of a franchise already cashing a lot.
I truly feel that's the path gw2 is going to take. boxed expansions + mini expansions for 5-10$ from the online store, and i like it

Tbh i dont think you have to worry about how they make money, let them handle that. I wouldn't pay a monthly fee to play GW if you want my honest oppinion, eventhough its a great game, it doesnt offer enough for me personally to want to pay for it every month.

If GW2 had fees beyond the actual price, I wouldn't play it. Knowing it'll be "fee-free" boosts my confidence it'll be good.

You actually have to pay to live in a house you buy, and im not just talking about warm water, eletricity and such, but there is alot more you have to pay. So thats a bad example, allthough i know what you mean.

The problem with that statement - Wow has shown that players have no problem in paying a monthly fee... for Wow. There have been many pay-to-play MMO's that have sunk; and I mean big time. The reason is because of Wow's immense popularity. Most people who want to pay to play are already doing that with Wow; they aren't going to go to another game when they're all settled in where they're at.

GW doesn't have a big enough playerbase to get away with something like that. They make it pay to play, and most people who don't have a problem with it will likely just go to, or stay with, Wow. Those who do have a problem with it will just find a different game.

Jeff Strain has stated that Anet wanted to make a game that you can put away for a time and then pick it up again without having to make players commit to paying a monthly fee. Anet is not hurting for money. They have a much smaller company than most P2P MMO companies so their overhead is smaller.
Anyways expect expansions for GW2 to fill in. I for one and many others are tired of feeling like we have to log in just to feel we are getting our moneys worth with P2P games.
Personally I will never ever pay to play monthly fees again.

cmon this is not about GW2 having fees or not as we all know it wont.

Wether people like it or not, WoW also have alot more content to offer and stuff to do, then GW have. But if this content is good or bad is another discussion. That is also the reason people dont mind paying for it. Also, not having to pay fee's gives players a natural feeling about playing and not feeling forced to play, since hey, now im paying to play.

I've played GW for three years.
I've paid a total of about $150 for all chapters and expansions. About half of that will reach ANet/NCSoft, so they've made approximately $75 off of me as a customer.

If I'd played WoW for three years, I'd have paid a total of $80 for the chapters and expansions, and an additional $540 in fees, for a total of $620.
Out of that, approximately $580 would have reached Blizzard.

In other words, ArenaNet/NCSoft has made 1/8th as much money off of me as they would have had they used the same business model as Blizzard.

The big question is, then, how many users ArenaNet/NCSoft would lose if they switched to a fee-based model with GW2. That many would drop out is undeniable.

It will also be very difficult to take customers from WoW. Some 80-90% of the WoW players have not played any other mmorpg, and many of them are not even cRPG players - Blizzard has, by making the game cute and newbie-friendly, managed to tap in to nearly unexploited markets such as girl gamers and older casual gamers. They're playing largely for the social interaction, and will not move to a new mmorpg regardless of the quality of graphics or content, and are (obviously) not cost-sensitive. Blizzard's got it made, and can simply rake in the cash indefinitely while occasionally giving out minor upgrades/vanity packs, much in the vein of the Sims franchise.

If I had free reins with GW2, I'd not try to compete with WoW on WoW's home turf. I'd niche GW2 exactly the way GW1 was niched originally: as a competitive, less forgiving, higher-end MMO with advanced features, aimed at casual/experienced/older gamers.
I would aim for roughly one million subscribers, and I'd do some very careful marketing research to see if I could reach that goal with a fee-based financial model. If it seemed possible to reach one million subscribers by selling games at full price AND having monthly fees, then hell yes, I'd do so.

And it would be a great risk. Sure, the potential to make much more money is there, but is it really worth the risk, and the harm it would do to their image by breaking trust in their current fans?

I, personally, consider myself a hardcore fan. However, one of the major 'niche' elements that drew me, and many others like me, to GW was that free-to-play aspect. Not because I'm cheap, but because I know the psychological effect a monthly fee has on people, and how it pushes and drives people (like myself) to keep playing and being unable to put it down while attempting to get their money's worth. Simply put - I wouldn't buy it.

Besides, the only games that have monthly fees and are simultaneously popular enough to rake in enough money are full-out grindfests. Wow, Lineage 1&2, Runescape. Those are the top 4. There's no way a 'niche' game in the GW spirit would survive without that kind of classic MMO grind attached to it, which ruins its niche.

If GW2 had a monthly fee they would lose me, I cant afford monthly fee's. Cant get a hold of paypal or a credit card). I love the free to play and I hope they never change it.

I have to agree that they would a lose a significant number of customers if they switched to a monthly fee basis. The way GW is works well, and the hype over GW2 is looking up.
I think they will easily exceed their number of current GW customers with GW2, I imagine that they will need to aswell to fund the greater technology costs that it will entail.

Although Im not hideously strapped for cash, i can't really afford that many luxuries, if they introduced a fee then they would probably lose me as a customer.

Numa, Theres Many MANY other factors you have to take into consideration.

1.) Update Schemes. How do they update their game client? How do they distribute content? Gw lets you play without the entire game on your computer as that content gets streamed (Instead of downloading it before hand.)

2.) Servers. Wow= Waiting Times. Does that not rock your world?

3.) Server Distribution and the cost to upkeep those servers.

Theres probably a billion other reasons im forgetting right now.

To install a monthly fee at this point, even for GW2 will pretty much halve they're clientelle. If not more...

We might have USED to be willing, but now that we have fee free gaming i don't think many of us would be willing to pay monthly for it.

I'm not buying a game where I don't get to keep what I paid for. So, MMOs are almost automatically out. I don't even follow their development.

Just wanted to quote this because it's about the same things I would have said.

they would loose me for sure, will never, ever pay a monthly fee to play an online game simply because I am unable to afford it as I already have many many many many many monthly payment to make, so one more is out of the question and its not even for basic need.

PS: I think it is great what arena net is doing for people who cannot afford a monthly fee on gaming. please do not change it thank you very much.

How many subscription MMOs stayed competitive with WoW? None!
How many subscription MMOs have failed since WoW? ALL!

I think publishers should worry more about delivering a game that offers a good and complete gaming experience, before they charge even as much as the retail copy. MMOs seem always unfinished at release, so why buy them at release? Beta Test AND pay is a bit much to ask of the customer. By the time the game might actually be good, gold farmers will have destroyed the economy and five other MMOs start their full advertisement campaign so people forget about older titles. Incentive to buy? None, hell, these day one can hop from one promotional beta to the next!

As far as additional content is concerned, it has nothing to do with making good use of monthly fees. Especially the patch+dungeon iterations of WoW are little more than cleverly planned publicity stunts, so that all sorts of press can report on them. First month patch preview, second month patch review and guide, third month off. Begin again. Very cleverly done.

Players do not get one texture more than was originally planned. The delivery of the package is merely custom fit for the lies they tell themselves to justify monthly fees.

ANet has done much, much more for its game without the subscription than Blizzard has done for WoW with the subscription. Your claim that monthly fees will equal more and better content could be true, but not necessarily. It is more a matter of greed. Blizzard is a VERY greedy company. ANet isnt. At least i dont perceive ANet as being greedy.

Besides that ANet now has lots of expeirience with their current model, i am sure they will be able to manage GW2 just as well.

If there will be a fee for GW2, i will not pay for it. I just dont believe that you NEED a fee to make a good MMO. And GW1 proved me right.

I dont believe charging a fee would help out with the kind of stress and problems that gw is facing----they would STILL not get things out on time, there would be bugs etc, giving them more money wouldnt solve that. (A better solution is for them to get a more realistic time line for completing things, not the 'we gotta get something out this month' thing, it isnt working for gw1 and it wont work for gw2 either).
To make more money they need to not only keep those playing interested in the game but also pull new people in....they have worked on this by offering new chapters. They try to hold onto the player base with events and special weekends and such....they need to do more of this. Keeping the game fun, keeping people wanting to play and getting more people into the game is how to make money. Getting new ideas into the current game (which they tried to do with titles ), and making people want to play again (HM?) is what keeps people, however; they need to try even harder ....with the coming of gw2 they have already lost many people who just dont want to keep playing when they know something 'better' is coming along....releasing that was a bad business decision on their part especially at the time they were releasing eye. Not sure whose dumb idea that was, but they werent thinking, in my opinion, and that hurt sales. They should have released eye and then waited about 3 months and then said they were going on to gw2---they would have gotten more people interested then....people who had given up would have said 'hey a new gw in a year or so, great, and this eye expansion has some things they may carry over into it? well then I should get it' (or glad I got it, now I need to fill up that HoM).
Whatever.
Gw2 will not have a fee, there will be bugs, and they will rush their time tables to get things out 'on time'. Its what they have done in the past, and I dont see the horse changing it colors anytime soon.

The monthly fee is a key point for me. I may love a game, but I'm not going to pay another bill for it every month, sorry.

I would say not only that, but for those that *are* willing to pay a monthly fee WoW has won, it has won so strongly that it will be some time before someone can really compete with them. Not only in a real sense but also in a perception sense - any game seeking to be a WoW killer is going to need such a phenomenal start out of the gate that it makes it nearly impossible to do, I just don't think GW2 is coming out in the time frame where they can meet any hype necessary to beat WoW if that was their focus.

GW has it's niche and by any past metric of success (that is, compared to any other game but WoW) it is an unmitigated success. A large part of that success is "no monthly fees", especially given the amount of their players that tend towards a "casual" game play (at least when compared to the massive hours many put into other MMO's).

Yes, it's staggering what their monthly income is - but then that is also why I don't think I could ever find myself feeling like I got my money's worth there. 15 dollars/person/month with 10 million people (their most recent announced number) is 150 *million* a month - that better be one hell of a game and not depend on the freaking players to provide actual content outside of grinding (which it doesn't). There are entire countries out there with a lower GDP than what Blizzard is making and all we get is the same group of critters to kill over and over - this is why it always amazes me the people who complain that Anet didn't give them enough for their purchase so they are going back to WoW.

I get £300 per 3-4months to live on at uni from student loans.
I get £30-40 a week or 2 from my job.
I do volunteer work to when not doing uni work or work work so if GW2 was pay2play then i'd either have to get a 3rd job and have no time to play the game i'm paying for or drop my volunteer work wich i really don't want to do as its about the only thing i do thats spiritually rewarding.

In other words if GW2 went to pay2play i'd not buy it

If you think they would make more money by changing to a monthly fee, u really haven't been playing the same game has me.

Lol I would quit for sure, although I play from 2 years. I guess that many wow player also buyed GW , because they were interested in it. No fee, just buy the game and have fun: ok I can play 2 mmos then!

They sell much more game account than wow, but wow has got the fee that makes them have the same/more amount of cash than gw.

mini expansions would be great, no new skills, but new areas and weapon skins 5-10 dollars each


i would not pay a monthly fee ever

Easy. A server can be set an maintained with a small fee for a long time. And the requisites of a game do not increase over much compared to the decrease of the costs of servers and the price of the same connection bandwidth.

Diablo II is atill running, just with some scraps paid with other Blizzard products.

This would be mostly the same.

You get more money for the next sell, and it pays the previous content online.

monthly fees are the biggest deciding factor

What's with this mentality that just because you pay for something, that it would automatically be good?

Let me clue you in on a fact, nothing beats free, NOTHING. A prime example that i like to quote is a MMORTS known as Shattered Galaxy, some of you may have heard or played it, but i won't be surprised if many didn't.

Now that was a game that due to its ridiculously long beta test period (during which time players had full access almost as if playing a free game), gathered a player base that were hooked on being able to play for free. So much so that when the game went commercial and a fee was required to play, the game pretty much died overnight.

A huge portion and i do mean huge, more than 70% (probably being modest here) of the original beta test player base, simply dropped the game and refused to pay for it, having been able to play it for such a ridiculously long time for free (it was more than a year if i recall correctly). What looked to be a soon to be commercial success based on the huge beta player base turned into a nightmare for the devs when their player base all but disappeared. The game struggled along but it never really reached the same player base it had during its beta days and it was forced to implement a free play playerbase, basically players whose stats are restricted and are cannon fodder for the paying players to beat on, since the game was entirely pvp and the paying players had no one to pvp with.

The moral of the story? Nothing beats free. Guild wars would die overnight too if it implemented a pay to play scheme since it has attracted pretty much the same crowd.

Yes, definitely.

Guild Wars already attracts gamers that appreciate no monthly fees (characters not being erased when payment fails) thus not wasting money. Let's not ruin that.

But it also has the potential to grab those who are willing to pay for, let's say, game add-ons that could be purchased as an option, allowing a greater entertainment with a certain degree of coolness and usefulness; while not affecting combat, skills and strategy.

You want...?

- in-game email
- more storage space
- new areas to explore
- set up a store
- change character's name / appearance
- mod tools for your Guild Hall (appearance, night/day cycle, dungeons)
- a Player's own instanced and upgradable estate (acquired from a large-scale quest)
- unlock cool items

Pay for it...

i am in no means in financial hardship...i can easily afford a monthly fee. But, paying for a fee just means that i have to change my lifestyle to fit in an hour or so a day...Paying a fee means you have to make a commitment to the game...and if it causes my life to be altered by it in any way, i stop playing the game...thus fees are crap.

Probably they could make more money with the monthly fee model!
I have no finacial issue with the model,- for me it's more a principle: I pay for a product - I get the product!
I never lease or buy by instalment payments - cash only!

Not sure how I would react if they actually changed religion on this: I'm hooked and looking forward to GWII, but I'm not sure I would violate my principle to keep playing!

If GW charged a monthly fee 3/4's of it's population would vanish if not more. The major draw of it was no monthly fee and an online world like the others without having to pay one. It has no levels to speak of and no loot to speak of and that $15 a month would look pretty wasted pretty quick if it was implemented. Too many silly people think GW would flourish if it had a monthly fee, but, bottom line it would fall to the floor if they charged $15 or any monthly fee to play it. I wouldn't pay $5 a month to play it because Diablo 2, Oblivion, Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 would offer the same for less (no fees).

Hopefully GW2 will add more stuff and lots higher levels and phat loots to make it last a lifetime. Thas all we need is a no monthly fee mmorpg like WOW/EQ/DAOC and the others. Hopefully if GWEN is any indication of GW2 then it's going to be better and more fun that way.

The Guild Wars business model is really no different than an off-line game with expansion packs. The only difference is that GW can only be played online.

the handling of the GW servers itself greatly reduces the cost of running it. Instances and districts help keep server load down by a LOT.

Not only that, but I also suspect that Anet liscenses technologies they develop for GW to other companies within NCsoft and make money that way. But I could be wrong here.

Please don't state the obvious truth here. It shines so bright it hurts my eyes as I'm not blind nor having a pair of shades with me.

I agree, though. And I can't see why some people try to make it sound as if Anet is doing us some kind of favor by letting us play without the monthly-fee OR keeping the game up-to-date (which most good game companies do with their games, online or not, all the time if needed anyway).

Maybe I'm blind after all?

As much as I love GW, if they had a monthly fee I simply wouldn't be able to play. I wouldn't be able to afford it. For those with multiple accounts, they'd have multiple monthly fees. My boyfriend and I have 4 account between the 2 of us. At say $15/month per account = 60$ a month plus whatever add ons we buy? No thank you.

Even if money wasn't a factor, I wouldn't play a game that I would have to commit that strongly too. Having to be on to make the money worth while and worrying about having my account removed if I miss a payment. That's that much more stress that I don't need. I (we) would simply stop playing and I know a few in my guild that would as well. Mommy and Daddy wouldn't pay for their monthly fees, lol.