NCSoft Releases Quarterly Report - Guild Wars Surprises

Good lord....

This statement is not true

This statement is even less true: "As of 2008, 6.5 million retail copies have been sold, but this does not include number of Steam purchases, which would most likely put the game at an estimated 8.3 – 8.6 million copies sold"

Your graph doesn't track "holiday seasons" and it doesn't clearly track sales growth, it tracks the absolute growth in "units sold" - a number which can NEVER GO DOWN - over quarters. If you want to compare holiday seasons sales growth in some sort of meaningful way, either present the raw numbers or break the graph into months and plot each point as a percentage of total sales to that date. Stop trying to lie with numbers. Also, I love how even your misleading graph clearly shows that in the last four quarters sales growth has slowed sharply, yet you conveniently failed to notice.

Furthermore, kindly elaborate on how comparing a 32 year old Atari game to Guild Wars means anything? Or how Halo has anything to do with an MMO? If I want to "prove" how badly it's doing, can I just start pulling wild comparison out of MY rear end? Well, even though The Sims franchise has nothing to do with Guild Wars and is not at all aimed at the same demographic, the fact that it outsells Guild Wars nearly 6 to 1 CLEARLY must prove how terrible Guild Wars has sold, right?

Your entire post is nonsense.

I agree. GW has sold 1 million units in the past 12 months. That is a good lifetime sales for 99% of games. And this happened after people started to whine on these forums about how the game is "dead" and after 4.8 million units had already been sold. Of course sales growth will slow down since before you had an existing user base buying new expansions. No new expansions and 1 million sales means that there are still people interested and playing the game wanting more or new people that are now interested in the game after buying a new computer or hearing about it on the internet someplace or from, gasp, real life people.

Also, that wiki article uses a lot of out dated information. They only accept press releases from the company and it isn't like they release an update every month for their franchises. Some of the sources were listed as far back as 2002.

Citation needed.

And 99% of WHAT games? There were games on the freaking Intellivision that sold over 1 million copies thirty years ago. And I've never met anybody else in person who even knows what the Intellivision was.

Yea... probably because they're the only people who are going to be able to track the sales numbers accurately. Who the hell else would you expect to see numbers on sales from? Do you think it's a conspiracy that the Guild Wars distributor is the only group that ever releases Guild Wars sales data?

Again... I know numbers are hard for some people, but I'm not debating the absolute increase in sales with anybody. It's pointless, it means precious little on its own. I'm pointing out that the trend in sales is slowing dramatically. The numbers are in NCSoft's own data: Guild Wars sales are substantially slower over the last 12 months than the prior twelve months... which is hardly surprising considering it's comparing one period of non-maintenance to a period in which an expansion was released.

Yea, probably has something to do with the fact that some of the games in his irrelevant comparison are that old... or older.

Oh, and to the nutty poster making wild claims. The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man sold over 7 million copies according to the Atari 2600 article on Wikipedia. And it wasn't event a franchise. So you're dead wrong about that one too.

I'm sorry. You can't say that "Guild Wars" has sold 5 millions copies (or so). It's a combination of 3 games + 1 expansion, i.e., 4 individual games. Believe it or not, when they count the number of account activations, they count each of the 4 games individually, regardless of them being used as stand-alone games (the first 3 games), or the expansion pack (for GWEN and all 3 campaigns).

So if you wanna compare Guild Wars with, what, Half-Life 2? (lord knows why you have a nerve to do that.) You must count Half-Life2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3 (is it out yet?), and Orange Box INDIVIDUALLY.

Otherwise you fail.

Judging by the numbers being thrown around here, I'd say 1 million copies sold is still considered a success, ctb.

Nobody is saying GW isn't a success. We are saying that the level of success and the numbers are overblown, taking into account the population of the game, the fact that GW is actually 3 seperate games, and the amount of money it takes to run it.

Guild Wars 2 is NCsoft's best bet for survival. Hundreds of jobs depend on it, and as such, hundreds will work as hard as they can to make it something great.

It's gonna be just fine.

I'm sorry your seriously saying that GW2 is NC Soft's lifeline?

CoX, Champions Online, Lineage, Lineage2 among others...

Plenty of games there and mostly pay to play that NC Soft make FAR more on per month than GW

Does Aion ring a bell?

Goalposts are heavy, you shouldn't try to move them on your own.

The original comment: "[1 million copies] is a good lifetime sales [number] for 99% of games."

My repsonse: "...99% of WHAT games?"

Your response to my comment: "[Guild Wars] .. is still considered a success"

Great. Nobody claimed otherwise. So what you posted has what to do with "[1 million copies] is a good lifetime sales [number] for 99% of games"?

Your really reaching on your posts ctb. 1 million sales is good for any game that isn't an already proven, big franchise. If Halo only sold 1 million, it would be a failure, if Patapon sells 1 million, it is a success.

Who else would I expect sales data from? I dunno, maybe the big companies out there like NPD that track sales? There are two such companies for Japan alone that release their data in Famitsu every time it is published.

I like the part about the trend of sales, really I did. Who would have guessed that a game that has an expansion released for it one year, and not the next wouldn't sell as many units? You said it your self.

And I don't remember what game it was had its numbers posted from 2002, but are you saying that the game magically stopped selling on January 1, 2003? How about a new game to the franchise that they didn't issue a press release for? Hell, they still have the Gears of War franchise listed as 5 million when I believe Epic or Microsoft was touting first day sales or something being some big success.

No, I'm arguing with somebody who wants to argue but doesn't know exactly what he's arguing about or against.

The sales data provided shows that the past 12 months was worse than the preceding 12 months as far as units sold is concerned. Nothing more, nothing less. The data says nothing about active accounts, accounts that became inactive over either period, duplicate accounts, RMT accounts... nothing.

Sales slowed last year. That's all it shows. End of story. Math is not debatable.

Ctb is completely correct on this. As it seems '# of Accounts activated' is units sold, this information can't be used to determine anything other than number of units activated. Not number of players, either total or currently active, as we don't have a breakdown on how many campaigns/expansion each REAL account has; not how many REAL accounts each person might have; not how many people are still playing; if the player base is declining; and so on. NCSoft & Arenanet do have this information but, understandably, are keeping it to themselves for competitive reasons. All it tells us is units activated. That is it, nothing else.

Also, unlike some companies that are apparently including trial accounts, units shipped, etc., these are actual numbers of campaigns / expansion activated (my assumption based on the term 'activated'), not just the total production run, or those sold to distributors or retailers, which again, is what some other companies may use in their 'sales' figures. This should also mean both the Trilogy and Complete Collection packages only count as 1 unit.

Using NCSoft's numbers clearly shows 2008 sales were considerably less than 2007. This is to be expected as there was new content sold in 2007, nothing new in 2008, just repackaging of various types.

4Q 2006: 675,000

1Q 2007: 433,000
2Q 2007: 362,000
3Q 2007: 583,000
4Q 2007: 378,000
Total 2007: 1,756,000

1Q 2008: 281,000
2Q 2008: 218,000
3Q 2008: 212,000
4Q 2008: 214,000
Total 2008: 925,000

So you can look at things either half full or half empty. Sales through 2008 were steady and I see that as pretty good considering nothing new was released. 2009 should probably see an overall decrease in units sold and that is what NCSoft is projecting, at least Sales/Operating income 2009 15,000 min/max compared to 2008's 23,227; in million Kr Won, consolidated - including currency exchange rates, so that isn't real useful as it depends on money exchange rates more than anything, but does show a downward trend. That is natural as without new content for sale increased sales are very unlikely, especially considering the age of the game. You can also view those numbers as "OMG, the Game Iz Ded" if you like. Depends on what you consider dead or doing well. That is strictly opinion, either way.

Is GW a success? Yes, clearly it is and I don't see anyone really saying it isn't. Are sales declining? Certainly, that is a fact and expected with no new content for sale. Does GW have a larger active player base than most or many other MMO games? Probably, but we don't really know. With new people coming in at steady, if slowly declining rate, some people coming back, some leaving, no one other than Arenanet really knows. Are less people playing now than back in 2007? Very probably, but only Arenanet really know the actual facts, everything else is personal opinion. I've been in an outpost that was packed one minute then a few minutes later emptied as everyone went out to do stuff, then someone comes in and says, "this game is SO dead", then they leave and 5 minutes later the outpost is full again. I've been in outposts that are empty and stay that way the whole time I'm there. Other times I see someone map in and say "this place is packed, I've never seen so many people here", yet I thought is was fairly empty compared to most other times I've been there. It is all relative.


As long as you are having a good time doing things you are probably in the "doing fine" category; those that are bored most likely fall in the "OMG, Iz Ded" range.

In the long term, it is just a game. The only people that really have a major stake in GW are the people working for ArenaNet & NCSoft, and the shareholders. Let them stress about things. Either have fun playing or go do something else and check back now and then. GW2 will be out when it comes out. If it never comes out life will go on (or not, for those 2012 doomsday types ). The nice thing about GW is that it doesn't depend on a monthly subscription and operation costs are pretty low thanks to some good game design and programming; and that GW1 sold a bunch and it is very likely GW2 will be released at some point. In the meantime, go have fun playing GW1 or whatever else you like.

I have a pretty good idea what I'm arguing about actually, I think we have just had a misunderstanding. What I was saying was 1 million units sold in a years time is good, especially with no new content. And if you will let me put things into comparison a bit. The ps2 has sold 140 million units according to Sony, making it the best selling console yet. Since you used wiki, I guess I shall as well. This is the list of known million sellers for the ps2. It is a pretty good sized list. The number of games released for the ps2 number in the thousands, higher than 3000, less than 4000 probably. So for an old game to sell 1 million units in a years time is a good thing. That is all I was saying. And like Minako said, since we don't know about population levels, all we can go on is unit sales. And the unit sales say things are going pretty good right now.

We know about population levels...it is low (or empty) in nearly every outpost outside of the major hubs. Why do you think Anet will not release the numbers?

And you are forgetting one thing....the Guild Wars units sold can not be compared whatsoever to PS2 games sold for two reasons. First, Guild Wars is actually FOUR different games for the purposes of units sold...so you have to divide that 1 million by four right away if you are going to compare. Second, Anet DEPENDS on a constant stream of unit sales due to the costs of running the game. A million sold by an offline PS2 game goes much farther than a million sold by an MMO.

No company releases population info except Blizzard and that is because they own the market. And comparing to ps2 games is comparable. Big audience, lots of games, not very many million sellers. And since someone with only Nightfall can play against someone with only Factions in the Battle Isles you can count all the sales together. And all companies depend on a constant stream of unit sales. You get the big influx of money after your release, but most of the sales come later on.

Most console games do not depend on a steady stream of sales 3 years after release. If Guild Wars stopped selling today Anet would probably collapse. I acknowledge that they have done a brilliant job of keeping sales up (even though the numbers are heavily skewed), but I still think it has nothing to do with whether or not the game is dead from a player perspective.

Then we're done talking because we never had anything to discuss in the first place since I never touched on the subject of "good" sales and have no interest in discussing such vagueries.

One would hope that they've managed their finances well enough that they have their own bank account to draw on, built up from years of Guild Wars sales. Plus, it's hardly atypical for a developer to sit for years without any income between product launches, since games generally have one big sales period and then they peter out. They also have NCSoft to draw on if need be.

One would hope, but you have to take into consideration the costs of running the game, servers, etc etc. I also doubt NCSoft is in any position to be drawn on given the global economy and their recent "restructurings".

GWx2
Bots
Bots
JQ
Z-Keys
Bots
Bots
Botting

Yes, people with 6 accounts to get more zaishen keys every month. It's good they are going down in price. I don't know of anyone who doesn't have 2 guildwars accounts and they also count every chapter as a single sold account.

Add some maths here, gwchars.de has many users and it shows that 67% of all players owns all chapters. Since gwchars.de has a lot of users I think it save to take this number global. But not perfect.


(5.800.000 / 100) x 67 = 3.886.000 : 3 = 1.295.333
That's the amount of players who own 3 chapters and this 67% of all sold accounts!

Means there are 1.914.000 remaining. This group consists of:
- People who have more than one account! And that's a lot. On GWO there is even one with 26 accounts! So yeah...
- Bots
- Zaishen Key accounts that are bought for 10 euro at the mediamarkt.
- Banned accounts.

So my simple conclusion is that there are ~2.250.000 individual players for GW and a lot allready quit and gave their account data to friends for extra zaishen keys.

Now you do.

Im so glad i just finished my dual saviors, no more bots for me.
0-12 Luxon in 2 months was such a pain.

I STILL only have 1 account and have done since I started it back in the E3 beta

RLY!? Last time I checked they were €15,- each. *runs off to MM*

OMG what did you DO all that time?

hubby has only 1 account, his brother has only one account (which he rarely uses seeing he works 2 jobs).....lots of people have only one account.

I think the best evidence of if XTH is the key to the stagnating sells (in terms of a dying game it a good thing) will be the when sells are reported for the second quarter of this year, zkeys should continue to drop unless they is a change that makes people interested in the zchest again, so the bang for your buck will drop.

you forgot eotn. yes it is an expansion pack, but the quarterly report does not discriminate; there are 4 separate games.

I didn't knew that. If that's true then the expected number of individual players is even lower than in my previous post.

But the point isn't that there are almost 6 million ACTIVE players. But that the account numbers still grow, thus revenue still grows. Once Anet has your money they really don't care if you play or not, cynical I know but true

For one thing, to those arguing how many bots there are, 6 million of WoW subs are in Asia, mostly China. You telling me they are all lovers of WoW? Second, If Anet agreed with Snaek et al, and felt the game were dead, I would think they wouldn't be taking the time to add more content to GW2. I mean, why do that if you need a new game to make Anet some money?

For another, go into LA, Kamadan, or Kaineng any time of day and tell me it's dead. Hell, hop into Fort Aspenwood, even. The game may be old and dead to you, but unlike what your huge egos might say, casual players make or break a game, not grinders who eat the game whole after a few months.

Go into any outpost besides the few you mentioned at any time other than primetime and tell me GW is alive. Hell go into any outpost besides the few you mentioned at ANY time and try to get a non-AI team together and tell me the game isn't dead.

Given that GW is instanced, you'd have to do more than simply just watch people at a given time ot get a good idea of how many people are still playing the game...

It doesn't matter how many are playing the game if I don't see anybody playing the game.

Anet could easily tell us how many are still playing the game. You ever wonder why they won't?

Why would they? What is in it for them to give you this information? Also, all companies would LOVE to know how many subscriptions all their competitors have.

Why wouldn't they? Everybody knows how many subscribers WoW has. They could easily prove the "GW is dead" rumors wrong. But Anet won't release the active player number because it would shock everybody how low it probably is.

Why should they need to prove wrong "GW is dead" rumors made by internet forum posters? Do you think that if they release their proprietary information to the public that Guild Wars is going to have a sudden surge in sales? No? Then why should they do it?

Pretty much no MMO other than WoW releases this information. Even before WoW was released, most games kept this confidential.

I won't be playing GW2, Anet stabs veteran players in the back way to often.

I like PvP, if I want PvE I go play a Final Fantasy, at least the story is worked out there.

Because their game is dead until they tell us otherwise.

The numbers of many other MMOs (such as Everquest, Eve Online etc etc) have always been known. GW is just about the only MMO I can definitively say I don't know how many active players there are.

How are those two things even related? It is what it is. One could just as easily claim it's alive until they tell you otherwise.

If you look at this article (graph mid page) you can see that most games don't provide official numbers. And no, EQ does not provide current numbers, they keep referencing only their peak subscriptions.

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2008/...e-game-or-mmo/

No they couldn't. All I have to do is go to 95% of the outposts in the game and prove them wrong. The game is dead until somebody proves to me otherwise.

The point is we have a general idea or estimate of the amount of players on many MMOs. With GW we don't have anything...all we have is accounts sold number which is worthless for the purpose of determining whether or not the game is dead. (Unless your definition of dead is when the server goes down which is pretty crap if you ask me.)