Wealth == How many accounts you own. Should this continue?

You should stop worrying about ANet's income and business model. Their model was very clearly stated from the start: "free to pay we'll release campaigns every 6 months".

They *intentionally failed* in the second part. And I doubt any business model based on people buying more than one copies of GW is viable.

This is not a valid argument. And to be honest, no part is currently happy the way I see it: players are stuck to this abandoned ship and ANet is not making any substantial money...

So even if they want to admit it or not, they failed their own business model and this sets a precedent that if they launch GW2 with the same model they will probably fail again. But again, they intentionally chose to fail. They could have a parallel team keeping development up and if not releasing every six months then once every year (as I remember factions was developed in parallel by a second team).

They obviously did not want to do that, though they most likely could afford it.

First off, I wouldn't go so far as saying Anet "failed". They decided to make GW2 instead of turning out endless Chapters, bloating the skill list, and having to reinvent the wheel (and then some!) with every new Chapter.

They did have two teams, but Factions arrived 6 months late (it came a full year after Prophecy). That's why Sorrow's Furnace came out: a free update to tie people over until Factions.

Nightfall actually came out 6 months after Factions, so they made that deadline. And sometime before the next expansion would have come out (Utopia), they decided to go to GW2 instead.

Obviously, GW2 will not have exactly the same business model as GW, but as long as it's free to play, with paid content coming every once and awhile, it should be fine.

April 2005: Prophecy
April 2006: Factions
October 2006: Nightfall
March 2007: GW2 announced
August 2007: Eye of the North expansion

The OP's intention was to show that people are buying "Wealth" in-game through RL money, in this case extra accounts. My intention was to show that buying "Wealth" in-game through RL money has already been happening way back in Factions Collector's Edition, even without buying extra accounts and through legit means too.

Personally I buy 1 cheap account just for the extra storage. But I am not dumb either, and I know the other side "benefits" I can get with an extra account and all these finally get factored into my decision to buy an extra account. I am sure that is also the case for many people with extra accounts.

What he said.

Lots of ppl with the OPs' type of complaint lately. Keep your nose OUT of other peoples games, get the F%$# over yourselves and let ppl enjoy the game how they want to!


Restore Ursan! No More Nerfs! Buy all the accounts you want! Farm until you pass out! Abuse XTH! Solo God Builds! Unstoppable Hero Builds! If you don't like it don't use it! Keep the F%#K out of my fun!

*sigh* You quote me yet you don't get me. Where did I say I am concerned about ANet? or its business model? Where do I say that the business model is based on sale of additional copies? What do you know about viable business models for games such as Guild Wars? What "argument" are you refering to that I make?

To clarify my position on the "business model" of ANet. ANet is a for profit corporation. The corporation in its bylaws has a goal and directive of increasing the value of the company, not make you gamers happy, fortunately for us sometimes these results coincide. ANet does things like make up XTH reward pts and Nicholas for a reason, to sell more accounts, to make money. That is my only point. with regard to the business of ANet.

My post was addressing the logic, or the lack there of it, of those who benefit from, yet complain about, others who buy additional accounts getting more shiney pixels than they.

loldumb

So you want communism and have them tell you how much of something you can have and you want to give away your freedom to have more? Just because you may not have multiple accounts doesn't mean you should go ahead and try and take away those who have more than 1.

I personally have 2 accounts but I don't even remember my 2nd acct's pw.

Yes it should, I paid REAL money to buy my 2 accounts. I have the right to use them both as if I own only one.

/shudders in fear at any changes related in any way to THAT---


I have 3 accounts because back in the day you couldn't buy a toon at a time.

And at least for now it's still a free country and if I want 50 accounts I'll buy them.

xth is dead so yeah gg and travler gifst in abotu 6months wont be worth more then 1.5k to 2k each

Even if ArenaNet thought it would be a good idea to limit accounts, how could they?

How could they prove it's not your sister's or wife's account?

*facepalm*
ANet wants to limit how many copies of the game you can own to 1? Sort of like McDonalds saying that you are limited to buying a meal from them to once a week. Cause its bad for your health and they want a good public image.

Like how many times do you need to hear this. "ANet is not trying to make the perfect game, they are trying to make the most money possible." Sometimes and I stress sometimes these goals may coincide but they do not equate.

And even if ANet declares themselves to be the ONLY legal entity that can sell us in-game gold for their own game, which they have invented, created, and owned, they have every right to do so.

Currently they are only selling SOME in-game advantage through accounts but they dont allow gold sellers. I dont see that as a big deal. ANet owns their own game and their servers, gold sellers dont. ANet has a legal claim to GW, gold sellers, on the other hand, are just benefiting off their work.

I dont see why ANet wouldn't have the right to earn our money off their own creation.

I would go as far as saying they failed (though I am taking it a bit to the extreme), since they just dumped their business model when they figured it doesn't really work or not the way they wanted. I still believe they could've done two more expansions before GW2 or so. Instead (supposition) they chose to fire the second team and keep only one team working on GW2? Or did they merge the two teams?

Which is exactly where the schizophrenic behavior of ANet shows. If they were in only for the money they would have released another expansion or two in between GW and GW2. To cash in. But they didn't. So.... how does that integrate into the bigger picture? The ways of ANet are a mystery to us all

How do you know this? I would guess it would cost more money to develop, produce, advertise, and distribute a new expansion than they would bring in. That the game would become too hard for them to maintain on the skeleton krewe they got working now. I believe it was a cost/benefit analysis which led them to the decision of not making more expansions.

I think the point went beyond just have 2 or 3 accounts though. There are several people on these boards that have admitted that they have 6, 12, 15+ accounts that they bought them just to reap the rewards from XTH. I can imagine how many people in game have done similar that don't participate here.

I see nothing wrong with having 2 or even 3 accounts if you use them, for things other than to just gather 'wealth'. Beyond that though, it just seems a bit much. Just personal opinion though.

Yes we don't have the real data so we can only make suppositions. But I don't believe GW is in a such bad shape that would not be able to sell an expansion profitably. I think that would underestimate the success of GW. Don't you?

However for some reason they chose not to cash in. Probably they're banking on GW2 being so awesome that would make more money than any expansion they would have added + much more.

It should continue, because the more accounts bought, the more money ArenaNet makes. The more money ArenaNet makes, the better GW2 and/or future updates will be.

^^I agree! Who cares about how players spend their real money ..... not me!
One thing I must add tho, I don't drink beer I like red wine!

Why is it that no "whine thread" author understands what inflation is?

Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation is also a decline in the real value of money—a loss of purchasing power in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy.

Since the cost of goods and services in GW is dropping, with the exception of rare minis, this ISN'T inflation.

Another thing you can do with all that 'imaginary' money accrued from the use of multiple accounts is drive up prices on desirable commodities in the game, no different than the armbrace dupers causing rare minipets to skyrocket out side of any farmer's reach. Now we have a massive influx of money, that isn't tied to time/skill, so people can still farm and earn incredible amounts of wealth in addition to their money 'earned' by playing the game, via the XTH, and the the price on 'desirable' skins goes up accordingly.

If there is no way of earning similar incomes by just playing the game, you're only recourse is to buy more accounts, buy gold online, or concede that having pretty stuff 'doesn't matter' and is indeed the domain of people who BUY gold.

I remember when Anet was quite against RMT, lots of jaw flapping about keeping the game fair and accessible. So much has changed.

Yes, so the source of income for Anet essentially boils down to selling gold in the online store? And you think this is a good thing?

You... are being sarcastic, right? Please tell me that you're being sarcastic...