Why isnt factions cheaper like it was supposed to be?

I thought factions being an expansion was SUPPOSED to be cheaper, instead they say it can be a stand-alone game... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA thats funny. Instead they make that excuse and charge the whole fifty bucks, I was expecting forty at least.

if this was to be a stand alone game they should have made it basically a duplicate of guildwars but in cantha.... with 4 more classes ontop of the rit/ass.

But this isnt a rant about stand alone, again I ask, why isnt factions cheaper? o.o

There's no 'supposed to' price. Anet could charge $5 or $500, they are under no obligation to give any specific pricing, and they've said as much in the past.

As to why it's $50 when most MMORPG's usually charge slightly less, the general consensus is that it's how they're attempting to make up for the lack of subscription fees, in addition to the general game model. (instanced worlds)

Though this is all still speculation

http://www.cd-wow.com - £19.99 - $38
http://www.play.com - £17.99 - $34

There are probably others too... shop smart, shop S-Mart!

Factions isn't cheaper because it's a game in and of itself. Just because it hooks up with a previous game in the series doesn't mean that it's an expansion.

And, yeah, what Mercury Angel said is also true. No one told A.Net or NCSoft what they had to charge for their game.

for those reading challenged here is what they have said (unchanged) from BEFORE GW WAS RELEASED.

finally clear that it never was supposed to be cheaper?

All that counts is what players are willing to pay. I can afford 50$ easily, but the nature of chapter 2 makes me unwilling to pay that much. Its Arenanet's decission to set the prices, its your decission to buy it or not.

Cheaper ? You are not paying a monthly fee ! This game is free FFS !!!

Yeah, the most logical reasons are:

They can charge whatever they want.
There's no monthly fee, how else are they going to get money?

let's see - 15$ average per month for P2P...6 months per expansion..

50$ for Guild wars or 90$ + 10~20$ for an expansion for other games.

50$ is perfectly acceptable, considering no monthly fee.

Why stop at 50$, why not 55$ or 60$.. 65$ might be too much.. but why not 45$... it's their price setting, and they know that GW was a fairly big success. Obviously they will price factions as if it was another GW.

I mean, we can't say what we find acceptable to pay, becuase if they gave us 60.. there would be plenty of people who would say, "hey, I can afford 10$ more for a game thats free to play!" It's all consumer research. I would think that for an expansion thats for a stand alone.. it only follows (due to reasoning of other game sequels) that this should not be as expensive. I see the point, and it's not something that should be alien to people who like the game.

Anyways, give it some time, I believe Ch. 3 will really show what people are willing to pay or aren't willing because the hype of the game won't be nearly as big, and hopefully will provide a more stable game (less glitches, they should learn from their mistakes, not make the same one's with a new game and expect people to be happy) with some features that are severly lacking in the current game.

I wouldn't mind if the content level was equivalent. Which it isn't. If I have to cross that ******* city one more time...

I love Factions, worth my $ imo. I'll pay them $50 for each "stand-alone game" they throw at me.

Keep in mind Factions isn't being treated as an expansion pack, but a stand-alone game. I only payed 45$ Canadian for it, though. I payed 35$ Canadian for the original game + a T-Shirt.

:]

GG @ Futureshop new release sales!

($80.00/12 = $6.66 per month... Hell of a deal for a game like Guild Wars, IMHO.)

Size of the game doesn't come into it, technically all that makes a game an expansion is the requirement of the original for it to run. Since Factions can run without Prophecies, its a stand-alone. Plus as already pointed out, it's always been said that each Chapter would cost the same. Shop around, some places have it cheaper, some shops will put it on deal of the week occasionally.. if you don't like the price, don't buy it

Well as I am not sure on the specifics if you are given use of the core classes in factions alone I will ask.

If ALLLLLL you get in factions is Rit and assassin, and you don't have prophecies or factions bought... would you call it a game worth your 50 dollars to buy being that it would only have 2 classes? Maybe thats what the core of the question is...

If its like that then I would be one to buy prophecies if I had to choose between the two, simply because of 6 classes versus two, and not to mention tyria is also bigger (I did play the preview event, and many quests sucked because you simply just went through an explorable area, went into a town, the next part of the quest sent you through the SAME area, this would happen about 2 other times before you finally finished the quest, this was a pain in the ass with the black moa quest, I would rather go through a a continent than the same place again and again, bleh).

though I cant blame them since they only had a year (though im guessing they had a little more as usually they begin development just before the guild wars release, not sure).




I check amazon to buy my stuff cheapest was 40 bucks which is fine by me, but others were like 50 bucks e.e not worth my cash for 2 class expansion with a tiny continent that just zig zags back and forth, only reason I am even considering buying factions is for the ritualist o.o)

You get access to 8 professions (6 'core' + 2 Factions-specific) if you purchase only Factions. Only 6 professions if you purchase only Prophesies.

Except Factions is not comparably priced to Guild Wars. Factions has way less content than Guild Wars, and much content copied and pasted directly from Guild Wars (ie: the PVP arenas). Yet despite all this, Factions is either the same price as Guild Wars was when first released or in some countries like Canada Factions is actually 10 dollars more than Guild Wars was when first released.

To answer the original poster's question: I think some of the execs thought - "Hey, we can sell a ton of these things at the same or a higher price than the original despite Factions having way less content! So let's do it!"

Unfortunately, the apparent strong sales of Factions seem to have proved that philosophy to be true which makes it very likely the same thing will happen again in Chapter 3 since consumers put up with it.

The statement said nothing about content. It merely said Factions would be compareably priced to other games. Game pricing doesn't take into account content. If it did, half the game on the shelves would be half price. Factions is compareably priced to other full retail games, and Arenanet always said it would be, as with the other expansions.

All I have to say is this:

working in a game store that gives a 10 day return policy if you don't like the game (not pc unfortunately ), we get a lot of our regulars returning singleplayer (and even multiplayer) console games that they bought for £30, £35, £40 because they completed them in two days. Factions normal edition was £30. Even if you've only played it for a week, well, you've still got far more gameplay out of it than you would out of 75% of other games out there.

Yes, ideally a short game will cost less and a long game will cost more, or rather a 'good' game will cost more and a 'rubbish' game cost less, but it doesn't work like that.

You buy a dvd. It's a brand new one just released. It's an hour thirty minutes long. It costs £14.99. Another dvd comes out. It's three hours long. It costs £14.99. Now ok, if it turns out the short one is rubbish, it'll drop in price quicker, but my point is that most products will come out at the same price as each other, and games are no different. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing most of the time whether its worth it or not. It's always been known that the new Chapters would cost similar prices.

Besides, if you look at it the other way, you could argue that actually Prophecies players got ripped off. If you buy only one chapter, which do you choose? Prophecies you get a longer campaign (25 instead of 15 missions) but you only get 6 professions. Factions gives less missions but 8 professions to choose from.

It's being sold as a stand alone game, so that might explain it. If you can wait a little while the price will go down from various retailers (as Prophecies has)

IIRC, they always said GW chapters would cost as much as the original.