NCSoft talks about guild wars and business models

I think this is on topic enough to be in this forum, but if it's not, I apologize.

Anyhow, I ran across this article on /. some of you may find it interesting

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...1&limitstart=0

-Diomedes

People proclaiming Guild Wars a business failure?


http://www.grimwell.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2066&

I like how they all just throw out numbers without any theory or proof on how they got them...are they making these numbers up?

if you would've read the thread you would see a link to ncsoft's website:
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/..._data_list.asp
click on the link "Fair Disclosure"

I don't get it, the article I posted certainly doesn't call guild wars a business failure, can you put a little context into your link? I'm not following you.

-Diomedes

I find it amusing to think that they claim that they'd need 5 times the sales to remain competitive with profits. They aren't running a shared world really, the instancing should reduce costs substantially. Interesting stuff though, I'm hoping they can capture a market.

* Subject: World wide progress of Guild Wars

1. U.S and Europe:
- Date of official launch: April 28th, 2005
- Number of accounts activated to date: around 650,000

2. Korea:
- Date of official launch: May 25th, 2005
- Number of license sold to date: around 27,000

I find their choice of wording curious. "accounts activated" implies actual people who signed up, while "license sold to date" implies copies that were purchased but never activated.

I find that an interesting claim too, but if it's true, I think it probably speak to the fact that other MMORPGs are overpriced.

Here's the deal (as I see it). Firms can run on zero profit, that is, as long as all their costs (including worker salary) are covered, they can have no extra cash sitting around and be fine.

Investors on the other hand, do care about profit (since they typically extract a portion of the profit stream). Hence if after we pay everyone for the good job they did and pay the servers, we have $100 bucks left over, we give part of that to the investors.

Thus projects like WoW make investors happy since they see large profits while the firm itself is fine either way. Because investors help direct business patterns, I'm sure it took a lot of convincing that while the investors might get a smaller return, if the model caught on it would reshape the market and possibly nab more market share for NCsoft hence increasing profits.

Anyhow, I wish that they had gone into a bit more detail.

-Diomedes

I think this quote sums up Guild Wars pretty well.

I like the OP article link ... it definately shows the cutting edge profile that NCSOFT wants to portray. The sceond article shouldn't be open to discusion ... relatively you should compare last months figures to this months in Korea. Everywhere else had 1 month extra which ... as we know ... lets the ripple our word of mouth spread farther.

Another comparison may be to the initial sales of GW to the intial sales of WoW in the first 100 day period.

GW america & Europe are only at there 80 day period
GW Korea is only at their 53ish day marker

http://www.blizzard.com/press/031705-worldwide.shtml

Notice how they dont give numbers for Korea here either ... but they do for North America and Europe

Interesting stuff. Cheers to Anet and NCsoft for taking risks and I'll keep playing Guild Wars because I think they've made a great game.

Well it seems to me, a MMORPG can keep profitable for years with the same subscriber base as well as a steady influx of people. GW on the other hand doesn't have the monthy subscription fees coming in and many people who have bought the game while it's new and hot (having great reviews and such) have already played through the game. So you gotta wonder in the months ahead are they going to have decent sales figures as the initial rush.

I'm sure they will get another boost in sales right before they release the expansion.

I seriously hope Anet and NCsoft succeeds in their little "business model". Because, if it is found that this model is profitable, other companies will have to remain competetive and adopt something at least closer to the NCsoft business model. Thus creating less and less pay-to-play games and more games that are free per month. Because people won't pay for games monthly when they can get something similar for only the price on the box

Whenever businesses compete, comsumers win

Pay-to-Play MMOs will never be without a cost. Even MMOs without monthly fees have something in-game you can pay for. The money isn't going nowhere, it's going towards content, servers, and... More content.

More free games like GW doesn't mean direct competition with MMOs.

GW isn't an MMO. It's an online RPG.
WoW isn't an online RPG. It's an MMO.

You'll get more free games with public lobbies if other companies decide to follow suite but nothing with as much content, variety, and as many players as an MMO. Stop thinking GW is in the same league as the Pay-to-Play MMOs.

Also, I'm pretty sure those numbers aren't going to get too high before it starts to go down. Plus, I know a lot of people with multiple accounts.

As an online RPG, it's doing great but I doubt it's anything compared to an MMO and as such, it probably won't dissuade developers to switch from MMOs to a GW type game.

In the second post, whoever did those amazing calculations to figure out exactly how Arenanet intends to support Guild Wars and what aspirations they have, should seriously take back what they said.

Actually, the wording is different because accounts are handled differently in the US/Europe and Korea. In the US and Europe, you buy the box and then you get to create 4 characters. In Korea, what happens is NCsoft sells a license to an establishment, like an internet cafe. That cafe then allows players to create characters for a fee. That's also why it's inaccurate to call GW a flop in Korea, because 27,000 licenses translates to a heck of alot of subscribers.

I think we should all check out the sales of Dungeon Siege 2 next month. That will be a better comparision than Lineage 1/2, EQ 1/2, or WoW, since DS2 is also an online RPG and not an MMO. DS2 doesn't have the operating costs that GW has, but it's target audience is the same Diablo style fans.

As a side note, the networking structure ANet has created can be utilized in new IP's or perhaps even licensed out like a graphics engine to other dev studio's. Not exactly guranteed money, but ways to stretch the value of the dev dollars already spent.

Why did I know that it was SirBruce posting this crap in every forum he could find again...

I think he must be a disgruntled ex-Anet or current Blizzard employee, he certainly has no financial wits about him.

the numbers for korea is very very misleading! cause i read that second posters link and lineage sold 19,000 licenses and from that 900,000 accounts where created from that. And now you have guild wars with 27,000 licenses!?! that's a heck of alot of accounts that could be created! how else does everyone think korea can hold the HOH for half the time??? this game is very skill based i find once everyone makes it to endgame with the character they have.

Having read the article, all I can say is that CEO is probably so wrong on so many counts. His strategy in GW is as a counter to other MMORPGs, that is... he is saying outright, directly, yes, our GW is the free non monthly subscription equivalent of games like (insert your own list here).

In reality?

Plenty of nerf bats, screwed economy, inhibition of trade, yada yada... Plenty of players are 2 months into the game and probably about to call it quits.

It is a great game, but I doubt NCSoft's plans to hold this big user base they have captured might work out to fruitation ultimately...

This is the dumbest thnig I ever read...

Both are on-line RPG's, MMO stands for massively multiplayer online. CO stands for cooperative. No where in the genre ma,e does it say it has to be a pay-to-play game. So both of them equal a RPG when you take away the Co and MMO. Reason they have different genre names is because GW style is different, where every area is an instance where you only play with up to 7 other people, and there is no other players to be seen unless you go back to the town. With WoW, you can be in the same area as hundreds of other players killing monsters nearby some other group.

So both models are an RPG experience ,both can be done without charging a fee. GW was a first time experiment by NCSoft, and if successful, they'll probably work on an MMO that doesn't charge a fee, but uses better optimized servers and code to save on network costs, and allow full areas with hudnreds of people runnnig around, like a true MMO.

GW is in the same league as WoW and Everquest. They all have persistent worlds with a working economy, full of trading ,customized characters, and weekly updates. All 3 are constantly updated with new features and some content. Only difference is GW doesn't charge a fee, while the compeition does.

Whether their business model works, we shall see. I think it is working fine, hype is still pretty big on this game, it's still selling well, and the Korean #'s will look pretty good come they come in. If they fix some of the key issues right now (economy and drop system, as well as make some needed changes for PvP), and deliver on their promsies of new quests, new areas, as well as more gold sinks and items, and give it all free, it will still continue to sell well, and many players who were around during beta, may just come back for more. Plus an expansion down the road, that will boost sales for the original, and also with Chirstmas down the line, that will help a bit as well.

That was only a few loud players who complained enough to quit. All the issues you described are valid and true, but Anet has promsied some fixes and changes, as Gaile has openly discussed, and I think most players are confident there will be some changes made they are hoping for, and maybe some unexpected positive changes as well for a surprise. Just because a few players a frustrated and upset enough that they plan to quit playing (or already have), for the other 99% of us, we play the game we are given, and are grateful for any additions or changes Anet makes in the future for us. Yes, we have our complaints, but I can't think of one game I've ever played where there wasn't something I wanted changed or fixed.

Da Outlaw, I agree with your point. I'm copying and pasting it here since you've double posted and I've already had two of my posts on this thread alone deleted since they are "double posts". I like your point and would like it to be out here.

-Diomedes

P.S. For those of us who surf the web without graphics, the edit button is not an option! So we /have/ to double post! Egad!

Actually they are quite different... In GW towns are just fancy looking lobbies for instanced areas. The server loads and upkeep is different than areas that are constantly filled with people. There is no concept of 'Time'. You can't really compare the economy, or customisable characters as they are very limited. Plus GW has rather limited customer service, no forums of thier own... (I'm sure everyone will say CS in other games sucks as well, but atleast they have some thing put in place)