Discussion Thread: ArenaNet News of 21 February 2019 [Merged]

[wetwillyhip.7254]

The game isn't going anywhere, no need to believe it's gonna die. Anet still has 300 healthy numbered employees and that's the same number of employees they had at GW2's launch. If the layoffs dropped the number down to 100, then I would say it warrants worry. The point to take in now is that it's just sad and unexacting to see many staple employees let go and Gaile was one of them.

[wetwillyhip.7254]

The game isn't going anywhere, no need to believe it's gonna die. Anet still has 300 healthy numbered employees and that's the same number of employees they had at GW2's launch. If the layoffs dropped the number down to 100, then I would say it warrants worry. The point to take in now is that it's just sad and unexacting to see many staple employees let go and Gaile was one of them.

[SkyShroud.2865]

NCSoft handover publishing rights to anet in year 2015, anet had around 300 people then.Now, anet has around 400 people, it was announced they will layoff around 100 people.It also announced that NCSoft will take back the publishing rights.It just seems to me that NCSoft want anet to go back to the employee numbers in 2015, the same year the publishing rights was given.

Furthermore, parent company will only do this if the revenue and profits are questionable. That is to say, anet has been spending a lot more, with that 100 more staffs. Yet, with that 100 more staffs, your revenue is dropping, don't make sense at all right?

This is a good thing for gw2 at least. This is because NCSoft's demand will make Anet focus mostly on gw2 again instead of the side projects.

[Amineo.8951]

@SkyShroud.2865 said:NCSoft handover publishing rights to anet in year 2015, anet had around 300 people then.Now, anet has around 400 people, it was announced they will layoff around 100 people.It also announced that NCSoft will take back the publishing rights.It just seems to me that NCSoft want anet to go back to the employee numbers in 2015, the same year the publishing rights was given.

Furthermore, parent company will only do this if the revenue and profits are questionable. That is to say, anet has been spending a lot more, with that 100 more staffs. Yet, with that 100 more staffs, your revenue is dropping, don't make sense at all right?

This is a good thing for gw2 at least. This is because NCSoft's demand will make Anet focus mostly on gw2 again instead of the side projects.

Or the game dies the exact same way as City of Heroes.

[SkyShroud.2865]

@Amineo.8951 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:NCSoft handover publishing rights to anet in year 2015, anet had around 300 people then.Now, anet has around 400 people, it was announced they will layoff around 100 people.It also announced that NCSoft will take back the publishing rights.It just seems to me that NCSoft want anet to go back to the employee numbers in 2015, the same year the publishing rights was given.

Furthermore, parent company will only do this if the revenue and profits are questionable. That is to say, anet has been spending a lot more, with that 100 more staffs. Yet, with that 100 more staffs, your revenue is dropping, don't make sense at all right?

This is a good thing for gw2 at least. This is because NCSoft's demand will make Anet focus mostly on gw2 again instead of the side projects.

Or the game dies the exact same way as City of Heroes.

Well, if gw2 start to lose money as well, it will be remaining 300 staffs member gone. So, you should hope that it doesn't happen.

[Leo G.4501]

Many posters seen very confident in the detail about Anet working on unrelated side projects. It's this confirmed somewhere?

[Amineo.8951]

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Amineo.8951 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:NCSoft handover publishing rights to anet in year 2015, anet had around 300 people then.Now, anet has around 400 people, it was announced they will layoff around 100 people.It also announced that NCSoft will take back the publishing rights.It just seems to me that NCSoft want anet to go back to the employee numbers in 2015, the same year the publishing rights was given.

Furthermore, parent company will only do this if the revenue and profits are questionable. That is to say, anet has been spending a lot more, with that 100 more staffs. Yet, with that 100 more staffs, your revenue is dropping, don't make sense at all right?

This is a good thing for gw2 at least. This is because NCSoft's demand will make Anet focus mostly on gw2 again instead of the side projects.

Or the game dies the exact same way as City of Heroes.

Well, if gw2 start to lose money as well, it will be remaining 300 staffs member gone. So, you should hope that it doesn't happen.

Well the revenue keeps getting lower and lower since PoF.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Leo G.4501 said:Many posters seen very confident in the detail about Anet working on unrelated side projects. It's this confirmed somewhere?

Team members of arenanet have stated in articles that it was their mandate to make it seem to players as if gw2 was being fully supported development wise when in fact resources and manpower had been moved from gw2 development to other unreleased projects. It’s no coincidence that the community started making post over last few yrs in forums regarding the lack or slow development gw2 seemed to be suffering from.

[psyt.9415]

You compare the roadmap for content release of ESO and FFXIV to GW2 its pretty easy to see they had a skeleton crew working on the game. You should be able to come up with more than 3 hours of game play every 3 months with a 400 strong crew and I hope NCSoft has refocused the upper management to stop being greedy and chasing that stupid esports star they have been after since 2012. I want to play this game and give them my money but there isnt enough to do unless you're an achievement hunter.

[FrigginPaco.4178]

On the topic of mobile vs PC:

The shift to mobile is one of those blindsides that as a community we could have seen coming as the technology has been developed over the years... Don't misunderstand, I don't enjoy the idea, but as many have mentioned, mobile gaming is simply easier for more people to get into. Think of the hardware, even a mediocre smartphone today can run the vast majority of games available to the mobile platform. Some can be as cheap as $150 give or take. Compare that to a monitor, a desktop, headset if playing multiplayer, perhaps a sound system if no one else is on... you get the picture. The bar to entry is so much higher for PC games.

Speaking for myself, I hold the entire idea of mobile gaming under extreme contempt. If people thought console/PC in-game transactions were bad, so many of the mobile apps and games inundate the consumer with so many little bits and bobs that can fill even a moderately strong-willed consumer with the temptation to make a purchase. That leads to a purchase, and so on. The presence of Loot boxes in the larger gaming industry completely aside, and using GW2 as a base, there's nothing in the store I felt I absolutely needed to have to progress further.

These are only a few of the problems I have with mobile being as big as it is. Not to mention, the very last and most important one to us and even the folks at Blizzard, Bethesda and so on: it makes the community that upheld the original medium feel like they're being left behind. DISCLAIMER: that last line is not what's 100% happening here of course, but it may have something to do with the development heck for some of the other Anet projects. I don't know, we might never know what those were. I'm just speaking from the observations with the Diablo mobile fiasco and the super lukewarm reception to the Elder Scrolls: Blades mobile game.

[battledrone.8315]

@Inoki.6048 said:I would be very cautious about paying for something during this time. With NCSoft one can never know (those who have experience with them know what I'm talking about).

For now, the best will be to put your wallet aside and watch. You wouldn't want NC to cancel the entire show and take your most recent spendings, would you?

I know what's been said, that GW2 remains untouched, for now. But will it, really? Patience guys. There's no way of telling what's below surface level in troubled waters.

By spending you're not saving the people who got laid off, nor should you take it, that a few skin purchases here and there now will magically change the situation. Be real.

wow..pretty much every sentence you wrote is WRONG!!!1: you had no problems with spending money on unsuccessful mobile games, and supporting bad decisions, and now when they actually gets ordered tofix their game, youre against it?2:seeing how many of the top workers they have lost, it has already changed3:stop spending now, and ncsoft WILL pull the plug, and you will lose all...do you think they will pull out the big wallet to support a 6 year old game?as a former CoX player im no fan of ncsoft, but look how many chances they gave wildstarwithout ncsoft this game wouldnt EXIST..alternatives??? would you rather be under EA? activision?sony?

[Bladestrom.6425]

GW2 is fine, Wildstar cost them tens of millions if not hundreds and was an unmitigated disaster that was aimed at an audience already entrenched in WOW using a dated raiding model and crass in game humour.

[battledrone.8315]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:GW2 is fine, Wildstar cost them tens of millions if not hundreds and was an unmitigated disaster that was aimed at an audience already entrenched in WOW using a dated raiding model and crass in game humour.

i doubt that, you can bet they would have closed it much sooner, if that was the casewhen it started tanking, they put it on maintenance mode, and let it bleed out slowlyseeing how fast they axed CoX, which still had a decent revenue, they wouldnt pay to keep the lights on in a known failureand their actions here supports that

[Neural.1824]

@"FrigginPaco.4178" said:On the topic of mobile vs PC:

The shift to mobile is one of those blindsides that as a community we could have seen coming as the technology has been developed over the years... Don't misunderstand, I don't enjoy the idea, but as many have mentioned, mobile gaming is simply easier for more people to get into. Think of the hardware, even a mediocre smartphone today can run the vast majority of games available to the mobile platform. Some can be as cheap as $150 give or take. Compare that to a monitor, a desktop, headset if playing multiplayer, perhaps a sound system if no one else is on... you get the picture. The bar to entry is so much higher for PC games.

Speaking for myself, I hold the entire idea of mobile gaming under extreme contempt. If people thought console/PC in-game transactions were bad, so many of the mobile apps and games inundate the consumer with so many little bits and bobs that can fill even a moderately strong-willed consumer with the temptation to make a purchase. That leads to a purchase, and so on. The presence of Loot boxes in the larger gaming industry completely aside, and using GW2 as a base, there's nothing in the store I felt I absolutely needed to have to progress further.

These are only a few of the problems I have with mobile being as big as it is. Not to mention, the very last and most important one to us and even the folks at Blizzard, Bethesda and so on: it makes the community that upheld the original medium feel like they're being left behind. DISCLAIMER: that last line is not what's 100% happening here of course, but it may have something to do with the development heck for some of the other Anet projects. I don't know, we might never know what those were. I'm just speaking from the observations with the Diablo mobile fiasco and the super lukewarm reception to the Elder Scrolls: Blades mobile game.

Mobile gaming and MMORPG's are not a natural fit.

When a new Marvel movie comes out, does everyone rush to watch it on a 4" screen? No. They head to a theater where the screen is larger than any wall in their house. Field of vision is key to the immersion factor. I get it, mobile games are popular, but MMORPG's are about immersion, and that simply isn't going to happen on a phone. Games like Candy Crush, etc. do well because that is a format that works really well for mobile.Game companies see mobile as this fountain of money that they can dive into, and perhaps it is, but they are going to have to stop with this fantasy that people who want immersion are just going to run over a cliff like lemmings to buy their new product.If you want to see what MMORPG and similar genre gamers feel about mobile, just search for Bizzard Diablo Mobile Announcement on youtube.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Leo G.4501 said:Many posters seen very confident in the detail about Anet working on unrelated side projects. It's this confirmed somewhere?Yes, confirmed from multiple sources. Nothing very specific, due to NDA (and thus we don't know, for example, how unrelated the projects were and even if all of them were unrelated), but we do know there was more than one such project in the work.

[Leo G.4501]

@Neural.1824 said:

@"FrigginPaco.4178" said:On the topic of mobile vs PC:

The shift to mobile is one of those blindsides that as a community we could have seen coming as the technology has been developed over the years... Don't misunderstand, I don't enjoy the idea, but as many have mentioned, mobile gaming is simply easier for more people to get into. Think of the hardware, even a mediocre smartphone today can run the vast majority of games available to the mobile platform. Some can be as cheap as $150 give or take. Compare that to a monitor, a desktop, headset if playing multiplayer, perhaps a sound system if no one else is on... you get the picture. The bar to entry is so much higher for PC games.

Speaking for myself, I hold the entire idea of mobile gaming under extreme contempt. If people thought console/PC in-game transactions were bad, so many of the mobile apps and games inundate the consumer with so many little bits and bobs that can fill even a moderately strong-willed consumer with the temptation to make a purchase. That leads to a purchase, and so on. The presence of Loot boxes in the larger gaming industry completely aside, and using GW2 as a base, there's nothing in the store I felt I absolutely needed to have to progress further.

These are only a few of the problems I have with mobile being as big as it is. Not to mention, the very last and most important one to us and even the folks at Blizzard, Bethesda and so on: it makes the community that upheld the original medium feel like they're being left behind.

DISCLAIMER

: that last line is not what's 100% happening here of course, but it may have something to do with the development heck for some of the other Anet projects. I don't know, we might never know what those were. I'm just speaking from the observations with the Diablo mobile fiasco and the super lukewarm reception to the Elder Scrolls: Blades mobile game.

Mobile gaming and MMORPG's are not a natural fit.

When a new Marvel movie comes out, does everyone rush to watch it on a 4" screen? No. They head to a theater where the screen is larger than any wall in their house. Field of vision is key to the immersion factor. I get it, mobile games are popular, but MMORPG's are about immersion, and that simply isn't going to happen on a phone. Games like Candy Crush, etc. do well because that is a format that works really well for mobile.Game companies see mobile as this fountain of money that they can dive into, and perhaps it is, but they are going to have to stop with this fantasy that people who want immersion are just going to run over a cliff like lemmings to buy their new product.If you want to see what MMORPG and similar genre gamers feel about mobile, just search for Bizzard Diablo Mobile Announcement on youtube.

Rather a false equivalency.

A 4" screen doesn't preclude the option to watch it on a large screen or distributing it on other types of devices but an mmo limited by bloated operating system requirements does limit you. On the other hand, you can indeed, play a mobile game on your large screen devices such as a desktop or laptop.

[Aerlen.5326]

So someone who left/was laid off actually confirms the team had been paying little attention to GW2 and there were side projects sucking down funds and energy then goes on to say he sees a good future for the game.

And people are still doing the running around like beheaded chickens deal.

[Leo G.4501]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Leo G.4501 said:Many posters seen very confident in the detail about Anet working on unrelated side projects. It's this confirmed somewhere?Yes, confirmed from multiple sources. Nothing very specific, due to NDA (and thus we don't know, for example,

how

unrelated the projects were and even if all of them were unrelated), but we do know there was more than one such project in the work.

I suppose the million dollar question for me is who planned this/who's idea was it.

I guess I'll need to scourer around for sources. Sometimes YouTube personalities are keen on covering niche stuff like this.

[AnClar.1304]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@"Deimos.4263" said:We have no real say here. The only way the community can fix this is by voting with their wallets until better decisions are made.

Judging by the number of people who say truly uninspired things like "layoffs happen it's not the end of the world" or "not supporting them now will only kill the game faster", it seems that collectively we'd rather watch this ship sink slowly than even try to turn it.

I can't speak for everyone, but my gem store dollars aren't something to be taken for granted. If NCSoft wants them they'll turn the boat. I doubt they will, but we'll see.

This is NCsoft turning the boat.

That's what they tried to do with the Titanic...turn the boat...problem was, on the Titanic they were too slow and the ship sank. I hope if turning the boat is really what NCSoft is trying to do here that they have better results than they did on the Titanic. I can't help but think about what happened to Wildstar and CoH. That just fills me with dread.

[Teon.5168]

@ilovegw.1258 said:

@Ulyssean.1709 said:

@ilovegw.1258 said:

@Ulyssean.1709 said:Why is it NCsofts fault?

Because they sent the lay off message to Anet initially when this storm started?

So if you do not perform to standard and get fired, it's your manager's fault?

Because NCSoft is known for excellent managerial skills like how they managed CoH?

I sure hope not seeing something like that. I played CoH, and it was really fun.....then one day they say an expansion is coming, then, poof, the game shuts down. That was bizarre as hell, as well as being really frustrating.

I hope their handling of GW2 doesn't go that way.

[JonSP.1940]

Looking over NCSoft's financials (http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx), it looks like all their games took a bit of a nosedive in 2018. Their big money-maker, Lineage, actually tanked out in early 2017 (dropping from an average quarterly earnings of around $80 mil to around $30 mil) and shows no signs of recovering at this point. Blade & Soul, and Aion also dropped off steadily throughout the year.

GW2 seems to be one of their regular mid-range money-makers (consistently better than Aion and Lineage 2, but consistently worse than Blade & Soul and Lineage). GW2 quarterly revenue spikes with releases (naturally), and HoT and PoF seem to have done almost equally well (HoT, 4Q15 = $33 mil, 1Q16 = $27 mil; PoF, 4Q17 = $31 mil, 1Q18 = $21 mil). Also, revenues after PoF have remained slightly higher than revenues following HoT (average revenue in the four quarters following HoT = $17,166,464; average in the four quarters following PoF = $17,956,512).

And for those comparing GW2 to CoX: CoX's average quarterly earnings from 1Q2010 through its closure in 2Q2012 (which includes spikes for Going Rogue and Freedom releases) were only $2,964,595. For comparison, Wild Star's quarterly earnings over its last two years (4Q14 to 3Q16) were $2,143,232. GW2 isn't anywhere down near that territory. Yet.

So I don't think we have to worry about GW2 disappearing soon. Down the road ... well, down the road, everything ends. But for now it seems to be a solid money-earner, mid-range, but still in line with NCSoft's other games.

From the numbers, I'm thinking this isn't just NCSoft dumping on a low-performing studio. It looks like it might be part of a company-wide effort to cut costs to compensate for an across-the-board dip in revenue.

[Leo G.4501]

@AnClar.1304 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@"Deimos.4263" said:We have no real say here. The only way the community can fix this is by voting with their wallets until better decisions are made.

Judging by the number of people who say truly uninspired things like "layoffs happen it's not the end of the world" or "not supporting them now will only kill the game faster", it seems that collectively we'd rather watch this ship sink slowly than even try to turn it.

I can't speak for everyone, but my gem store dollars aren't something to be taken for granted. If NCSoft wants them they'll turn the boat. I doubt they will, but we'll see.

This is NCsoft turning the boat.

That's what they tried to do with the Titanic...turn the boat...problem was, on the Titanic they were too slow and the ship sank. I hope if turning the boat is really what NCSoft is trying to do here that they have better results than they did on the Titanic. I can't help but think about what happened to Wildstar and CoH. That just fills me with dread.

A lot of other boats have turned... More, in fact, than those that failed to turn. Also, the Titanic turned a few times too before it sank.

[Vayne.8563]

@wetwillyhip.7254 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Star Wars ToR laid off 30% of their staff six months after the game launched. TSW laid off half their stuff. 25% of the staff, if you're trying to reorganize the company seems like a small percentage.

The company started with about 300 during development. It's up to almost 400 now. Laying off 100 people will bring the game to original launch levels. Some of those people were working on other projects as well, so I'm no t sure why everyone is running around yelling the sky is falling.

Agreed Vayne. I think the true point here is the sheer amount of shock and sadness the 100 layoffs bring with many long time staff veterans. I think no one anticipated or expected people like Gaile or Josh Foreman to be let go. I think GW2 will be fine as you've said, they're back down to still a healthy 300 employees. If the numbers got down to 100 then I would warrant the worry.

Community managers are often the first to go, sadly. The truth is long time people tend to make more, and if you're cutting corners they're often the ones to go. I won manager of the year at a job and got fired a year later when they started laying off people because I made too much money. It's a harsh reality that sucks. But it doesn't indicate anything deeper.

[SkyShroud.2865]

@Amineo.8951 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Amineo.8951 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:NCSoft handover publishing rights to anet in year 2015, anet had around 300 people then.Now, anet has around 400 people, it was announced they will layoff around 100 people.It also announced that NCSoft will take back the publishing rights.It just seems to me that NCSoft want anet to go back to the employee numbers in 2015, the same year the publishing rights was given.

Furthermore, parent company will only do this if the revenue and profits are questionable. That is to say, anet has been spending a lot more, with that 100 more staffs. Yet, with that 100 more staffs, your revenue is dropping, don't make sense at all right?

This is a good thing for gw2 at least. This is because NCSoft's demand will make Anet focus mostly on gw2 again instead of the side projects.

Or the game dies the exact same way as City of Heroes.

Well, if gw2 start to lose money as well, it will be remaining 300 staffs member gone. So, you should hope that it doesn't happen.

Well the revenue keeps getting lower and lower since PoF.

So you hoping it happen then?

[FrigginPaco.4178]

@Neural.1824 said:

@"FrigginPaco.4178" said:On the topic of mobile vs PC:

The shift to mobile is one of those blindsides that as a community we could have seen coming as the technology has been developed over the years... Don't misunderstand, I don't enjoy the idea, but as many have mentioned, mobile gaming is simply easier for more people to get into. Think of the hardware, even a mediocre smartphone today can run the vast majority of games available to the mobile platform. Some can be as cheap as $150 give or take. Compare that to a monitor, a desktop, headset if playing multiplayer, perhaps a sound system if no one else is on... you get the picture. The bar to entry is so much higher for PC games.

Speaking for myself, I hold the entire idea of mobile gaming under extreme contempt. If people thought console/PC in-game transactions were bad, so many of the mobile apps and games inundate the consumer with so many little bits and bobs that can fill even a moderately strong-willed consumer with the temptation to make a purchase. That leads to a purchase, and so on. The presence of Loot boxes in the larger gaming industry completely aside, and using GW2 as a base, there's nothing in the store I felt I absolutely needed to have to progress further.

These are only a few of the problems I have with mobile being as big as it is. Not to mention, the very last and most important one to us and even the folks at Blizzard, Bethesda and so on: it makes the community that upheld the original medium feel like they're being left behind.

DISCLAIMER

: that last line is not what's 100% happening here of course, but it may have something to do with the development heck for some of the other Anet projects. I don't know, we might never know what those were. I'm just speaking from the observations with the Diablo mobile fiasco and the super lukewarm reception to the Elder Scrolls: Blades mobile game.

Mobile gaming and MMORPG's are not a natural fit.

When a new Marvel movie comes out, does everyone rush to watch it on a 4" screen? No. They head to a theater where the screen is larger than any wall in their house. Field of vision is key to the immersion factor. I get it, mobile games are popular, but MMORPG's are about immersion, and that simply isn't going to happen on a phone. Games like Candy Crush, etc. do well because that is a format that works really well for mobile.Game companies see mobile as this fountain of money that they can dive into, and perhaps it is, but they are going to have to stop with this fantasy that people who want immersion are just going to run over a cliff like lemmings to buy their new product.If you want to see what MMORPG and similar genre gamers feel about mobile, just search for Bizzard Diablo Mobile Announcement on youtube.

Don't get me wrong I'm of the same opinion as you. In so many words you fleshed out the other parts of my feelings towards mobile games and their intersection with MMORPGs. For example, just because Lineage II is doing fine in the Asian market doesn't mean it'd be so hot over here and so forth. And yeah, I mentioned the Diablo Mobile Announcement on my last line there, and having been a Diablo 2 & 3 player I also reflect their disappointment and feelings of alienation on that subject.