Will GW2 survive as NCSoft's second least profitable title?

[MetalGirl.2370]

@fixit.7189 said:should do a bungie and become their own masters.

which they tried, at some point even removed NCSoft from videos and such, they seemed to want more control of their own game... anyhow, they ended up crawling back to them.

[Ben K.6238]

This is a weird thread to read.

If NCSoft had no respect for ANet, they wouldn't have agreed to publish their stuff. This is not like a court of law where everyone's entitled to representation.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Trise.2865 said:

@"OctopusX.7185" said:Maybe stop wasting NCsoft's money on useless projects that will never see a light?

Except ANet didn't do that. NCSoft did, using ANet's resources and personnel, according to the

original article

and followup commentary.

No ncsoft did not if u read the articles and research anet was operated completely separate from its parent company and were in full control of any decisions within the company and this only changed after the lay offs

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@MetalGirl.2370 said:

@fixit.7189 said:should do a bungie and become their own masters.

which they tried, at some point even removed NCSoft from videos and such, they seemed to want more control of their own game... anyhow, they ended up crawling back to them.

What an odd thing to say. ArenaNet has always maintained that they pretty much have control (though, not completely being a wholly-owned subsidiary) over how they develop Guild Wars (1 and 2). ArenaNet did take over publishing for about 2 years, but it seems it was NCSoft's decision to take back responsibility for publishing. Not sure ArenaNet had any choice in the matter. ArenaNet certainly stated that what happened in Jan/Feb was a complete surprise.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@MetalGirl.2370 said:

@"fixit.7189" said:should do a bungie and become their own masters.

which they tried, at some point even removed NCSoft from videos and such, they seemed to want more control of their own game... anyhow, they ended up crawling back to them.

They could never "try" to do what Bungie did, because it's simply impossible. Bungie was Activision's partner, in a deal exclusive to the Destiny franchise. They reached an agreement with Activision and took back control of their franchise. Bungie was not owned by Activision.

Anet is a subsidiary of NCsoft. Practically owned by the parent company, who can decide to kill the studio if they ever wanted to do so. Much like EA does with some of their own. There is no "becoming your own master" in this case and any creative control Anet has over GW2 is because NCsoft allowed it.

[Xanadrine.4352]

@yann.1946 said:

@Diesel Stelar.3709 said:

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:

1. Guild wars 2 is obscure at best, no one really talks about this game anymore. We don't get good marketing and we don't get much in the way of trailers to try and hook new players.....

I completely agree. I've played GW1 competitive mode since Factions and the game was pretty lively until the end with decent dungeons added later on, but what GW1 GvG was in the MMORPG genre I don't know if any other game could best.

The content drought is serious. The game has been out for 7 years and has 1 new class. I get it, the balancing of new classes will create serious problems and turmoil, but if you don't even try to refreshen the core gameplay why even bother supporting the game.The HoT map content and mechanics were amazing and revolutionising the way you interact with the map in a mmo game, but after that it's been all downhill. PoF content is bland and not appealing to repeat, which is why the maps stay nearly empty. The living stories are great for the first... couple of days of their release, after that they are empty. I completed my story when the beetle mount was released, but couldn't bother at the time with the mount itself. A few weeks later, I can't find anyone on party search doing the bounty quest so I gave up. And let's face it, after each episode the previous maps are being abandoned.

Truth is the majority of GW 1 playerbase was pvp oriented and they felt kicked in the kitten with how gutted pvp in GW2 is. The PvE aspect is way better than GW1, but with the lowest skill and content cealing I've seen in a mmorpg game of this scale. So neglected and gutted pvp with low ceiling on pve equals....GW2. I didn't back in 2012/13 and still don't get why they took a 180 degree turn from the pvp aspect, why compete with the true king of west pve mmorpg in WoW (and I say it with prolly 10 hours of WoW gameplay), when you can be the dominant pvp mmorpg. Anet made a really poor analysis on the future of the genre and game scene and they are paying the price for their choices. Right now there could've been more than 50k viewers on twitch and major tournaments, bringing revenue if the game was the pvp from the original game and upgraded pve. Instead the peak viewership gets MightyTeapot on balance changes streams with 400-500 viewers on average and ingame constant decreasing population.

I personally don't think there's anything to salvage, the game is pretty much on autopilot with a living story team and mmorpg is long dead compared to other genres to even bother investing in a major overhaul.In conclusion GW 1 was ahead of its time and GW2 is late to the party.

I think you're overestimating the use pvp would have had. This game is to fast-paced for a nice viewing experience. And the changes nessecary to fit a slower gameplay might have hurt the game more.

Also gw2 open world pve is the best in genre by a Longshot. Esos quest are a little better but I wouldn't call the gameplay their good.

Gw2 is at the moment the mmo for the less devoted. It has its niche which you might not like, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

I dont think its too fast paced to be viewed like arena tournaments. WoW does arena combat, the only thing it lacks is dodging, but its still watched competitively. Its actually very popular considering its an mmo. I like wows combat, just would miss the dodge roll lol. I wish there was more emphasis in GW2 on pvp tournaments , im no where a good player, but i like to watch the best players pvp.

I didnt link a professional team, because that would really confuse people. This is just a casual pvper thats a popular streamer.

[Thornwolf.9721]

@Zuldari.3940 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Diesel Stelar.3709 said:

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:

1. Guild wars 2 is obscure at best, no one really talks about this game anymore. We don't get good marketing and we don't get much in the way of trailers to try and hook new players.....

I completely agree. I've played GW1 competitive mode since Factions and the game was pretty lively until the end with decent dungeons added later on, but what GW1 GvG was in the MMORPG genre I don't know if any other game could best.

The content drought is serious. The game has been out for 7 years and has 1 new class. I get it, the balancing of new classes will create serious problems and turmoil, but if you don't even try to refreshen the core gameplay why even bother supporting the game.The HoT map content and mechanics were amazing and revolutionising the way you interact with the map in a mmo game, but after that it's been all downhill. PoF content is bland and not appealing to repeat, which is why the maps stay nearly empty. The living stories are great for the first... couple of days of their release, after that they are empty. I completed my story when the beetle mount was released, but couldn't bother at the time with the mount itself. A few weeks later, I can't find anyone on party search doing the bounty quest so I gave up. And let's face it, after each episode the previous maps are being abandoned.

Truth is the majority of GW 1 playerbase was pvp oriented and they felt kicked in the kitten with how gutted pvp in GW2 is. The PvE aspect is way better than GW1, but with the lowest skill and content cealing I've seen in a mmorpg game of this scale. So neglected and gutted pvp with low ceiling on pve equals....GW2. I didn't back in 2012/13 and still don't get why they took a 180 degree turn from the pvp aspect, why compete with the true king of west pve mmorpg in WoW (and I say it with prolly 10 hours of WoW gameplay), when you can be the dominant pvp mmorpg. Anet made a really poor analysis on the future of the genre and game scene and they are paying the price for their choices. Right now there could've been more than 50k viewers on twitch and major tournaments, bringing revenue if the game was the pvp from the original game and upgraded pve. Instead the peak viewership gets MightyTeapot on balance changes streams with 400-500 viewers on average and ingame constant decreasing population.

I personally don't think there's anything to salvage, the game is pretty much on autopilot with a living story team and mmorpg is long dead compared to other genres to even bother investing in a major overhaul.In conclusion GW 1 was ahead of its time and GW2 is late to the party.

I think you're overestimating the use pvp would have had. This game is to fast-paced for a nice viewing experience. And the changes nessecary to fit a slower gameplay might have hurt the game more.

Also gw2 open world pve is the best in genre by a Longshot. Esos quest are a little better but I wouldn't call the gameplay their good.

Gw2 is at the moment the mmo for the less devoted. It has its niche which you might not like, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

I dont think its too fast paced to be viewed like arena tournaments. WoW does arena combat, the only thing it lacks is dodging, but its still watched competitively. Its actually very popular considering its an mmo. I like wows combat, just would miss the dodge roll lol. I wish there was more emphasis in GW2 on pvp tournaments , im no where a good player, but i like to watch the best players pvp.

I didnt link a professional team, because that would really confuse people. This is just a casual pvper thats a popular streamer.

PvP tournaments bring in lots of attention, if the game was better balanced and pvp was maintained they could of used pvp and wvw for tournament like settings. This then could of brought in money as the ESPL would jump at it; Think of having a WvW map which is tournament only, and the goal is for one side to take as much of the map as possible and hold until a time limit is up. RvR could be used for such a thing and it would be cool to see, and then the pvp leauge could be about small man teams going head to head.

You'd also be able to pit the EU servers against the NA servers as well all servers in this; There are tons of competitive people who could come based on the combat alone if it was revisited and revised. This would then offer money because ESPL would pay a-net to continue development into this venture, which is another source of revenue and it would increase their presence on twitch/mixer/youtube. This then spreads word of the game and shows it to people on a larger basis and therefor the game begins to grow because more attention is thrown its way which right now just is not the case~

Heck guild battles and alliance battles could come in and do similar things; Guild wars could do this its just a matter of if they want to get into it and maintain it. Raids will never be big nor will fractals (You could make fractals into a e-sport with it functioning like mythic +/greater rifts (Diablo and WoW) And therefor make it challenging and capable of having different effects and needs to be completed thus turning it competitive and drawing a larger consumer base to it.)

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Firebeard.1746 said:I can tell from NCsoft's history that they really have no clue what they're doing and don't understand the MMO market.

1) MMOs are a marathon. Not a sprint. Look at wildstar vs FFXIV, BDO and ESO. All of them had decent or successful launches then rapid declines. NCsoft started pulling the plug instead of adding needed direction and fixing the actual issues with the game. When has a single ncsoft MMO had a massive graphics or engine update like WoW to keep it up to date? Why is there even a lineage 2? That should have been a lineage update with expansion like hype. Dividing your player base in general is bad.

2) they have 0 respect for their player base. CoH's shutdown is inexcusable. It was making a profit. The reason they shut it down was because they had 2 other projects coming out they didn't want it competing with. Hoping to siphon players to other MMOs. To kitten with all the players' effort and money invested. Heck the players were so dedicated they were funding kickstarter campaigns and even sending baked goods to headquarters to get their game back online. They still said no. Dedicated players like that are the goose that lays the golden eggs and they kitten ate it. They destroyed they players' investments in their characters and destroyed their communities built in game.

I have 0 confidence in their ability to understand what an MMO is and support a vibrant game and/or community.

Wildstar did not have a successful start, the population quickly collapsed and even though the game was kept up for years and had various resets it got to the point where the game only had hundreds (across wll servers) online. The issue there was soundly at the feet of the developers, the design was fatally flawed, mmos do not in fact survive by targeting only hard core dungeon play + puerile 'cowboy' humour.

GW2 is a very different beast, anet understands its market niche and in the main correctly targets the content the player base wants. Same as gw1.

[Diesel Stelar.3709]

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@Zuldari.3940 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Diesel Stelar.3709 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

PvP tournaments bring in lots of attention, if the game was better balanced and pvp was maintained they could of used pvp and wvw for tournament like settings. This then could of brought in money as the ESPL would jump at it; Think of having a WvW map which is tournament only, and the goal is for one side to take as much of the map as possible and hold until a time limit is up. RvR could be used for such a thing and it would be cool to see, and then the pvp leauge could be about small man teams going head to head.

You'd also be able to pit the EU servers against the NA servers as well all servers in this; There are tons of competitive people who could come based on the combat alone if it was revisited and revised. This would then offer money because ESPL would pay a-net to continue development into this venture, which is another source of revenue and it would increase their presence on twitch/mixer/youtube. This then spreads word of the game and shows it to people on a larger basis and therefor the game begins to grow because more attention is thrown its way which right now just is not the case~

Heck guild battles and alliance battles could come in and do similar things; Guild wars could do this its just a matter of if they want to get into it and maintain it. Raids will never be big nor will fractals (You could make fractals into a e-sport with it functioning like mythic +/greater rifts (Diablo and WoW) And therefor make it challenging and capable of having different effects and needs to be completed thus turning it competitive and drawing a larger consumer base to it.)

Dude you are just as late to the party as GW2's main focus considering that now it's a pvp gaming world. They did have tournaments on ESL long time ago and there were pro teams, but just a handful and one team ruled them all - TCG aka The Civilized Gentlemen. Still they weren't bringing enough attention, because the devs weren't supporting pvp as much, more like maintaining a mode than developing it. Then the teams tried to reach out multiple times to Anet to talk or if needed help balance with feedback and if they have plans to go bigger and Anet shut them out. Respectively the teams disbanded and went on other games. This story is told by multiple top tier players like Helseth, the swedish dude, who was best thief, EU I forgot his name and others.

The decision to develop further solely into PvE was made about 5-6 years ago. If you are into PvP I suggest you move on to another game, it's not going to get better.

[Ashen.2907]

@Firebeard.1746 said:I can tell from NCsoft's history that they really have no clue what they're doing and don't understand the MMO market.

1) MMOs are a marathon. Not a sprint. Look at wildstar vs FFXIV, BDO and ESO. All of them had decent or successful launches then rapid declines. NCsoft started pulling the plug instead of adding needed direction and fixing the actual issues with the game. When has a single ncsoft MMO had a massive graphics or engine update like WoW to keep it up to date? Why is there even a lineage 2? That should have been a lineage update with expansion like hype. Dividing your player base in general is bad.

2) they have 0 respect for their player base. CoH's shutdown is inexcusable. It was making a profit. The reason they shut it down was because they had 2 other projects coming out they didn't want it competing with. Hoping to siphon players to other MMOs. To kitten with all the players' effort and money invested. Heck the players were so dedicated they were funding kickstarter campaigns and even sending baked goods to headquarters to get their game back online. They still said no. Dedicated players like that are the goose that lays the golden eggs and they kitten ate it. They destroyed they players' investments in their characters and destroyed their communities built in game.

I have 0 confidence in their ability to understand what an MMO is and support a vibrant game and/or community.

I would counter that a company with an MMO running for 21 years, and another for 16, has a solid idea of the marathon vs sprint concept in this genre. Also, by your logic, there should not have been a GW2.

And closing CoH is perfectly excusable...it was not producing sufficient profit to merit ongoing investment. If CoH players were the goose that laid the golden egg...where was the egg? I am pretty sure that NCSoft's shareholders don't accept cookies as return on their investments.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:I can tell from NCsoft's history that they really have no clue what they're doing and don't understand the MMO market.

1) MMOs are a marathon. Not a sprint. Look at wildstar vs FFXIV, BDO and ESO. All of them had decent or successful launches then rapid declines. NCsoft started pulling the plug instead of adding needed direction and fixing the actual issues with the game. When has a single ncsoft MMO had a massive graphics or engine update like WoW to keep it up to date? Why is there even a lineage 2? That should have been a lineage update with expansion like hype. Dividing your player base in general is bad.

2) they have 0 respect for their player base. CoH's shutdown is inexcusable. It was making a profit. The reason they shut it down was because they had 2 other projects coming out they didn't want it competing with. Hoping to siphon players to other MMOs. To kitten with all the players' effort and money invested. Heck the players were so dedicated they were funding kickstarter campaigns and even sending baked goods to headquarters to get their game back online. They still said no. Dedicated players like that are the goose that lays the golden eggs and they kitten ate it. They destroyed they players' investments in their characters and destroyed their communities built in game.

I have 0 confidence in their ability to understand what an MMO is and support a vibrant game and/or community.

I would counter that a company with an MMO running for 21 years, and another for 16, has a solid idea of the marathon vs sprint concept in this genre. Also, by your logic, there should not have been a GW2.

And closing CoH is perfectly excusable...it was not producing sufficient profit to merit ongoing investment. If CoH players were the goose that laid the golden egg...where was the egg. I am pretty sure that NCSoft's shareholders don't accept cookies as return on their investments.

Except they raised money as well.

[Firebeard.1746]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Firebeard.1746" said:I dug through NCsoft's financial records and noticed that HoT had the lowest historical quarter not the one right before the layoffs (and sales went up the quarter after the layoff with the GW2 cash shop). This makes me kind of worried. Also NCsoft doesn't really focus on improving existing products, it usually likes to see new ones. And it wants to see them succeed first and foremost in Korea (see CoH's history).

I just am worried this game won't evolve how it should with a company that doesn't respect individual player's time investment or communities built inside their games. How can Anet get NCsoft to be hands off at the very least?

Most of my impressions about how NCsoft functions are based off of Nerd Slayer's death of a game analysis on CoH and wildstar.

Again with the financial doom and gloom

Let's take a look at the mmorpgs that were cancelled by NCSoft. Let's start with Tabula Rasa:Tabula Rasa was released in Q4 2007 and was shut down Q4 2008 (lasted one year). It went free to play in January 2019 and closed in February, but the actual game stopped making money after Q4 2008.Q4 2007 (release): 5019, Q1 2008: 1870, Q2 2008: 2007, Q3 2008: 1756, Q4 2008: 1484 (was in the "other" category)In a year, TR made 12136 that's less than how much GW2 makes in a single quarter.

Let's check City of Heroes, the game "died" in Q2 2012 (last update), termination in Q3 2012In 2008 CoH made 24217In 2009 CoH made 6837+6673+5471+3928 = 22909In 2010 CoH made 3348+3491+5709+3239 = 15787In 2011 CoH made 3055+2787+2812+3435 = 12087 (Tabular Rasa levels)In 2012 CoH made 2890+2855+ In Q3/Q4 there was no entry for COH, it appeared in the "other category" with 10219 and 14239, but that included GW1 (which also moved to "Other" at that point. The thing is both CoH and TR were cancelled when they reached the same level of revenue, making in a year a lot less than GW2 earns in a quarter.

Now it's time for WildstarWildstar was shut down in Q4 2018, but was considered "dead" earlier. It was released at the end of Q2 20142014: 28048, 16007, 5491 (3 quarters in 2014) = 495462015: 2593, 2075, 1727, 2668 = 90632016: 1282, 2203, 1097, no WS, included in "other" category

With the exception of Wildstar that was kept alive even with such low levels the other games were cancelled when they reach really low points.

Just because something makes less doesn't mean it's unprofitable. There's a difference.

My main point with wildstar is that they don't know how to actually save a dying game unlike other publishers of other MMOs, like BDO, ESO or FFXIV. Not that the game didn't have issues

Really not being able to salvage your games when they go south causes me to lose confidence in them. Every game will have its ups and downs but in an MMO, a player doesn't want to lose the time and money invested, they want confidence in its developers to salvage it. I wish anet could break from them, but it feels like, based on information on this thread they're taking over as opposed to actually letting anet do their thing.

[Ashen.2907]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:I can tell from NCsoft's history that they really have no clue what they're doing and don't understand the MMO market.

1) MMOs are a marathon. Not a sprint. Look at wildstar vs FFXIV, BDO and ESO. All of them had decent or successful launches then rapid declines. NCsoft started pulling the plug instead of adding needed direction and fixing the actual issues with the game. When has a single ncsoft MMO had a massive graphics or engine update like WoW to keep it up to date? Why is there even a lineage 2? That should have been a lineage update with expansion like hype. Dividing your player base in general is bad.

2) they have 0 respect for their player base. CoH's shutdown is inexcusable. It was making a profit. The reason they shut it down was because they had 2 other projects coming out they didn't want it competing with. Hoping to siphon players to other MMOs. To kitten with all the players' effort and money invested. Heck the players were so dedicated they were funding kickstarter campaigns and even sending baked goods to headquarters to get their game back online. They still said no. Dedicated players like that are the goose that lays the golden eggs and they kitten ate it. They destroyed they players' investments in their characters and destroyed their communities built in game.

I have 0 confidence in their ability to understand what an MMO is and support a vibrant game and/or community.

I would counter that a company with an MMO running for 21 years, and another for 16, has a solid idea of the marathon vs sprint concept in this genre. Also, by your logic, there should not have been a GW2.

And closing CoH is perfectly excusable...it was not producing sufficient profit to merit ongoing investment. If CoH players were the goose that laid the golden egg...where was the egg. I am pretty sure that NCSoft's shareholders don't accept cookies as return on their investments.

Except they raised money as well.

Clearly not enough.

NCSoft is a business. If sufficient money were thrown at them they would accept it. Otherwise they would have a stockholder revolt on their hands.

And there is a huge difference between not knowing how to save a dying game and deciding that saving the game isnt a worthwhile endeavor.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Firebeard.1746 said:Just because something makes less doesn't mean it's unprofitable. There's a difference.

But that's exactly what it means when the revenue drops to those ultra low levels.

My main point with wildstar is that they don't know how to actually save a dying game unlike other publishers of other MMOs, like BDO, ESO or FFXIV. Not that the game didn't have issues

If you didn't notice they DID try saving it with many updates and new ideas.

Really not being able to salvage your games when they go south causes me to lose confidence in them.

That's up to the developers of a given game to do, not NCSoft. And besides, both Lineage 2 and Aion were salvaged, they had disappeared from the charts but now they are back on them.

[Menadena.7482]

Assuming the premise, that GW2 is not making as much as other games, it is probably a loss leader. In other words, it sometimes makes sense to have things that do not make as much as other products because it draws traffic/attention. On many game lists GW2 is still in the top ten.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Maybe the question should be: "Will GW2 survive as NCSoft's most profitable western title?"

[Kal Spiro.9745]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:If Anarchy Online can survive 18 years with a handful of players and no major content for just about 15 years, I feel pretty confident GW2 will be fine

City of Heroes players said similar things.

Funny you should say that, since City of Heroes players are playing City of Heroes again

[Blanche Neige.7241]

@Firebeard.1746 said:I can tell from NCsoft's history that they really have no clue what they're doing and don't understand the MMO market.Why is there even a lineage 2? That should have been a lineage update with expansion like hype.

There is a Lineage 2 because it's a totally different game than Lineage I.