Should Anet Monetize Content

[Luthan.5236]

It seems that NCSoft did not even shut down GW1 yet. Though GW1 seems pretty dead now. They probably look at the company as whole and let the company do their own business. I mean you can't interfere in all the other businesses of the companies you bought - they probably will let have ArenaNet their own CEO making own decisions.

Only if the "numbers" aren't looking that well anymore ... they might sell ArenaNet and the other owner might try different stuff or ordering to shut down the games. Here you also have to take into account that there might be still players buying stuff in GW1 ... and that only because GW2 exists. Like people that do the 1-time purchase on GW1 to play it and experience the background story. And that probably is enough to keep 1 server or so alive. (I guess in maintenance mode and with few players logging in there isn't high cost for this anymore.)

With GW2 subscription or more Pay-to-Win stuff would scare away players. The type of players that is hardcore enough to pay for subscriptions is more one of those that likes gear treadmill - going to WoW. And you don't want to compete with games like WoW cause it is good to have this unique philosophy even if it only attracts a smaller (but safe) customer base. Same for the Pay-To-Win stuff. That is for Asian grind games. Does not belong here.

The cosmetics are just fine and there is tons of great stuff in the game to earn for free as skins. Personally I like most of the free skins more. The bought stuff looks like you are a walking fashion store (ore tank in case of heavy armor). As returning player I just did that bloodstone collection that gives the head item (red effect on the eyes) a few weeks ago and man is it great. I also love the cheap 150 gems glasses from the gemstore and i'm wondernig why the ugly head armor is much more expensive. (Just because it was mor "work" and covers the whole head maybe ... and glasses are smaller.)

With trading gold to gems and sometimes from achievement chests ... you can get a few gems to get nice stuff without paying real money. Same for bank tabs and stuff. (Most stuff isn't needed in big amounts. I don't think everyone needs to pay hundreds of dollars/euros to buy all of the shared inventory slots and bank tabs. And a getting a few is easy with playing the game and farming gold.)

So ... nice job here form ArenaNet. And I guess it makes money - as long as it did not they'd not do it. Games is fine as long as it makes more money than it costs. While for "rentability" it is also important to make a lot of profit (not just earning a little bit more than you spent) with the money invested ... you have to take into account that they can't just shut down GW2 and make a more profitable game. Other type of models would put them more in competition with other games - which is a risk. Also high development cost at first.

They would have to use the devs for other stuff (I don't see a realistic option here) or fire them doing other profitable stuff in their buildings ... or even selling the buildings and totally trying to get back the money to invest it somewhere else. Or sellling the whole company to some other company and the buyer then needs to make such decisions. Will cost money for transactions as well (people that are paid to negotiate and stuff) and a company trying to buy ArenaNet as whole might have taken all the things into account ... offering less if ArenaNet was making less money. So NCSoft might just keep it. Use "depreciation" to lower the value and suddenly even a lower profit seems good enough and maybe even "making earning a little bit more than it costs" might be okay at one point.

---

Edit: The thing that lacks most is the marketing, customer support and PvP/WvW. There didn't seem to be an improvement in GW2s/ArenaNet's communication policy. No teasing the upcoming expansion. I bet the next we'll hear about it will be 1 week before release. :D Bad decisions like with the "compensation" for the recent rollback.

PvP and WvW somethign that at release was an interesting selling point (yeah 3 game modes other games only have PvE and PvP) ... and they seem to keep it alive while dealing with the complaints of th few remaining players. Makes them do balancing changes only to keep those complainers in check. Nothing fresh. Nothing new. So only PvE and story players might be interested long term (+ the festivals to keep players playing) ... which at some point will reach an end. They need to think about getting replayable fun content into the game. (And PvP and such stuff can be fun because it is against others not against NPCs that use the same script every fight.)

[Vayne.8563]

@Adry.7512 said:Interesting....the votes are pretty overwhelming. It appears (from this small sample population of the game) the community would much rather keep everything the same and risk the longevity of the very game they invest countless hours into, than to accept anything different than what they are currently fed. Thank you guys for the feedback, I was just curious. Nevertheless, I hope this does NOT discourage the developers from making any monetization changes. You cant please your current community and that is normal, no MMORPG company ever can....but you can have them adjust to whatever YOU believe is better for the game. Goodluck to the dev team.

I think your suggestion would be a bigger risk to longevity. I think it would likely chase a lot of people away without attracting many more people. Part of the problem is that people who like specific content a lot think it's popular content. Raiders thought raids were more popular than they were until Anet said they weren't. Plenty of PvPers I've talked to think this game is focused on PvP and most players PvP. It's not true, but many believe it. They more you like specific content, the more likely you are to believe that people are willing to pay extra for that content, but it's not necessarily the case.

At the end of the day, if enough people don't buy the dungeon pack then how will you find groups to run the dungeons as time goes on. It's a bad gamble.

It's not that people believe they are risking the continuation fo the game (the game is doing just fine for an eight year old game between expansion cycles), they're thinking that changes you think are positive are more likely negative. At least, that's what I think.

[Luthan.5236]

Same model. This game isn't made for the players that like subscription-based MMO. Would kill it totally if only a handful players still played and paid. Expansions shouldn't be made much more. The game needs to reach a final stable state like GW1 - for balancing. Expansions would mean players would cry for more than just a few maps (wanting new elite specs and stuff) ... but for that "more" we are at the limit already.

The thing that could be changed is the selling of living world episodes. They currently are for free for people logging in during release. I'd rather also see them packaged with the according expansions.

Like: Instead of bundling HoT and PoF the bundle should contain HoT + season 2 (so you don't buy to have gaps in between where you need to unlock story for gems in additon). Or at least more options when buying. Some might want to buy everything as a package. Some might already have the living world only needing the expansions.

Big improvements are needed in WvW and PvP. Much much more game modes and stuff to get interesting and replayable stuff. Monay maybe here. I mean there is stuff like "custom arenas" but nobody uses them. (No population in PvP. No intersting game modes. PvP basically in maintenance mode with balancing updates to cater to the complaining players but no new content.)

Housing and stuff could be added. Or "cosmetics for the home instance".

Edit: And releasing GW2 in China will probably earn ArenaNet money from licensing fees I guess. Unless they "sold" it once and the Chinese company can do with own devs now what they want without ever having to buy/license further content we get for them to implement ther ein China.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Adry.7512" said:Interesting....the votes are pretty overwhelming. It appears (from this small sample population of the game) the community would much rather keep everything the same and risk the longevity of the very game they invest countless hours into, than to accept anything different than what they are currently fed. Thank you guys for the feedback, I was just curious. Nevertheless, I hope this does NOT discourage the developers from making any monetization changes. You cant please your current community and that is normal, no MMORPG company ever can....but you can have them adjust to whatever YOU believe is better for the game. Goodluck to the dev team.

I voted to keep the same in terms of monetizing the game, not in terms of what is offered. If we check what was offered in the latest quarters compared to the previous ones, maybe we'll figure out what went "wrong".

For example, this happened near the end of Q3 2019, and after that in Q4 2019 and Q1 2020 we saw the drop in revenue:https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-is-free-with-guild-wars-2-path-of-fire/

We already know from when the game went F2P with Heart of Thorns that it lost a great amount of revenue. When Heart of Thorns became free, the game also lost a lot of revenue. Perhaps box sales are much more important to the revenue of the game than we might've thought.

[Tukaram.8256]

@Adry.7512 said:Interesting....the votes are pretty overwhelming. It appears (from this small sample population of the game) the community would much rather keep everything the same and risk the longevity ...

I think making a billing change this many years into the game is what would risk the longevity. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[b k.1648]

I'm not too bothered which path they might choose; I don't think charging for more types of content that used to be free is a realistic move this far into the game's lifespan though.

I notice that ESO has moved to a yearly cadence for expansions in addition to the quarterly DLC which has always been paid. I've found the quality of the most recent releases to be underwhelming though, with a rather small area to explore - yearly there's a similar amount of content to what GW2's LS offers (maybe a bit more) but you have to pay for it.

Given that I find myself picking and choosing over content drops in ESO even when I think I'll like them - I was going to buy Dragonhold but found myself so underwhelmed by it during free ESO+ trials I decided not to - I imagine I'd have a similar reaction if GW2 did that. Drop by for a month or two when an episode that sounds interesting drops, and then disappear for about a year. GW2 makes more money out of me than ESO does purely on microtransactions, so I don't think me dropping the game for long periods would actually help ANet's bottom line.

[Zephire.8049]

Keep the same model. Add to it or try something new (within reason) but the current model has served GW2 well for 8 years. GW1 had the same model and it's still going at 15 years.

An MMO going 8+ years without having a population crash is a rarity. Yes GW2's population has lowered since release but it's not to the point where server merges are required, servers need to be shut down, or game development shifts to maintain what players remain. And yes servers don't matter in PvE but they do in WvW and there's enough full servers that even people who would never play WvW can't pick certain servers because the WvW population is too large and too active. And the WvW population is much lower than PvE.

Player numbers trickling down is to be expected of any game outside of the release day or day of an expansion or other large content drop. GW2's last expansion was years ago and LW4 had a ton of issues and episodes were often delayed so it's no wonder the numbers have dropped. The thing is, though, is that GW2 has a rather large base of players who keep playing GW2 because they don't have to pay extra if they don't want to and aren't pressured to play every day because that's the demographic that Anet chose to focus on while other game developers decided to go after people who jump from game to game or who get really into a game but, if they lose interest, they never touch the game again.

Change the content model of GW2 and you change the demographic. The time to change a model is early on, when there's an outcry and you're getting bad PR, or when the game is about to enter maintenance mode. Oh, or if you want to kill a game/studio off but want to blame players for it. 8 years for an MMO is a long time and it's very likely GW2 could not bounce back from a fundamental shift in their monetization. A steady stream of income isn't bad and it's unrealistic to think the amount a game makes should always go up—a lot of games died because of that thinking and a lot of studios have been shut down because publishers aren't happy with steady. NCsoft seems to be happy with GW2's revenue (especially since it's their main game in the west) and was rather hands-off about things until they got tired of GW2's revenue being put into an unreleased, unnamed game instead of being cycled back into GW2 itself.

And personally, I'd quit GW2 if it started demanding money for everything. I don't play other MMOs because I don't like them demanding time, money, or both from me, especially if I already bought the game. GW2 is the one MMO which I like the aesthetic, lore, and business model of and am well past the point in my life where I'd play I game I didn't like just so I could be playing a game.

Honestly what would help more is better marketing, which has always been Anet's weak point. Instead of changing the model and alienating those who still play, reach out to those who don't know about GW2 (because it's an 8 year old MMO and there's an entire generation which was in elementary school when the game first came out) or who forgot GW2 existed 5 years ago. Most people won't stick around long-term but there's a good chance they will buy both expansions and maybe some gems for the 1-12 months they do play. All while retaining the players who have stuck with GW2 for years specifically due to the model it was built around.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Tukaram.8256 said:

@Adry.7512 said:Interesting....the votes are pretty overwhelming. It appears (from this small sample population of the game) the community would much rather keep everything the same and risk the longevity ...

I think making a billing change this many years into the game is what would risk the longevity. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That only makes sense IF it ain't broken. Steady decline and dropping revenue suggests otherwise. Now ideally if a better and more focused approach with more content and expansions or something produces higher revenue, then all is fine.

If it doesn't, well then the game either closes down in the future (aka sees less and less development up to maintenance mode, not necessarily server shut down), or needs a new model for generating revenue.

[Danikat.8537]

I wonder how long a game has to keep going with the same businesses model before people will accept it's working? Apparently 7.5 years is not enough.

It's far more common these days for a game to abandon the subscription model or add other options because it's not bringing in enough revenue than to introduce a subscription to an existing game.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

That subscription to access all DLC content sounds a lot like ESO's model.I hated ESO's model and stopped playing rather quickly because of it.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Danikat.8537 said:I wonder how long a game has to keep going with the same businesses model before people will accept it's working? Apparently 7.5 years is not enough.

Depends, how many businesses do you know that survived without adapting to declining revenue and which where subject to age?

@Danikat.8537 said:It's far more common these days for a game to abandon the subscription model or add other options because it's not bringing in enough revenue than to introduce a subscription to an existing game.

True, the main goal here is to increase revenue and that indeed works often better without a subscription (and the alternatives given in this pole are pretty bad). So, what does a business do which wants to increase revenue and already is without a subscription?

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:True, the main goal here is to increase revenue and that indeed works often better without a subscription (and the alternatives given in this pole are pretty bad). So, what does a business do which wants to increase revenue and already is without a subscription?

Making Heart of Thorns free was going to cause a decline in revenue, the idea behind a move like that is to reduce the barrier for entry, and then cover up the deficiency with increased gem store sales. We don't know how much that move affected the introduction of new players to the game, we see only total revenue after all, not the different amounts earned by gem store and box sales, but it's rather clear that the "gap" created by going free to play isn't covered by increased gem sales.

Instead of changing the way the game monetized at this stage, the developers should take a look at the mix of content and gem store items they offer, and provide what the players want and are willing to support the game for. Increase revenue with content and gem store offerings, not by introducing new paywalls

[maddoctor.2738]

@Adry.7512 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"saye.9304" said:well ncsoft financial report is out for q1 2020 and things look bad for gw2 again, aion numbers are as bad as wild star but ncsoft is not puling plug on it yet maybe because its korea company and home support

Correction here, Aion (and Guild Wars 2) earned in the last quarter (Q1 2020), more than Wildstar earned in 5 quarters, probably more. NCsoft isn't pulling the plug on games that easily

Wildstar shutdown in Q4 2018Wildstar wasn't included in any quarterly report between Q2 2017 and Q4 2018, that's 6 quarters with no presence until closureWildstar was included in "other sales" in Q4 2016 - Q1 2017Last quarterly report that included Wildstar was in Q3 2016 and Wildstar had 1097 in earning.The previous 4 quarters were like this: Q3 2015: 1727, Q4 2015: 2668, Q1 2016: 1282, Q2 2016: 2203It's easy to assume that Wildstar was removed from the report because it was doing worse and worse in future quarters.

So yeah Aion is nowhere close to shutting down

This correction does not change the fact that GW2 is not doing well. The worry is the longevity of the game.

I simply gave the point at which NCsoft "pulls the plug" on games. Until that point they keep them going. Also having two threads on the same subject can be confusing, I gave more of an answer to the other one.

[Cyninja.2954]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:True, the main goal here is to increase revenue and that indeed works often better without a subscription (and the alternatives given in this pole are pretty bad). So, what does a business do which wants to increase revenue and already is without a subscription?

Making Heart of Thorns free was going to cause a decline in revenue, the idea behind a move like that is to reduce the barrier for entry, and then cover up the deficiency with increased gem store sales. We don't know how much that move affected the introduction of new players to the game, we see only total revenue after all, not the different amounts earned by gem store and box sales, but it's rather clear that the "gap" created by going free to play isn't covered by increased gem sales.

True, and I am not advocating for pay walls (and this is the third time I will state: this polls options are bad for the question it raises, with an open ended option on the one side, and 2 subjective limited options on the other).

@maddoctor.2738 said:Instead of changing the way the game monetized at this stage, the developers should take a look at the mix of content and gem store items they offer, and provide what the players want and are willing to support the game for. Increase revenue with content and gem store offerings, not by introducing new paywalls

Yes, and what if this does not increase revenue? What makes you think they haven't been doing this so far? We get regular new BLC "content" for over 2 years by now. We get exclusive gem store skins, mount skins, glider skins, you name it. Players have been vocal about being maxed on skins and stuff. I certainly am, and I've spent quite a bit of money on the game.

All of that has NOT stopped the revenue decline. The most recent approach to sell further optional convenience items (templates) was met by heavy resistance from the player base (due to a multitude of reasons, yet a huge part of the demands revolve around cost/price).

One thing is clear: the game is NOT on a healthy financial track. The question here should have been:How many of you are willing to spend more on GW2 if the game does not perform financially? Because the players spending money on a regular basis now, will be asked to spend even more in the future. Players who are just along for the ride, that's fine, they will only be affected once the game is put in maintenance mode (or unless those players are turned into revenue generating assets).

[saye.9304]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"saye.9304" said:well ncsoft financial report is out for q1 2020 and things look bad for gw2 again, aion numbers are as bad as wild star but ncsoft is not puling plug on it yet maybe because its korea company and home support

Correction here, Aion (and Guild Wars 2) earned in the last quarter (Q1 2020), more than Wildstar earned in 5 quarters, probably more. NCsoft isn't pulling the plug on games that easily

Wildstar shutdown in Q4 2018Wildstar wasn't included in any quarterly report between Q2 2017 and Q4 2018, that's 6 quarters with no presence until closureWildstar was included in "other sales" in Q4 2016 - Q1 2017Last quarterly report that included Wildstar was in Q3 2016 and Wildstar had 1097 in earning.The previous 4 quarters were like this: Q3 2015: 1727, Q4 2015: 2668, Q1 2016: 1282, Q2 2016: 2203It's easy to assume that Wildstar was removed from the report because it was doing worse and worse in future quarters.

So yeah Aion is nowhere close to shutting down

here are numbers for aion:Q1 2019: 12,323 2Q19: 12,391 3Q19: 13.224 4Q2019: 8,064 (OUCH) 1Q2020: 10,143(OUCH again considering pandemic Q for korea)well numbers are looking really bad but aion is korea company, so is ncsoft, there might be home support and all for aion. what was last time aion had big content update? you tell me as aion players/defender, for me i have not heard from aion in long time on any mmo website, maybe i am wrong and aion doing well, well you tell me last time aion had expansion or something as big as that.as for gw2:2Q2019:15,882 3Q2019:15,138 4Q2019:11,331(OUCH) 1Q2020:12,530ok here i do not know pandemic Q is considered for gw2 or not but honestly the numbers are looking pretty embarrassing for anet and gw2.look at blade and soul numbers for god sake and that game is garbage in my opinion, and it is earning twice as much as gw2, yeah numbers are embarrassing for gw2.

[maddoctor.2738]

@saye.9304 said:here are numbers for aion:Q1 2019: 12,323 2Q19: 12,391 3Q19: 13.224 4Q2019: 8,064 (OUCH) 1Q2020: 10,143(OUCH again considering pandemic Q for korea)

What you missed in my post is that 10143 for one Quarter of Aion is what Wildstar made in 5 quarters. It's lower yes, but it's not as worrisome as people make it out to be (same for Guild Wars 2)

[Luthan.5236]

The stuff with the skins and declining revenue is actually obvious to me: I personally don't care about skins. I barely buy some. (Only cheap glasses I liked from gem store.)People that care will get their favorite stuff at one point. You can't just produce more and more. There will be some point were newly created skins will just look similar to older skins. Nothing more unique. And for more of the same stuff there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility#Diminishing_marginal_utility

So ... unless more people are playing the revenue will decrease. (Fixed amount of players and payers will buy less.) For QoL stuff (bank tabs, salvage-o-mat) there already is a harder limit. (Well ... I guss "more bank slots" for some people might be always nice. There might be some hoarders hoarding lots of stuff. But salvage-o-matic. You buy them. Nothing more to create here.)

Game could focus on getting "finished". Already "no more expansions" (only living world) could mean less development cost. (Where the existing revenue - if it declines only slowly - is still enough.) Next step also removing the living world development. Then finally "maintenance mode" - where it still could be good enough to keep the servers running from people ocassionally buying stuff. (Then GW3 and using it to push GW2 like they did with GW1 when they still put GW1 on sale every now and then.)

To keep GW2 itself alive long term it needs replayable content where players also want to put money in. The only chance I see is in PvP and WvW. (Which they failed to focus on - so far.)

PvE always will have that main revenue only from skins I guess. (Which will get less profitable.) Unless they plan to sell story episodes at release as well. PvP and WvW (or adding GvG) could give options for other cosmetic stuff there.

Personally I'd be willing to pay for individual living world episodes (as long as the full season would cost at max the price of a full expansion). Even if it was without gem to gold trading but having you to buy with real money directly. Also a small fee for additional privilegs. Like: The login rewards and daily 2 gold could get something added where you could buy "VIP" for a 5 euro a month and getting access to more. (Or change the existing rewards to this ... would put away current players that like to not spend much money while still getting their daily rewards.) If there were more/interesting options for PvP and Custom Arenas (+ lots more game modes) I could imagine them selling them for real money as well.

[saye.9304]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"saye.9304" said:here are numbers for aion:Q1 2019: 12,323 2Q19: 12,391 3Q19: 13.224 4Q2019: 8,064 (OUCH) 1Q2020: 10,143(OUCH again considering pandemic Q for korea)

What you missed in my post is that 10143 for one Quarter of Aion is what Wildstar made in 5 quarters. It's lower yes, but it's not as worrisome as people make it out to be (same for Guild Wars 2)

you missed my point as well, aion with those numbers is on maintenance mode, July 13, 2016 under the name "Aion: Echoes of Eternity" was last aion expansion, then on January 17, 2018, "Refly" released for aion which is as big as living story of gw2, and that was it , since then which is 2 years and 4 months ago the game is on maintenance mode.gw2 numbers are looking closely as bad as aion, you are talking about shutting down the servers while i am saying ncsoft put games on maintenance mode with those numbers and future does not look good for gw2 if anet continue producing bad numbers like that, it might end up like aion.

[Tinker.6924]

Really isn't a difference between the "continue as normal" and "monetize dlc with unrealistic times schedules"

Anet offers lw and xpacs regularly enough, and you pay for those, but when you start throwing in unrealistic time frames you just end up with bad quality products.

MMO genre isn't as profitable as other game types, but it's still profitable.

[Zoid.2568]

We already pay for expansions so I don't really understand what you mean and also they make tons of money from the gemstore. Do you want us to pay for every living story episode as well, is that what you mean? I would never do it and I would go to another game.

[Randulf.7614]

@Adry.7512 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:I'm confused by some of your statements because they don't seem to apply to GW2 at all.

Anet actually resisted the idea of expacs and it was what 2 or 3 years before we saw one then another 2 before the next one. It has never aimed at one a year and the only reason we prob got them was because the true Living World (LS1) wasn't the critical success it had put so much on. With an expac at least a year away if not more, we can see expacs are 2-3 years between releases - like you request.

It has never relied solely in expacs to deliver content. It has done 5 Living World Seasons which are DLCs (you seem to say Anet doesn't do DLC, but actually this is exactly what it does do) and are different models to expacs and should not be confused with them (like I assume you are doing). Free for loyal players, paid for catch up. If they delivered only expacs - every 3 years and no living world in between, the game would have died. 3 years with no content in this day and age kills an MMO stone dead. Instead we get pretty rapid fire open/world story cadences, which already feel too many imo.

It bundles the expacs together to bring more people in and make it easier to catch up. It would be foolish to have an MMO with so much content which is less and less populated, yet fully priced. Much better to lower or give it away with new content and bring the players in or back. You say learn from other MMO's, but this is what many MMO's actually do. And it works.

The gemstore likely funds most of this game, with the occasional big peak with an expac. It could prob tweak the gemstore to be better, but ultimately what will drive the income is the quality of the content and fairness to multiple game modes. The better that is, the more satisfied players will be and the more they will repay with hard earned money.

As for pvp, well pvp has never been the bread and butter money winner for an MMO. I agree it should not be neglected (and there is little doubt it has been), but pvp doesn't drive the income anywhere near the kind of levels pve does. And that has been true for almost every MMO

Ok....maybe you werent around when everything happened. Anyways, the first Xpac was in 2015 (not 2-3 years ago). Prior to the Xpac, GW2 was going through long periods of content droughts and a lack of endgame content to sustain the drought. And since the rest of your response is tethered around that statement, this basically sums up my response.

I was here from day one. There was no expac in year one and your post actually states anet aimed for yearly expacs which it did not. Your entire opening post has a lot of inaccuracirs hence why I corrected nearly all of it and everything in my reply is the corrected history of the game.

I also didn’t say it was 2-3 years ago? I said it was 2-3 years before we saw the first one. We were not short of content before that point either although there was a drought of about 8-9 months where we only got a few qol bits and ofc new LA.

That was the only major drought prior to hot (the gap between the last episode of LS1 launching and LS2 beginning was only 4 months, excluding any actual playtime for the episdoe itself)

You might want to read my reply again ?

Looking at your poll, it appears you have mistaken the ls to be expacs instead of dlcs and that you would want to monetise things like especs etc as dlcs instead.That would be a dreadful idea for so many reasons. A major business model change 8 years on would damage the game and confuse new and vet players

As I said in that poll, critique the content not the business model. Thye've got along fine for 8 years and despite the fact I'd prefer a regular expac model with smaller LS in between, my opinion on a business model - nor any players - will have any relevance since it wont change it. What can change is the quality and breadth of content we do receive within the model they use.

[Randulf.7614]

Options 2 and 3 would hurt the game more than help it.

At the end of the day, Anet understand the business models better than players. Our job is better placed to feedback on content and not on the funding

[kharmin.7683]

Please stop with the push for a subscription model. Egad!

@Randulf.7614 said:At the end of the day, Anet understand the business models better than players. Our job is better placed to feedback on content and not on the fundingExactly. So much this!

If one thinks that Anet needs more revenue, then one can purchase gems on a monthly, weekly even daily basis. Anet has made this process very easy to do.

[kharmin.7683]

Isn't this a duplicate argument for your other thread? https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/105979/should-anet-monetize-content

[kharmin.7683]

@Adry.7512 said:This correction does not change the fact that GW2 is not doing well. The worry is the longevity of the game.

Not doing well by your standards. Do you have access to Anet's full financials? Do you know their financial strategy? Are you an investor? It may look bleak to those on the outside, but none of us know how these figures relate to the company's vision and direction as a whole.