Guild Wars 2 will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor and not charge a monthly subscription fee as many MMOs do. What you would then expect is for premium downloadable content to be released after the game comes out, something that lead game designer Eric Flannum acknowledged was a possibility in an interview with PC Gamer before later somewhat backing off on the particulars of what was extrapolated from the interview.
Explaining that he thinks having a subscription model can make developers lazy about producing new content, he said, "We don't get to say, 'Oh well, you know, we don't have to release this content this month, since they're all going to give us their subscription fee anyways. Let's just wait until next month and release this cool thing.' We're actually kind of bound because if we need income, if we need this game to make some money, we better provide things that people want to buy."
He continued, "I think our content model ensures that you're getting your money's worth, because as the consumer you have the option to say 'You know, I'm not going to buy that. That's not good enough.' Whereas the monthly fee [business model] takes it out of your hand. You better be getting something good every month for that -- but that's just not the case with a lot of games."
Some might counter that a subscription model might provide its own incentive for developers to continue providing content so that players won't cancel their subscriptions and move on to a different game, whereas a free-to-play game can be revisited by players at any time.
When asked if this means that ArenaNet would be likely to release new dungeons in the form of microtransactions after Guild Wars 2 launches, Flannum answered, "Yeah, we're going to look at what the demand is. Look at what players want more of and we're going have to release that stuff, because that's the stuff that players are going to be willing to pay for, and that's the stuff that's going to make our company profitable."
Prior to this, there had been no outright statement that something like dungeons could be sold; the one thing we knew was going to be sold, as PC Gamer notes, are Transmutation Stones, which allow for two weapons or pieces of armor to be combined to achieve the look of one and the stats of the other.
After PC Gamer's interview ran, Flannum contacted them with an update on ArenaNet's stance on the matter.
He made it clear that any plans to release dungeons or much of anything else for money are undecided at this point.
"We're open to whatever our players seem most interested in," he explained. "If, after release, you guys would like more story content, more dungeons, more events, more maps or whatever, it's something that we have to consider because ultimately making you happy is what makes us successful. Whether we release that in DLC (like the bonus mission packs in GW1) or whether we do it through expansions (like Eye of the North) is yet to be determined."
He said that no decision has been made about whether or not XP boosts will be sold through the in-game store, but offered up a reassurance for series fans who might be concerned they won't remain competitive without spending money beyond the asking price for the game: "[O]ur core philosophy of not requiring you to spend additional money to play the game and not making the game difficult or painful to play in order to encourage you to buy things from the store still stands." View the original article here
No comments:
Post a Comment