Father Xmas

Since both ArenaNet and Paragon are/were American studios both Pebblebrook and I converted each quarter from Korean Won to US dollars using the exchange rate during that period. As you can see in Pebblebrook's list of exchange rates, it varied quite a bit during those 5 years so you can't simply sum the KrW amounts and apply the current exchange rate to the difference.

The difference in dollars is a lot closer since during those first three quarters when GW was outpacing CoH by a lot, the exchange rate favored the US Dollar which allowed GW to extend their initial lead in dollars. Later when CoH had higher revenues the exchange rate favored the Korean Won which generated less dollars for the same difference in KrW. Because of that the gap in dollars narrows to a mere 1.8% in favor of CoH.

And I still disagree with you. You can't compare the two games since their income models are so different. We paid for the game and then monthly, they just paid for the game and had an item store for more slots, renames, full outfits, body tweaks, instant feature unlocks, etc. Of course before Freedom we could also buy extra slots, renames and the packs that gave us additional outfits, minor powers and emotes but they definitely had more types of items than we had until Freedom. But with there model their income from game sales would follow the same drop off as any other non subscription PC game.

In those two cases the pilots started at faster than sound when they left their aircraft. Felix started at zero and accelerated and decelerated through the sound barrier.

Did the original GW even have a cash shop? I don't think so, I think that's new to GW2 so the only income was from PC gaming bargain hunters buying bundle box sets.

I also get the same numbers as Pebblebrook (not surprising since I'm using the same reported numbers from NCSoft's quarterly reports) TonyV. The most noticeable difference between our numbers and yours is the very first quarter where GW earned more than twice than CoH Q3 2007. Funny that you started with Q3 2007 since that was when the last GW expansion came out. Now if you started with Q3 2008, sure CoH would beat out GW but that's cherry picking the interval just to prove the point you are trying to make.

My chart of the last 5 years. CoH (blue) - GW (red)

So it's basically break even except ArenaNet now has a brand new game for sale and we got five years of expanded content and a mysterious second MMO under development that wasn't at the point that they could even hint what it was about to create buzz.

And they could just as easily not include the cost of the studio in at all when the word "profit" is tossed about, just the expenses related to running the game, hosting, bandwidth, website, forums, support. In that case it's possible that the game had millions in profits.

Also Guild Wars hadn't been under performing CoH. As I've pointed out a number of times GW has total revenues over it's life of $15 million more than CoH in a year's less time. Now where Cryptic and Paragon Studios used that money to release a steady stream of "free" content updates, since 2007 ArenaNet put most of that money toward the development of GW2.

Here's the chart of cummulative revenue over time of CoH (blue) and GW (red)

Note that GW hit $150 million in cumulative revenues in only 3 years, we took nearly 6 years (only $95 million in the first 3 years). When we went past $150 million, they went past $175 million. In big business, return on investment is more important that current revenues. ArenaNet proved that their game can earn income at twice our rate. And while we had monthly subscriptions they had only box sales. And while their monthly revenues dropped sharply after Q1 2008, it didn't go to zero, the game was still selling in it's legacy state. And since they didn't have a monthly subscription, they didn't care about churn. They made their money on the cover charge and not the drinks (okay poor analogy). Sure the last few quarters of revenue were quite low but that's true with any 7 year old game. How much money does Blizzard make on the Warcraft 3 or Diablo 2 Battle Chest?

Now our devs had to come out with a continuous stream of content, that's how a subscription and FTP MMO work because without new content folks move on and stop giving you money. ArenaNet took the traditional game approach of box sales with a later box expansions, like the Diablo series, and took those earnings to develop the next game. The last I heard ArenaNet had 2 million GW2 sales, I'm sure that'll compensate NCSoft for any extra monies invested above GW's revenues to finish the game.

And yes NCSoft could still be playing favorites. They bought ArenaNet way back in 2002 before they even had a game. Paragon was started as the left overs of Cryptic, NCSoft simply didn't like the lack of attention this game was getting and since they owned half of it they were simply looking out for themselves. It was already proven that this game didn't fly in Asia but the look of the GW2 as well as it's PvP aspect could do well there. There's nothing wrong in focusing on your region's customers first, they are the ones you understand best.

If you think that's cool, look what they are trying to offer to the military.

Nice.

I wonder what insurance companies classify it as? It's homepage.

Wow, two new episodes and another long break. And they wonder why they can't develop a following. Actually they are probably waiting to put them opposite the return of Korra because you can't have a winner if there's no loser.

Superhero movies that make a lot of money are based on A-list characters that cross multiple generations; Superman, Batman, X-Men, Spiderman, Ironman. Ones based on non A-list or newer characters or independent comics don't do nearly as well; Hellboy, Judge Dredd, Blade, Mystery Men, Punisher, Spawn, The Crow, Kick-***, Elekra.

There are exceptions to both lists of course. Also the most popular movies are also a series of sequels. Hook the public with the great first one and you got them for at least two more.

And Talking Dead and Comic Book Men at 11p an 1a.

Outsold WoW, never. Blizzard had a string of wildly successful games, Warcraft series, Starcraft, Diablo series. An MMO set in their Warcraft universe coupled with the high opinion that people had of their games was the perfect storm. It got people who previously laughed about playing an MMORPG giving it a try and getting hooked. And once the subscription numbers started to steamroll there was no stopping it.

There was a blog (T=Machine) written by a former NCSoft Europe person. Now most of the posts in the blog have nothing to do with NCSoft but there was one that described that NCSoft corporate always took a big bang approach with marketing. Game comes out, you plaster the stores and fire off all your print ads for that one month and then move on to the next game.

Now that might work in Korea or even Asia but it doesn't cut it here in the land of the sound bite and microsecond attention spans. However the game did do well in it's first two-three years, partially because CoV came out 18 months or so after CoH. In 2004-2006 we still had multiple outlets for PC games. A box on a shelf is advertising to a degree. But then chain stores like CompUSA, Electronic Boutique and Circuit City closed. The remaining PC game sections started to shrink as people became use to buying products online and then via downloads. Soon only the currently hyped new titles, long running series (Sims 3,WoW) or shovelware are in stock at Best Buy or Target.

How many people use to pick up a game simply because you were in a game shop and the title or box art or write-up on the back sounded interesting? You can't really do that anymore. You can't even get a box copy of GW2 at GameStop, it's download only once the pre-orders were filled.

Even having time cards in stock would have shown that the game still exist (unlike now where I saw plenty of the $20 CoH game cards at BestBuy just this Tuesday).

The GvE exclusive at Walmart failed badly since Walmart isn't really known for carrying PC games. They aren't located where the console games are but somewhere around their tiny PC area. It was weeks after the time the exclusive started before the game ever got stocked on the shelves in my area's Walmarts. And with no ad in a weekly circular how would anyone who wasn't reading the forum or NCSoft's website knew it was coming out and where you could find it? At least the Architect Edition and GR actually had a shelf presence in stores, and maybe even an appearance in a weekly circular. Even still by then only Best Buy was left and they only stocked a few copies and once those were sold out that was it.

Same here Gec72, I started with a half a dozen friends in Aug of 2004. Within 3 months there were only 3 of us still playing, in 3 years only two and now only me. It was the first MMO any of us played. To my knowledge none of them have moved on to a another MMO (well one played Maplestory for a while so he could play with his nephews).

And why does an MMO need to be complicated? What's wrong with eliminating loot rolls and farming for beaver pelts for shoes? I'm not a skilled FPS player so I'm not interested in FPS style movement and targeting to defend and attack critters. I don't need to show off to those around me my "elite" loot by literally wearing it on my sleeve.

Nice!

Sound of one Han clapping

Interesting, finally caught it tonight.

This should have occurred to me earlier.

She's a nosy police detective haunted by her mother's murder. He's a transgenetic former super soldier with an impulse control problem. Together they fight crime.

I would be happy if it just allowed demorecord playbacks.