Guild Wars sells 6 million Units
By
Coin,
Posted on: 2009-04-24 24:44 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Basically? The market/target audience.
Superhero genre is never a huge seller when it comes to video games/mmo's, though as a kid i'ld happily say we all imagined about being a superhero of some sort that as you get older its get turned into more fantasy based land.
At its peak didnt COH has roughly 200k subs? I think that figure alone shows that the market for hero lovers isnt a very big one at that.
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What's preventing (prevented?) CoX from having done so well, given that CoX is way more unique than GW?
[/ QUOTE ]Monthly fee, marketing, different target audiences.
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Basically? The market/target audience.
Superhero genre is never a huge seller when it comes to video games/mmo's, though as a kid i'ld happily say we all imagined about being a superhero of some sort that as you get older its get turned into more fantasy based land.
At its peak didnt COH has roughly 200k subs? I think that figure alone shows that the market for hero lovers isnt a very big one at that.
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I can't agree I'm afraid. I think you're argument's specious for a number of reasons:
Over the last decade some of the biggest films at the box office have been "superhero" movies. Marvel are raking it in hand over fist.
At the time of CoH's launch, Comics were resurgent in their volumetric sales going through the roof - it's one of the main things that saved Marvel (and sadly, Rob Liefield's career)
Of course it's difficult to correlate 6 million box sales vs contiguous subscriptions. The maths involved would be interesting to say the least and I won't even attempt it.
Superheroes ARE popular. If they weren't you can bet that Jack Schi... um Emmert wouldn't be trying to launch CO, or DCU bringing their universe to the MMO table. GW on the other hand is simply another fantasy MMO with a low level cap and an accent on PVP.
Thelonious Monk
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Superheroes ARE popular. If they weren't you can bet that Jack Schi... um Emmert wouldn't be trying to launch CO, or DCU bringing their universe to the MMO table. GW on the other hand is simply another fantasy MMO with a low level cap and an accent on PVP.
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Yet widely accepted as 1 of the better MMO's (not technicaly an MMO, but still), with a whole new level (and still unique) of skill-system, rather being stuck with a dozen of powers u can pick over 500 different ones. No other game thus far has done the same. The high-paced PvP action broke the 'gear matters' by making skills win the match, not what you are wearing.
Right moment, right system (f2p) and inline with their LA1/2 it didnt need much advertising as it was majorly done by the crowd (like the epic trailer, specialy the Faction one).
CoH now is a missed chance, with a widerange of advertising it could have gained way more players, but in the past 4 years i never seen a single advertisement about this game. By now it 'looks' outdated, specialy the scenery if you have to compare it with later TR, or even the free asian MMO's.
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Erm, it's obvious, isn't?
Guild wars is cheap to buy and free to play, so it's naturally going to appeal to people, especially with the economy as it is. Being free to play is instantly going to make it VERY easy for kids especially to sell it to their parents 
Once the core base is there, the word spreads and the user base builds up.
It's very hard to convince mum and dad to pay nearly a tenner a month for a game, you know.....unless mum and dad are also playing it 
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Probably the Zero sub cost works a lot in guildwars favour after all you can pick it up relatively cheep at your local game store and that's all you have to pay. and then you can play it off and on and not feel that your waisting money because your not playing it every second you have.
CoH on the other hand requires a degree of commitment as very few new players are gonna sub and then not play it for months on end.
I do wonder from time to time if CoH being a easy to pick up and play MMO would have benefited far more from a free to play with optional expansion packs model rather than its current pay monthly sub model.
I enjoy playing GW and all its add ons, and still load it up on a regular basis.
And as its free , you dont have to worry about your subs to play it. its there in that respect if want to take a break as well.
Plus its a mighty fine game to play.
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no sup, not so boring as other games in the same genre, no sub, a nice looking environment,....did i mention no sub?
no offense but COX could learn from that, shows that the no sub DOES work.
Guild Wars is cheap can pick it up for under £10 in pretty much any game store and has no subs and some continuing advertising everytime they release an add on. And while fantasy is not my thing i gave it a try even if it was only for a week cause it was so cheap, but still makes me one of those 6 million.
On the other hand even when CoH was first released it was hard to find it in a game store and had very little advertising ever never mind it being ongoing. And have yet to see a box in any store for the last few years.
If its not there nobody can buy it, even if it was in those buy 2 for £15 racks in Game it would be a bonus, hell you can still find Theme Hospital in those racks why not CoX.
Ok a few of you have mentioned the "No Sub" rule. But that doesn't ring true.
IF it was just that it's "no sub" then why isn't the world playing GW instead of WoW? Why aren't more publishers going the "no sub" route?
Why didn't Tabular Rasa realign itself into a "no sub" game and rely on box shifting instead of closing totally?
Those are just some questions in response to that particular argument.
Thelonious Monk
Annoyingly, I couldn't find a single copy of CoH or Guild Wars today in Norwich (I was looking for Eye of the North. I like the boxes) but I did find a copy of Lineage 2.
And a copy of Auto Assault.
... yeah, still puzzling over that one too. It wasn't the nice box either.
Guild Wars to me is more of a single player thing. I create my character, get some henchmen or heroes, wander off doing missions and quests. Being a mage able to swap my skills out in a town area and spec completely differently with no cost is refreshing (Facing fire resisting enemies? Go for Water spells! Air? Earth! So on and so on. No issues such as a Dark Melee Scrapper versus CoT ghosts) and the game looks pretty. The fact I can pick up and play when I want is also nice.
Other players are something I come across in towns and rarely talk to, as the Free to Play aspect means there's a large ammount of hooting and hollering, somewhat akin to a town center on a Friday night after the clubs have closed.
(I did try playing Guild Wars with friends, but the fact that the party number varies by area annoyed us too much. You can't start with 8 of you, because for a while, in Prophecies at least, you start at 2 in Ascalon, then 4, then 6, then 8 at some point.)
Also, while I've not experienced it myself, GW seems to have the best system in mind for PVP, especially eSport level PVP, where the skills matter, and not your loot. WoW I think has been doing something like this on their Tournament server, but the Arena seasons on regular servers has been rather prone to overpowered classes (Hey there Death Knight!) and people in top tier loot (along with the fact that since the introduction of Arena Ratings it's harder to get loot to compete on the same level as others.)
No subscription must mean heavy marketing costs and huge risk in the process. Guild Wars has possibly pulled something off thats not always worth trying and so subscription route is somewhat safest.
I wouldnt subscribe to a game like GW so for me its a good thing there is no subscription fee. Its a game I would play when I need a break from this one as I do.
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IF it was just that it's "no sub" then why isn't the world playing GW instead of WoW? Why aren't more publishers going the "no sub" route?
[/ QUOTE ]WoW is a special case, and continues to have such a large subscription base partially due to a snowball effect.
And they are, but most publishers favour their "no sub" games to be F2P with microtransactions. GW fits the niche of store-bought MMO without monthly fees, but it's a niche where there's not much room for competition.
There's a few small paid for things you can add to your account from the GW store as I recall:
Extra character slot
Character Rename
Character Apperance Change
Extreme Character Apperance Change (No hormones or surgery needed!)
Extra Storage
Skill Unlock Packs
Pet Unlock Packs
Bonus Mission Pack
2008 Edition Extras
But that's not like buying additional items and other rare things, more account services.
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I enjoy playing GW and all its add ons, and still load it up on a regular basis.
And as its free , you dont have to worry about your subs to play it. its there in that respect if want to take a break as well.
Plus its a mighty fine game to play.
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I totally agree with all of this, and I do the same. GW sits there on my desktop, always ready to welcome me in for a quick go.
It's well designed, very pretty to look at, and I find the skills limit actually adds a tactical element to play. It's fun.
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Anet have said several time thats GW has developed a long way away from their original goal. The Idea was supposed to be a game that you play every now and then, perhaps pop in when theres a new update.
They never expected it to take off like it did, but I'm sure they're glad it did!
A large portion of my Online Gaming history was in Gw and I don't regret a moment.
One thing about the 6 million units though is that it doesnt translate how you would think. It's like saying that 6 million accounts have been opened in CoX - But doesnt mention if they ever fully subscribed. Also with Gw being so cheap to buy and play its not unusual for players to have multiple accounts (especially back in the old days when you couldnt buy character slots)
If they could somehow smash GW and CoX together I'd be a happy man...
(Slightly off topic, but the Gw aniversary events blow the CoX ones out of the water imho. The fact they've actually been redesigning the whole system to try and include things people have been requesting for ages says a lot about the Devs)
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Annoyingly, I couldn't find a single copy of CoH or Guild Wars today in Norwich (I was looking for Eye of the North. I like the boxes) but I did find a copy of Lineage 2.
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Its pretty much as cheap to buy it online these days, espceially with steam. I don't know if you already have a GW campaign, but you'll need one of the original 3 to play EoTN.
I have Prophecies, Nightfall and Factions, but still slowly making my way through Prophecies in my 14 Me/E. May go through Nightfall first though with my E/Mo.
Eh I never could get to grips with Proph, playing for about 3 years now and still hav't done riverside provience...
Sorry I'll stop derailing this thread now =P
The game's engine, enabling an unparralled environment and experience to put it bluntly, plus it's non-subscription. And theres always challenges, Guild Wars 2 titles are making people work right now for them in Guild Wars, and there not easy to obtain.
Fury
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Superheroes ARE popular. If they weren't you can bet that Jack Schi... um Emmert wouldn't be trying to launch CO, or DCU bringing their universe to the MMO table. GW on the other hand is simply another fantasy MMO with a low level cap and an accent on PVP.
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I agree here and there's a number of points to consider as well.
Most of the people I know that like super heroes also like fantasy and sci fi. That is probably not necessarily the case across the board but there is a common denominator between them, without question.
And, the typical MMO player generally, although certainly not always, falls into this catagory.
So, if super heroes ARE popular then a sizeable chunk of the MMO market should be playing one.
Are they popular?
I believe Super heroes are bigger than either fantasy as a whole or sci fi icons such as Star Wars and Star trek combined.(although maybe not as an entire genre)
Why do I say this?
If you take the marvel universe and Dc universe alone (this example doesnt even include out of these twos heroes such as Hell Boy, Spawn or even Hancock or Dark horse comics etc )and look at the merchanising that goes into just one of the big hitters, like Spiderman, then add Superman, Batman,X-men etc etc, the money these heroes generate combined is collossal.
I'm not saying Superman or Spiderman alone are as big as the two I mentioned but combined? Adeed to all the others?
The comics, (and the diffent packaging of comics these days which gets people to buy the same story twice) books, the tv series the figurines, toys, movies, games amusement park rides (isnt Spiderman ride at the Islands of Adventure STILL rated the no1 ride in the world?)
It's endless.
I was in New York in the main comic shops. No kiddies there at all. I saw an NYPD policeman and a store parked wit everyday people. plus the odd goth .)
What there was was an endless collection of brilliant figurines, a libary of comicbooks converted into volumes..
Heck, there were even fabulous models of such periferall characters as Asam Strange or Man Thing.
Super heroes are huge!
You know my thoughts on why this game, when it had this entire phenomenon to itself has, as far as I'm concerned, blown an incredible opportunity.
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
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I think the only reason WoW does so well over Guild Wars is because everyone plays WoW because their freinds do as well. It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal. Sluggish combat, ugly graphics, servers you can sometimes spend tens of minutes trying to log into and more potty-mouthed 12 year olds than a South Bristol junior school.
Hmm, then again, maybe not its not quite so different after all...
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It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal.
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I'm sorry? Since WHEN was WoW cool? 
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It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal.
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I'm sorry? Since WHEN was WoW cool?
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Listen. I'm the CEO of WoW. I am told by a fan the game is uncool. I lose sleep. Not.
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
Arc 56763 Lord Anarchys heaven
2 mission arc. Bring friends cause Lord Anarchy means business...
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It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal.
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I'm sorry? Since WHEN was WoW cool?
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Since living in a basement ordering in Pizza through a chat system and shunning your friends has been. Its Hermit Chic
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-million-units
There's the story.
So interesting: GW sells 6 million in 4 years.
What's preventing (prevented?) CoX from having done so well, given that CoX is way more unique than GW?
It's an interesting parallel.
Theorems anyone?
Thelonious Monk