Simply because I like nothing more than tooting my own horn, we have this steller NCSoft earnings report.
Shocking that the 3 week wonder that was manifested to change the face of the MMO genre is not the home run that was promised. Who could have seen that one coming. It’s as if having a cash shop based on simply fluff isn’t sustainable in an MMO that is entirely forgettable. Someone should post something about that…
Anyway, just bookmark this so when the inevitable F2P-driven trash changes hit GW2 like they hit LotRO/DDO, you can come back here and admit defeat. It’s the right thing to do.
Hardcore Casual 
Nah, the NCSOFT honchos in Korea are just going to look at that chart, realize that most of that money came from box sales, and make Anet ship another box. Worked for Guild Wars, will work for Guild Wars 2.
(And I realize that Anet says that isn’t the plan. My bet is that they won’t have the final say on the subject.)
Post was mostly in jest, but yea, on a serious note that is likely going to happen sooner rather than later now. ANet also said they won’t have tiered gear and a month into the game we got a tier, so the track record is already established.
As a regular, heavy player of GW2 I’d just like to point out that a new box is what many of us want to see. I went into GW2 expecting a Buy-to-Play, one expansion a year model. That’s still what I’d prefer.
So if this forces ANet to stop futzing about with all these ditsy 2-week temporary updates and make a proper expansion with new races, maps and/or classes – result!
I also should point out, just for the sake of accuracy, that the server I play on has always been and remains insanely busy. The fact that ANet clearly have no idea how to monetize the game does not in any way reflect on the desire of a huge number of people to keep playing it.
They had tiered gear during the launch of the game, I’m not sure how you got the idea that “they won’t have tiered gear” when it was in since launch?
-Ursan
Ooooh you mean Ascended gear. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t pick that up. I think the proper term is “They promised there would be no gear treadmill.” GW2 has had gear tiers (fine/masterwork/rare/exotics) from the beginning.
-Ursan
$US23 million from GW2 for the quarter doesn’t sound too bad. More than most games are making. Although to be fair GW2 probably costs more than most games to maintain, with the rate of patches.
The big question here, of course, is how Gem sales are doing. The report mentions the declining box sales as the cause of the decline in revenue, which is very within the realm of expectations and not surprising at all.
The earnings report has reported Gem sales to be “still solid, pretty much the same as last quarter.” And analysts have said the Gem store will sustain the game going forward, which I believe has been the plan all along.
If Gem sales have remained constant, and is enough to sustain the game itself, I’m sure NCSoft would consider that a victory. However, only knowing that it hasn’t changed isn’t enough to know whether it was enough in the first place.
-Ursan
I understood the article Syncaine linked as referring to gem/in-game sales, given the context. Not that I agree with the thrust of his argument. Whatever problems GW2 may have are not the business model. As Bhagpuss said, though, I think many players expected multiple expacs, a la GW1.
How is P2W remotely a new thing in GW2? At launch — well, a few weeks later when they fixed trading, anyway — you could trade cash for gems for gold for a full set of exotics with all the niftiest add-ons. Since you could literally max out your character’s power with real money, the game has always been 100% P2W, right? Anyway, what else could they possibly sell? Levels? Those take all of 6 minutes as is…..
I do believe that an mmo should be able to sustain itself on fluff.. this isn’t that game although that comes more down to the implementation of the cash shop and cosmetic use as well as the quality and variety of what’s on sale.
What do you mean coming to GW2? Since the very first day, you could directly buy gold in that game and given that you can buy pretty much anything off the auction house, you could always buy your way to a maxed PvE character.
It always amazed me that GW2’s model is somehow considered “benevolent” when right off the bat you could buy substantially more power than in most F2P titles. It’s like the dual currency system confused people into believing it’s not there :)
You are unable to buy the highest gear tier with gold.
-Ursan
Technically not true, since you can buy legendaries. The only BiS gear you can’t buy with your credit card are the ascended trinkets.
That’s 6 pieces of equipment (Potentially 12, when Ascended armor comes out) which you cannot purchase, with 1 piece of equipment you can purchase.
Regardless, the fact remains. You are unable to buy a maxed PvE character. If people wish to spend $1000 on a non-maxed PvE character, those people should be absolutely catered to.
-Ursan
Yup Darkfall: UW is dieing and I hope it dies fast so they can bring DF1 back. This new game is shit and broken in so many ways.