I been thinking about this a while.. first of let me say this upfront, Guild Wars 2 is in no way shape or form a competitor or rival of World of Warcraft simply by the fact that IT IS NOT A SUBSCRIPTION MMO.
That alone doesn't make it a rival or hurt wow in any way shape or form because there's no price at all to play GW2.. that out of the way let me get to the point.
It is undeniable at this point of the intense buzz and "Hype" if you will around ArenaNET's Guild Wars 2. We all know the game of the year, most innovative, game of the decade, etc etc awards it's been gathering like pokemon which shows this Juggernaut no weaknesses whatsoever
We know of the million+ signups within minutes for their beta.. there are facts we know and from that this entire thread stems from.
QUESTION: Is Guild Wars 2 already a success without even having launched a single beta event yet?
Let me get down to some numbers here people.. and let me be clear, these numbers are purposely lowballed as the reality is actually much higher than this
- ArenaNET was given $15,000,000 operating budget and extreme leeway to develop GW2 because of GW1's success
- 500,000 Collector's Edition WorldWide gone within minutes. Every single physical copy sold in every country it has launched: Slovenia, meh just Europe, etc it's gone. It's just gone! gobbled everything up
- 500,000 digital copies (I'm only counting standard, not even counting DDE so again I am purposely lowballing these numbers)
ArenaNET has gone on record saying if they break even on pre-purchase, it's already a success.. that's what they wanted when they began this endeavour and is what their baseline goal was.. to break even and return the initial investment given to them and more importantly the Faith and Trust handed to their team to make the game they want to make
$15,000,000 initial fund
500,000 x $150 = $75,000,000
500,000 x $60 = $30,000,000
I'll stop there.. in my opinion there were more standard/dde units sold and more actual Collector's Edition supply but like I said I've been lowballing these..
so already their $15mil initial capital has returned over $100million.. without a single beta event (press beta doesn't count).
What are your thoughts guys? is GW2 a success considering the response they've been getting in terms of money people are throwing at them?