Guild Wars 2 hits 400k concurrent users before launch

[peterpan007]

ArenaNet and NCsoft have also announced that over one million copies of the game were pre-sold, not counting the one-day pre-orders. Of course, that number will rise as folks purchase the game now that it has launched.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08...before-launch/

http://techland.time.com/2012/08/28/...aying-at-once/

[melodramocracy]

Not too shabby.

[Dodrin]

Not too shabby.

1 Million+ PRE-PURCHASED.


That's actually quite impressive. Let's see how sales continue in the coming weeks.

[Deleted]

Pretty cool, these are Digital copies only right?

[Dodrin]

Pretty cool, these are Digital copies only right?

Fully paid for pre-purchased copies. I assume that includes physical copies that were paid in full before release.

[charlieprince]

1 Million+ PRE-PURCHASED.


That's actually quite impressive. Let's see how sales continue in the coming weeks.

correction, PRE-ORDERED

they didn't count pre-purchases yet

[Edge-]

correction, PRE-ORDERED

they didn't count pre-purchases yet

Other way around. They only counted pre-purchases, not pre-orders. Re-read the announcement.

[SirRobin]

So they made sixty million before the game was even on the shelves? lol

Pre-purchases alone may have completely covered their development costs. Would like to see what their sales are up to after a month or so. Didn't the first game get up to around six million sold?

[Edge-]

So they made sixty million before the game was even on the shelves? lol

Pre-purchases alone may have completely covered their development costs. Would like to see what their sales are up to after a month or so. Didn't the first game get up to around six million sold?

That's not 60 million in revenue, there are taxes, distributor fees ect. But that's still a nice chunk of money. That and there's nothing about how much they've made through the cash shop, but I'm willing to bet it's looking pretty good right now : )

And the 7 million sales is total sales for all copies of GW 1 I believe.

[fangless]

One neat thing about their model is that they can never lose subscribers :P Helps the PR department out.

[rhandric]

That's not 60 million in revenue, there are taxes, distributor fees ect. But that's still a nice chunk of money. That and there's nothing about how much they've made through the cash shop, but I'm willing to bet it's looking pretty good right now : )

And the 7 million sales is total sales for all copies of GW 1 I believe.

Plus a % of that is DDE and CE, which were $80/$150 (though CE had additional cost to it, so who knows how the margins compared)

[peterpan007]

Didn't the first game get up to around six million sold?

Yes. Since release in 2005 Guild Wars has sold more than 6.5 million copies

[Larynx]

Very impressive. That's four times as much as the highest game on steam (at least for today)

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

[Scyth]

Not bad at all indeed. I hope those numbers continue to rise

[Zka]

One neat thing about their model is that they can never lose subscribers :P Helps the PR department out.

Wrong. Their subscribers don't pay, but they definitely do or do not log in regularly - thus, can be measured.

[steveyboy]

One neat thing about their model is that they can never lose subscribers :P Helps the PR department out.

Thats because they don't have subscribers to lose.

[SirRobin]

I do ponder about that though. Wouldn't GW2 keeping lots of people playing, or gaining actives, actually be a "bad" thing? If I recall correctly, GW2 doesn't even have a "freemium" option and there is nothing "required" or even "strongly suggested" in the cash shop that I could see. I understand how B2P worked for the first game but it was mostly peer-to-peer wasn't it? With GW2 using a more "traditional" server structure wouldn't that mean the Arena Net would have the traditional costs involved? Wouldn't it be more profitable for AN to have people quit playing GW2, soon after buying it, so they would have less hardware needs?

Especially if GW2 gets really big, I'm not sure that Arena Net could keep affording it.

[Vexies]

Especially if GW2 gets really big, I'm not sure that Arena Net could keep affording it.

Never underestimate the power of vanity items. I guarantee they can keep coming up with something, especially once polymock game or what ever hits by selling card packs, pets, and even mounts if they expand in that direction. People spend stupid amounts on this stuff and maintaining servers is not all that expensive but I do get where your coming from. If we take this "what if" a little further... what IF it does go stupid big and they manage to get along just fine with the pay structure as is.

Going to be interesting to see the sub fee games squirm to justify that sub fee dont ya think?

[vicious796]

I do ponder about that though. Wouldn't GW2 keeping lots of people playing, or gaining actives, actually be a "bad" thing? If I recall correctly, GW2 doesn't even have a "freemium" option and there is nothing "required" or even "strongly suggested" in the cash shop that I could see. I understand how B2P worked for the first game but it was mostly peer-to-peer wasn't it? With GW2 using a more "traditional" server structure wouldn't that mean the Arena Net would have the traditional costs involved? Wouldn't it be more profitable for AN to have people quit playing GW2, soon after buying it, so they would have less hardware needs?

Especially if GW2 gets really big, I'm not sure that Arena Net could keep affording it.

Hardware and server costs are pennies on the hundred dollar, today. They haven't been a real reason to require subscriptions since the early 2000s. In fact, it's so cheap that most MMO providers don't even list them as expenses on their reports to their investors. Activision/Blizzard does, but they include them with other costs.

To clarify, with their current amount of servers, I would be SHOCKED if their annual server expense got anywhere near $10k USD.

[MKing]

I do ponder about that though. Wouldn't GW2 keeping lots of people playing, or gaining actives, actually be a "bad" thing? If I recall correctly, GW2 doesn't even have a "freemium" option and there is nothing "required" or even "strongly suggested" in the cash shop that I could see. I understand how B2P worked for the first game but it was mostly peer-to-peer wasn't it? With GW2 using a more "traditional" server structure wouldn't that mean the Arena Net would have the traditional costs involved? Wouldn't it be more profitable for AN to have people quit playing GW2, soon after buying it, so they would have less hardware needs?

Especially if GW2 gets really big, I'm not sure that Arena Net could keep affording it.

I'll be spending $500 on gems soon, but that's cause i have $975 to blow a month on gaming and have no other games to buy. So there's some money lol.