Arenanet stop direct digital sales of Guild Wars 2!

[Deleted]

Cutting into their profits to make the game more stable...
Incredible.

"Ensuring the best possible play experience for our fans is our highest priority. We’ve said before that we would be willing to temporarily disable first-party digital sales if we felt our high player concurrency may compromise player experiences. We have now reached that point.

Effective immediately we have disabled sales via buy.guildwars2.com. To be clear, box and digital sales are still available via our retail partners. We are tracking our concurrency closely while expanding our infrastructure. We’ll re-enable first-party digital sales as soon as we feel that we can do so safely. ~RB2"


Edit: A lot of mixed opinions in this thread.

In my opinion, whatever they're doing it for, whether a stunt, or because they can't handle this many people, they are taking the option that starts to fix the problem in the best way, even though it WILL hurt their profits.
They know full well it'll make them look good (is there anything wrong with this?) and they know that they're flailing a bit (but they expected as much. New game and all.)

To you all hating/complaining:

I have no idea how a rational thinking person could not understand why them doing this would be a good thing.
Most of you have probably played WoW, raged about things, problems...
With some people, whatever a company do, they can't win.
Welcome to the internet, I guess.
If you don't play Guild Wars 2, or don't like it, don't bring your anti GW2 bias here. Simple.

[Dodrin]

This is a pretty bold move. This could end up hurting their sales noticeably.

Yet, it also shows a level of caring that I haven't seen a developer express before. So good on them.

[7seti]

Huh. I tried to buy it earlier and it didn't work, so it looks like they took the sales down before updating the site with that message.

Looks like Arenanet are in way over their heads.

[Gadgette]

This is a pretty bold move. This could end up hurting their sales noticeably.

Yet, it also shows a level of caring that I haven't seen a developer express before. So good on them.

Could very well do. But it's something I personally have never seen in the MMO gaming market where a company prefers to give their customers a quality gaming experience vs getting as much money as they possibly can and fix the mess later.

[shadowmatrix]

Sounds more like hackers have been buying up accounts 4-5 at a time and they are working on stopping them. It would seem to me that opening new servers could do just as much to keep players spread out.

[Deleted]

Sounds more like hackers have been buying up accounts 4-5 at a time and they are working on stopping them. It would seem to me that opening new servers could do just as much to keep players spread out.

Do you troll all the time, or just on your lunch-break?

[Farra]

Sounds more like hackers have been buying up accounts 4-5 at a time.

Hacker's must have a lot of cash, I know at least here, in the UK, the digital download was £49.99, around £15 more expensive than the boxed version from the majority of retailers.

[BoysBoysBoys]

I don't have the game but, how much servers does Guild Wars 2 even have? ❤

[Deleted]

Hacker's must have a lot of cash, I know at least here, in the UK, the digital download was £49.99, around £15 more expensive than the boxed version from the majority of retailers.

thats their hobby hacking, they buy games to hack to get their satisfaction.

[cyceron]

seems pretty suspicious that just after 4k bans they stopped their sales because servers get over poppulated , maybe that hard permabans are premeditated to lighten servers population ?

[Leben]

seems pretty suspicious that just after 4k bans they stopped their sales because servers get over poppulated , maybe that hard permabans are premeditated to lighten servers population ?

I think your tin foil hat has slipped off.

[VibrantViolet]

seems pretty suspicious that just after 4k bans they stopped their sales because servers get over poppulated , maybe that hard permabans are premeditated to lighten servers population ?

Umm, no. I don't know where you are getting 4k, either. As far as I know, they are only perma-banning people if their accounts were compromised, so the account won't be damaged further, until the owner of the account can get it back.

[cyceron]

Umm, no. I don't know where you are getting 4k, either. As far as I know, they are only perma-banning people if their accounts were compromised, so the account won't be damaged further, until the owner of the account can get it back.

If you discover an exploit in the game, do not exploit it or publicize it, but instead notify us immediately at this new email address: exploits (at) arena (dot) net.

This morning there was a widely-publicized, newly-introduced exploit in which specific cultural weapons were selling for one-thousandth of their normal price. We fixed it with an emergency build this morning. We want to thank the vast majority of players who became aware of the issue, responsibly reported it, and did not exploit it. However, a smaller group of players did significantly exploit it, each purchasing hundreds or thousands of these weapons. We permanently banned 3,000 accounts of players who substantially exploited it, and applied 72-hours bans to another 1,000 accounts of players who mildly exploited it.

via reddit

and the number is incresing

[VibrantViolet]

If you discover an exploit in the game, do not exploit it or publicize it, but instead notify us immediately at this new email address: exploits (at) arena (dot) net.

This morning there was a widely-publicized, newly-introduced exploit in which specific cultural weapons were selling for one-thousandth of their normal price. We fixed it with an emergency build this morning. We want to thank the vast majority of players who became aware of the issue, responsibly reported it, and did not exploit it. However, a smaller group of players did significantly exploit it, each purchasing hundreds or thousands of these weapons. We permanently banned 3,000 accounts of players who substantially exploited it, and applied 72-hours bans to another 1,000 accounts of players who mildly exploited it.

via reddit

and the number is incresing

I just read that. So then maybe people shouldn't exploit, and they won't get perma-banned, or 72-hour-suspensions.

[cyceron]

I just read that. So then maybe people shouldn't exploit, and they won't get perma-banned, or 72-hour-suspensions.

i see fair 72h suspension , but perma bans are too hard , it's an error from arenanet not the players , it's like , if you go to a store and see a 5$ flat 40" flat screen , obviously you will buy it , what would do any salesman who suffers this? retreat that product , what did arenanet? nothing

[VibrantViolet]

i see fair 72h suspension , but perma bans are too hard , it's an error from arenanet not the players , it's like , if you go to a store and see a 5$ flat 40" flat screen , obviously you will buy it , what would do any salesman who suffers this? retreat that product , what did arenanet? nothing

Yeah, perma-bans are probably too harsh, but still, people had to know they'd get in trouble. I guess I'm more honest then the average person, because there have been plenty of times I've gone to the store, and saw I wasn't charged for something, or undercharged, and went back in to pay for it. If I went to a store and saw a $5.00 40'' flatscreen tv, I'm sure once I went to ring it up, the cashier would be like, "Uhh, I don't think that's right," and get the correct price.

[Matchu]

i see fair 72h suspension , but perma bans are too hard , it's an error from arenanet not the players , it's like , if you go to a store and see a 5$ flat 40" flat screen , obviously you will buy it , what would do any salesman who suffers this? retreat that product , what did arenanet? nothing

Some people exploited into the thousands. They deserve their ban.

[cyceron]

but you see what i try to say with that example , don't you? 72h ban and removal of the items would be the best way to deal with this , lettin 4k people perma banned will give GW2 a really bad marketing and a quite big loss of costumers , the game is live since 3 days ago, arround 1% of players are permabanned because arena net errors

[Galaddriel]

All US servers are Full or High pop.

I feel like such a special snowflake now, being in the Guild Wars 2 Exclusive I'm Glad I Bought the Game Before it was Cool Club

[Matchu]

but you see what i try to say with that example , don't you? 72h ban and removal of the items would be the best way to deal with this , lettin 4k people perma banned will give GW2 a really bad marketing and a quite big loss of costumers , the game is live since 3 days ago, arround 1% of players are permabanned because arena net errors

No, 1% (a number I'd dispute) are banned because they exploited ArenaNet's error instead of reporting it and moving on.