Is Guild Wars 2 Too Expensive?

It’s something that I’ve rather taken as a given over the last few months: the Guild Wars 2 folks know what they’re doing when it comes to subscriptions. They’re not going to make you pay monthly – which is a plus, of course – and that gives it a staunch advantage over the competition. That’s what I thought, until today that is. Today I sat down to write a piece about Guild Wars 2 and about its means of access and I couldn’t for the life of me work out exactly why a “subscription” as available in Guild Wars 2 is still relevant in today’s world of Free-to-Play and constant micro-transactions. Has Guild Wars 2 been given a free pass based on appreciation of an outdated method of sale or is this the sort of MMO price scheme people would like to see in the future?

A Short History Lesson

Guild Wars came out at an interesting point for MMOs. World of Warcraft, unsurprisingly, was king, and for anybody looking for alternatives, the cupboard was bare. There were some great games (several which had been out longer than WoW) but for many the initial cost and on-going subscription was an instant reason not to try out a new game unless it had a large backing and definitely wasn’t going to end up being a complete flop. Free-to-Play - outside of Neopets and its ilk – wasn’t an option, so you can imagine how revolutionary the opportunity to buy into an MMO without any long terms costs could be. Gone were the days of $20+ for an hour of playtime - the going rate in the early nineties - but it still wasn’t a cheap hobby and for a console or casual PC gamers having access to a massively multiplayer world without the massively multiplayer costs was a great idea.
It was an alternate, and that’s what made it a success.

Guild Wars

A Different way of P(l)aying

I personally remember people in school and college not being able to afford World of Warcraft but buying Guild Wars because it meant they didn’t need to set up a direct debit or whatever to pay monthly. This says more about their fiscal responsibilities (they can afford a full priced game in one shot but not four months subscription?) but it was for that sort of person that Guild Wars was aimed. It wasn’t just the upfront costs (and lack of backend costs) that worked for Guild Wars though, but the free updates and interesting way of delivering new content. At the time, it was the perfect antithesis to the status quo, designed for people who didn’t want to subscribe to something for months on end but wanted to play their MMOs intermittently.

Time Changes Everything

And this is where the problem with the system lies now. At the time of Guild Wars’ release, this was an important system. People could either pay a one off fee and get an unlimited amount of playtime for a game or they could pay a one off fee (usually not super expensive, but still an initial cost) and then pay monthly going onwards. It was a no brainer and it worked, it pulled in a crowd that wouldn’t have played MMOs otherwise. Alternatively, it attracted long time MMO gamers who wanted something they could go back to without needing to pay all over again. Neither of those points are applicable to Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2 wallpapers are stunning. Check them out here->

With free-to-play rapidly becoming the norm and literally thousands of games available at a mere click of a button, MMO gamers already have more than a small choice of quality titles  to fall back on if their new game becomes stale (and that game might even be the original Guild Wars). Casual gamers are more likely to play the beginning of World of Warcraft or The Old Republic than to shell out $50 on a game they might not even enjoy. The people for whom Guild Wars was a fantastic option six years ago are now spoilt for choice and the lack of a regular subscription fee is looking far less interesting than it was when every other game demanded both your time and your credit card.

So Who is it For?

Now, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some doom and gloom article; it’s not an attempt to undermine the huge success Guild Wars 2 is going to have and certainly deserves. My question isn’t whether the developers have chosen the wrong subscription model, but rather who this model benefits. Long-time players, people who have been watching for news of a sequel since they first finished the original Guild Wars, will pay whatever they’re asked on the day of launch and it’ll still end up being good value. They’ll be playing it for hours and hours and you can’t put a price on that much entertainment (well, you can, but nobody will pay it). Their money is already either in a pre-order or will be handed over on the day of release, so the payment model definitely isn’t for them.

Will you pre-purchase GW2 or have you already done that? 

In fact, you can pretty much write off any day one/week one sales in this case, because these are people for whom the money doesn’t really matter. They know what they’re getting or have at least a vague interest in the game. They’re not buying it because they only have to pay one fee and they get lifetime access to a title, they’re buying it because it’s Guild Wars and they’ve player it or their friends have played it and they know they’re going to enjoy it.

The interesting bit – and the most telling part for people who like to analyse the MMO industry – will come when the first few months are over and those who bought it day one have finished everything and are looking for new games and the developers are looking for new ways of enticing fresh players. Will they just cut the price of admission or will they consider going fully free-to-play? If The Old Republic can’t survive, a game that was hyped and marketed to hell and back, what chance does Guild Wars 2 have in such a harsh market, and one spread so thinly as well?

Conclusion - Guild Wars 2 too expensive?

I think a lot of people are watching Guild Wars 2 to see if it contains the secret to competing with the free-to-play market. For the average consumer, free is better than having to pay no matter what, and when you can get something like Lord of the Rings Online, with hundreds of hours of gameplay and a tried and tested world to explore, for absolutely nothing, some people will instantly question the need to open their wallet at all.  Guild Wars 2 will be a success – it’s one of the most awaited games this year – but its long-term success is what it should be judged on and, if it manages to survive against The Old Republic F2P and all those other games on the market, you can bet your bottom dollar there’ll be more games using the Guild Wars subscription model in the coming months and years.