The Secret World Designer: "Guild Wars 2 On A Dangerous Path"

In a recent interview, Funcom's developers working on The Secret World talked about the success of the modern day MMO, the free-to-play plans for The Secret World. In the interview they also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of subscription model which they plan to stick with. TSW's lead content designer Joel Bylos talked about Guild Wars 2 and its no-subscription model. Read on to find out what they had to say about TSW and Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2 No-sub model is a dangerous path, says TSW designer

In an interview with Eurogamer. Funcom developers discussed The Secret World, their long term plans for the game and its content updates, as well as the subscription model and game reviews. 

From the interview; Funcom doesn't seem to have any short term plans to go free-to-play with The Secret World. They actually have all the future content planned until May 2013. This is pretty relieving for the subscribers of the game which actually keeps the game alive. (that includes us at DevilsMMO.com as we have subscriptions for The Secret World too).

Unfortunately the hype was more than the actual sales, according to Funcom which had amazing success before the game launched. 200 thousand sales was not close to covering what Funcom spent on the development and marketing of The Secret World. That had led to the company's decision to cut down the costs by lay-offs. At first, this decision looked like a huge mistake to me. Who was going to create the content that they had promised to deliver each month? I wasn't wrong with my suspicions. The Secret World Issue #2 was delayed not only once but twice. It was because the new and smaller team had to work harder and longer hours to release the content.

Fortunately for The Secret World, the new team adapted fast and they released Issue #2 and then Issue #3. If you look at the new content, it's really satisfactory for a subscriber. As a subscriber, the best feeling is that you don't feel like you have to purchase something everyday because of the strict rules of micro-transactions in free-to-play titles. 

The Secret World Issue #2 Digging Deeper was delayed not once but twice!

This is not the case for every game tho. Some MMO gamers prefer free-to-play over anything and The Secret World is a very expensive game to them. You can't go and pay for subscriptions for all the MMO's you love to play... Many gamers have a small budget for games and subscriptions.

This all makes sense for Funcom to stick with the subscription model. Joel Bylos says it was only possible for a big company like ArenaNet to release Guild Wars 2 as a no-sub game. Sure this had an initial boost for the sales of the game. Bylos believes it's hard to expect the same from a smaller firm like Funcom to create the same quality without a subscription plan. 

Bylos also believes that Guild Wars 2 is on a dangerous path:

Jesus Christ that game cost a lot of money and they're going to have to sell a lot of copies, especially without a subscription model. It is a dangerous path

Guild Wars 2 publisher NCSoft never considered the risks of no-sub plan?

I find it hard to believe that Bylos actually assumes that noone at NCSOFT and ArenaNet thought about this question. They seem to have planned every detail of Guild Wars 2 from the pre-launch and they didn't actually consider the risks of releasing a game without a subscription plan? 

It will all be very interesting to see how The Secret World shapes up in the future. So far, except for the crysis with Funcom's laying off developers, it has gone pretty smooth for the MMORPG. The game is unique and it has a load of fantastic features. It just needs a tweak here and there and it should all be fine. At least that's what I wish for the MMORPG and its fans...

Click here to read the full interview at Eurogamer->

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