Guild Wars 2 Business Model

Rubi has kicked up a huge cloud of dust with her latest Flameseeker Chronicles post. She talks deeply about ArenaNet's business model for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. I am mostly glad that this can start, gives us more to ponder whilst the news is creeping along at a snail's pace.

Rubi's states that ArenaNet needs to make people want to play Guild Wars 2 because there business strategy allows for a lot of flexibility. If you aren't attached to the game through a subscription fee it is easy to put it down for a second and forget about it. Then that second turns into minutes, days, and you get the idea. This is the whole case and point around ArenaNet's business strategy. The content has to be engrossing, to keep us hooked without tying us down. I think this is something they can excel at, as long as they know this themselves.

Now for their microtransactions they need to find where they want to be. We have already established that cosmetics will be prevalent and no advantages in game can be paid for. This to me is perfect, too many F2P games are unbalanced due to some people tossing money in for bonuses. If you give people stuff they actually want to buy, even if it is only cosmetic, it will be profitable. Just like the game-play the microtransactions have to be engrossing and of course reasonably priced. The first Guild Wars was a great testing ground for the microtransactions to appear in Guild Wars 2 and I am eagerly awaiting to see what they do with it. Character slots seem like a must and we know about transmutation stones. The transmutation stones seem like a wonderful idea if put to use properly. They will need to define how they want the transmutation stones to work so we, the players, don't feel ripped off. I think ArenaNet needs to balance price and usability with their microtransactions.

If they can pull off this huge list of things, their business structure will work.

Ramble complete, good day!