Curse

JiggyFly · Jan 09, 2006, 08:38 AM // 08:38

I'm pretty sure it is not as black-and-white as:

Anet spends 100,000$ dollars on Chapter 2.

or

Anet spends 100,000$ on prize money.

I think it's neat that Anet put up prize money, and it does add a bit of incentive to get into PvP. And from a managment standpoint it's genius, because they realize many players are twidling their thumbs waiting for Chapter 2, and some might start leving for other games. But if the reward gets just 2,001 people to consider "Heck I'll try PvP if there are rewards" or even just kept a few more players around until Chapter 2, it was a win for them.

Or you could look at it as Anet doing something nice for it's gaming community..but god forbid they get any thanks for putting up 100,000 buckaroos.

LuLu · Jan 09, 2006, 08:40 AM // 08:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pevil Lihatuh

well considering you have to travel to take part in the final, once that money has been split between 8 of you, and expenses have been removed, its not gonna be *that* impressive (although still an amount I would kill for)

All expenses are paid for by a.net. Your plane ticket, hotel, etc.

Makkert · Jan 09, 2006, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexi Zingforger

When I first saw this prize that was up for grabs, I thought it ridiculous, surely Arenanet doesn't have to resort to this to keep players interested. Not only this, but truly a very small amount of people are going to participate and receive any kind of award from this.

Do you think this money is better invested in developing more content for the game, or perhaps Chapter 2? I for one would 100% prefer this.

While I understand your reaction, I'm not certain it is 'ridiculous'.
I come from the Magic the Gathering corner, where also high rewards are being payed to top players.

It gives an extra incentive to top players to reach the edge of their possibilities. Having a good top competitive environment for games like this is important: for balance reasons, for the talk of the moment which keeps game fresh (we are talking on it here also

), to find new buildtypes, and it shows that ANet takes the WorldChampionship very serious.

greetings Makk.

Kaguya · Jan 09, 2006, 10:25 AM // 10:25

The prize money isn't really much nothing, it prolly is under 'Advertisement'-tab in their bookkeeping too. There have been news on many gaming websites about the reward, and there still will be. It's all advertisement.

Effendi Westland · Jan 09, 2006, 11:30 AM // 11:30

It's marketing, very good marketing actually.

Perhaps ANet has it sponsored, perhaps not, however it is not money that would have been better spend on chapter 2 in my opinion. I think this is mostly targeted to Korea, and perhaps they are running an add-campaign with it, perhaps that is not necessarry. Korea is a very different gaming-culture, where the masters of starcraft have been treated like gods and still are treated that way. They have arena's there with a ring for spectaters where the starcrafters take place in the middle and everybody can follow it on a big screen, very popular.

Perhaps ANet wants to be the most popular PvP experience. Besides , if they actually get people joining because of price money (not unthinkable, happened to magic, the gathering trading card game) the costs of the price money is reduced by the extra people it draws (Because that income would otherwise not be gained).

Alexi Zingforger · Jan 09, 2006, 02:31 PM // 14:31

From what I know about game developers, they receive a very small slice of the money pie, though perhaps the $100,000 really isn't a large amount of money to them. I guess my reaction stems from the argument that they're just throwing money at us and not giving us more of the things we really want.

KiyaKoreena · Jan 09, 2006, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Two April Mornings

1 million copies of guild wars.... times 50$ .... they can afford this

I keep seeing this brought up in threads. Like every product out for sale Anet does NOT get the full amount we pay for the game. The store retailing it takes a chunk (when working in retail most items I saw were marked up at least 50% over wholesale cost, though I am not sure the exact markup for video games), their distributor takes a piece, the printers take a piece, taxes throughout the line... You can not guess their profit margin by games sold X average store retail price. Please people stop trying to use this as an argument that they have tons of money to be throwing everywhere.

Racthoh · Jan 09, 2006, 06:13 PM // 18:13

A company that cares more about its customers than its own pockets. That's the way I see it as.

Sagius Truthbarron · Jan 09, 2006, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Do alot of people generally compare Arenanet to themselves or something? "omgz i don have 100k! how can dey afford dat dey shall b teh bankrut bie chaper 2 and den dey not make chaper 2!!!"

They also seem to think that an extremely rich, very professional and expirienced Korean MMORPG company that hiers corperate Think-Tanks can't think for themselves.

No, I doubt they are going to go bankrupt from giving one team 100,000 dollars out of their surplus and I don't think they'll have to make any compromises for chapter 2.

I'de have to say $100,000 isn't really that much for climbing to the top of the guild ladder, then having to battle the best guilds in the world, along with all that hassle of planning and spending all that time trying to get to the top of the ladder for months on end.

Sure, going to Taipai might be a reward in itself, but what are you going to come home with after you win? 'Oh, gee, that was fun, I only wasted 5 months of my life for that...'

qwe4rty · Jan 09, 2006, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexi Zingforger

I realise that it isn't a great deal of money in today's gaming industry, I just think it could be better spent elsewhere, such as hiring people to keep us better informed of progessing developments. I really dislike the lack of information that we receive, especially on the front page of the website.

Just thinking about average wages, I think that would hire 2 and a half people, maybe 3. Something around there.

Plus, why should they give out all the information at once. It's like a hook, keeps us salivating for more. I like how they are doing it now just fine. It's just enough each time to make me want to get Ch. 2.

My $ .02

Zaklex · Jan 09, 2006, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexi Zingforger

SNIP Or perhaps buying some more bandwidth to stop the lag which is blighting servers recently.

SNIP

The lag has nothing to do with bandwidth and everything to do with the inferior internet substructure, i.e. still travelling over copper wires, etc.. IF everything was optical, including right up to the connection to the comp itself, you would see a significant drop in lag, though distance from the source would still play a part.

As for those people calling for GM's, there are no GM's in GW nor will there ever be, it doesn't require them, that's what the reporting process via the support page is for.

Sir Skullcrasher · Jan 10, 2006, 03:31 AM // 03:31

$100,000 dollars, wow thats enough to get..1852 copies of Chapter 2!

Hanuman li Tosh · Jan 10, 2006, 10:14 PM // 22:14

it is chump change. theres 10 ppl per team so 10k each. you arent even a pro gamer off 10k. however, most pro gamers get paid off sponsors and not purses.

but 100k for a prize in a tourney is the best advratising you can buy in a video game. so kudos to anet on that one.

hidden_agenda · Jan 10, 2006, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaklex

The lag has nothing to do with bandwidth and everything to do with the inferior internet substructure, i.e. still travelling over copper wires, etc.. IF everything was optical, including right up to the connection to the comp itself, you would see a significant drop in lag, though distance from the source would still play a part.

That is something that EVERYONE has had to live with... It is well-known as the "Last Mile" problem, that the connection from the ends of the M1-3 network backbone to the individual consumers is where the internet bottleneck is at.

In fact, this is one of the reasons for the collapse of the communication / network backbone industry in 2002 (remember MCI/WorldComm? AT&T split?)

My point being -- this is not a problem that Anet can solve. Billions of $$s had already been spend and is continuing to be spent on this issue. Everyone has had to live with it -- including all the online game companies, the business sites (eBay, Yahoo!, etc.)... So it really doesn't explain the issue of the recent server lag.

[Complete aside: Yes, I did work for a network start-up and knows more about the 2002 network collapse than I care to...

]

Andy_M · Jan 11, 2006, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Hmmm, at current exchange rates (£1 = $1.7) thats about £56-57k. Not too shabby even after dividing amongst a team.

Just putting it into perspective. A very nice bundle of cash indeed.

Lews · Jan 11, 2006, 12:38 AM // 00:38

There is plenty of Moderation, I myself talk to people from arena-net every day.

Sereng Amaranth · Jan 11, 2006, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Ok, if you consider $50 per person, and the 5000+ that are signed up on the GWG Auction alone, that is 2.5 times the amount they are giving away. Now consider that there is over 50,000 users of GWG. Consider that even though GWG is the best website for Guild Wars, there is probably more people that own the game that are members of only 1 of the 30+ websites devoted to Guild Wars. If someone knows the exact sales figures that would help. But I estimate a quarter million units sold. Multiply by $50 and that is $12.5 mil. Now how does that $100k look like?

lord pun|shment · Jan 11, 2006, 11:19 AM // 11:19

they wouldve made more than 100,000 in profits from sales etc allready

i hope they do it for years to come, one day my guild might have a chance at it.

Buzzer · Jan 11, 2006, 12:28 PM // 12:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sereng Amaranth

Ok, if you consider $50 per person, and the 5000+ that are signed up on the GWG Auction alone, that is 2.5 times the amount they are giving away. Now consider that there is over 50,000 users of GWG. Consider that even though GWG is the best website for Guild Wars, there is probably more people that own the game that are members of only 1 of the 30+ websites devoted to Guild Wars. If someone knows the exact sales figures that would help. But I estimate a quarter million units sold. Multiply by $50 and that is $12.5 mil. Now how does that $100k look like?

There has been at least 1 million copies sold. That was announced months ago.

And also, don't assume that the game developers get 100% of the money out of our pockets. From what I've heard, a more realistic figure is 10-20%.

RotteN · Jan 11, 2006, 12:48 PM // 12:48

still 100k is a "joke" compared to FPS competitions. the CPL world tour had 1.000.000$ in prizemoney, divided over different events, with a prize of 150.000$ to the one that won the grand finals, not to mention this was a single-player competition, while guild wars has 8-player teams ...

any big competition has prizemoney, why would GW be any different ? and this money comes from sponsoring anyway, without this event, that money would not been in A-net's hands, and for that, there are no better ways to spend it