Two Guild Wars Interviews
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Q: Early in the Guild Wars development process you made the decision that there would be no monthly fees. So far it's still the only big-name MMOG to try this business model. Does this surprise you? Is the MMOG business climate today what you expected it would be when you made that decision a couple years ago?
A: The fact that Guild Wars is the only big-name MMOG to ditch the subscription fee does surprise us, yes. Our business model will work, and what we are doing could be done by others. We find it surprising that others have not or are not trying to do the same thing. But, at the time some of our founders developed Battle.net, no one had created a free online gaming network, either, so I guess it's fair to say that we're accustomed to being innovative.
The business climate is exactly what we expected it to be at this time. When we began developing Guild Wars, there were more than 80 announced MMORPG titles under development worldwide. There are far fewer now, and the fact that the numbers have dropped so dramatically proves what we have said all along: that people do not want to pay -- are not willing to pay -- a monthly fee for every game that they play.
