Venturebeat‘s Sebastian Haley recently published an interview they held with Mike O’Brien, co-founder and President of ArenaNet, for what proved to be a fairly insightful discourse covering various topics regarding Guild Wars 2, but especially focused on microtransactions.
I think Guild Wars 2 is one of the best values in gaming, period. Where else can you get this many hours of enjoyment, of content, of polish, of replayability, for $60? I’ll give a direct comparison. Guild Wars 2 is both a great MMO and a great RPG, so anyone who plays offline RPGs like Skyrim or online RPGs like Diablo 3 is going to love Guild Wars 2. Those games cost $60. Compared to them, Guild Wars 2 has at least as much content… And then, for no additional charge, Guild Wars 2 gives you a fully persistent-world where you can hang out with your friends online, lots of social features, a live team dedicated to introducing lots of new content into the game, and two integrated forms of PvP.
On the topic of microtransactions, Sebastian queried O’Brien about finding the right balance within the microtransaction offers that don’t upset the player base or unbalance the game.
Guild Wars 2 isn’t one of those games that masquerades as free-to-play but is really designed so that you can’t get far without having to buy lots of microtransactions. We recognize that customers paid $60 for the game and they have the right to play the full game. So the microtransactions we offer are non-essential additions to the game and convenience services for players who want to trade money for time.
He went on to compare the Guild Wars 2 microtransaction system to EVE in its ability to let players that have either the cash to spend in the Cash Shop or time to play the game, to both being able to earn content the other has more readily accessible to them, and adding that loot grind or power creep is a non-factor within the game.
Check out the full article here
