14 DAY TRIAL // The ArenaNet development team working on Guild Wars 2 says that the only way for the MMO genre to develop is for developers to stop copying the successful ideas of previous titles and create new, viable structures for their own products.
Christopher Lye, who is the global brand director working at ArenaNet, told Gamasutra that, “We're finally seeing a point where companies realize that they're not going to create the next great MMO by just copying what's come before.”
He added, “'MMO' is a platform and set of technologies, not a game design model - and we've barely scratched the surface of what's possible ... Honestly, I think the problem is that there's been a lack of change in MMO design and that Guild Wars 2 is a reaction to that.”
At the moment the big MMOs either choose to ask gamers to pay monthly subscriptions in order to access game content or make the experience free-to-play and rely on microtransactions to create revenue.
World of Warcraft, the MMO from Blizzard, is the undisputed leader for the first business model and most other titles have adopted the later one in order to have a chance to compete.
Guild Wars 2 will abandon both approaches to the MMO concept and will ask gamers to initially pay for the packaged game and will then allow buyers to play for free.
Each new content package will require an additional upfront payment and gamers will also have the option to use microtransactions to get more in-game currency.
Lye says that, using the same model, the team was able to create a content creation process that results in one full expansion delivered every six months, making money for ArenaNet while also allowing the player base to get a constant flow of new game areas and quests to explore.
Guild Wars 2 does not yet have a launch date, but a beta test is already ongoing.