Guild Wars 2 on Consoles Can't Work Because of Social Problems

ArenaNet, the developer of the upcoming Guild Wars 2 massive multiplayer online role-playing game, has talked about bringing the game, currently a PC exclusive, to consoles like the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 and how this is quite hard, considering social aspects found on the PC aren't available on home consoles.

Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be a one stellar MMO, when it is eventually released by ArenaNet and NCsoft for the PC later this year or in early 2012.

Still, seeing as how consoles are becoming increasingly more open to online experiences, Guild Wars 2's global brand manager Chris Lye has talked about the possibility of seeing the game on devices like the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

"We've dabbled with console. It isn't an active priority right now because we're making so much progress with Guild Wars 2 on the PC that we want to push all the resources specifically onto PC at this point," Lye told Videogamer.

Still, from the work the developer has done on consoles, things are quite tricky on consoles, largely because players can't easily interact with others, either through the actual game or through third-party programs like chat clients.

"But to speak about console gaming for MMOs, based on the experiences that I've had with other console based MMOs I think the biggest problem is creating that social glue that makes MMOs so special, that make them sticky and want to pull you back into that community," Lye stated.

"I've yet to see a console MMO that does a really great job of that, like finding new friends, making parties easy, making communication between party members or guild members fun."

Lye believes gameplay can easily be adapted to a console controller, but social interaction without a keyboard is much harder.

"I think that is the biggest challenge. I think the mechanics of fighting can work just fine with a game controller. Can the social glue work without a keyboard? That still remains to be seen."

Guild Wars 2 is scheduled to appear sometime in the future, exclusively for the PC.