Guild Wars 2 microtransactions

[Balandar]

"The original Guild Wars turned the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) subscription model on its head in 2005. Up until that point, the standard practice across all MMOs, such as EverQuest, Lineage II, Final Fantasy XI, and World of Warcraft, to name just a few, required a monthly subscription between $10 and $20 to keep playing the game on top of the $40 to $60 already spent on just buying the retail package. Guild Wars dropped the subscription model all together, instead offering a comparable triple-A experience at a fraction of the price.

While it may seem trivial now in the age of free-to-play MMOs, Facebook games, and iPhone apps, Guild Wars was revolutionary for its time. ArenaNet’s long-awaited sequel, Guild Wars 2, is slated to release sometime later this year, so GamesBeat sat down with studio president Mike O’Brien to talk about keeping the game relevant (and financially sustainable) in a drastically different market than the one its predecessor inhabited."

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/#s:guildwars2-16

[Balandar]

"Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs."

[Martok]

"Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs."

Best quote ever.