In GW1, other than weekends, the period from 20-02 CET always seemed the busiest.
Generally Europe would lose the favor of the gods (when favor was determined by HoH) at around 02:00 to America.
It is possible that the GW2 community is younger and play at earlier hours, but there is a ton of germans/french playing at those times.
As I mentioned in another post is, what's funny is that someone who will play this game a lot for years also pays just that $60. That's an 'economic inefficiency' in the pricing.
If two people go to a movie, and one hates it and one loves it, one can have overpaid while the other underpaid for the value - but they both got a similar product.
But this is why 'f2p' type things are taking off - charging $60 for both the 'hates it' player who spend 2 hours and the 'loves it' player who spends years is problematic.
A model like 'F2P' is much better at getting the player who spends years to spend a lot more than $60, while letting the 'hates it player' try it for free.
As I mentioned in that other post, though, a downside is the corruption of the game design in F2P to make the game a lot less enjoyable for free players.
How many people who play for years would spend $500 for this game as one purchase?
This doesn't even get into the issue of how some games, which are played for years, can be a harm to other games - preventing people buying them.
If you're totally into 'Guild Wars' and play it for years, maybe you don't need to buy twenty other games you would have, that are played for 10 or 20 hours and that's it.
Going back to my movie analogy, there are few if any movies that will get people watching them so many times that they don't buy other movies. Two hours, on to another.
I don't mean to criticize what seems great for consumers of years of gaming for $60, but it does raise issues if we want a strong industry making a lot of expensive games.
It's ok when it's an exception, but if it became common, we'd see the gaming industry funding plummet and many fewer games.
I agree, yet disagree.
The metaphor used works for anything in an economic market. Car parts, soft drinks, food. Everything has variables that can enhance or lower the "value" of it. However they are all priced the same, for the most part.
F2p is getting more popular, but it isnt as much as the value issue, as is the fact that micro transations psycologically are more effective. Someone sees a $60 dollar game and goes "Eh... I won't spend $60 on a game". WHen he buys a game for free, within a few months under the f2p idea, it is highly probable he broke that $60 through micro transactions.
The best simulation? Steam summer/xmas sale. I bought so many games at a insanly cheap/small price (over 80 to be exact). Yet I will probably never ever play 75-80% of those games because of time constratints. But when I see a game that looks cool for $2-5, it doesn't matter. Its just $5. A lot of posters on here seem to have a never ending backlog of games from steam too. This is the f2p strength, not because of "value" as much as it is so much easier to shrug off small amounts of money over and over, than 1 big lump sum.
Harming other games is part of competition. If a game (Take everyones favorite debate game) such as WoW is taking so much time from other players then it is other companies goals to take a chunk of that or break that for themselve. Competition and ambition is what drives a capitalisticesque society.
The rest makes no sense what you are saying, or I am not getting it. Like $60 is too much for games and that is the exception? When every game for the past decade or so was released with that price if not more. Or you talking about an MMO that doesn't use a subscription but only a 1 time cost, meaning that for only $60 you are taking people away from other games for longer periods of time that games that can be beaten in a single night or 2?
You missed my point on competition harming other games. I was pointing out the difference between 'normal games', which are the 'normal competition' - you buy the ones you want and play them, but they each last a reasonable time and don't prevent you buying other games - and the games that have huge playtimes to the point that they more greatly reduce your game buying.
So if there are 100 games that take 10 to 15 hours to play, and you buy 10 of them, that's one type of game. But if you buy one game and play it so much that you don't buy 25 other games over a couple years you would have bought, that's starting to harm the other games more than a 'normal game'. And I was saying the same thing doesn't really exist in something such as the movie analogy I was discussing. One movie doesn't make you watch it for years to the point you don't buy many other movies you would.
Imagine two movies that were so good that they were permanently in theatres for years - so that was two fewer movies in each theatre for any new films and customers.
You lump all of that under 'competition', but there's a big difference between normal game length products and products that have such long gameplay as to cripple game sales.
If a gamer goes from spending $1000 on 50 games to playing one game instead, that's not good for the industry's creation and diversity of games.
On the last point, I meant the latter - that if games like Guild Wars, charge $60 and be played a lot for years, were dominant in the industry, then it'd have a pretty big impact, but because a game like that that has such long gameplay for one normal price is an exception, not many games do that, that it's less of an issue for the industry.
A game like Civilization might threaten that a bit - but I suspect most players don't play it THAT much as they could. MMO's are more like that, though, taking a lot of time.
For a while, over 90% of my playing has gone to World of Tanks. For a lot of gamers, that would mean they stopped buying other games.
World of Tanks isn't a 15 hour game. You can play just it for years.
Yes, competition is exactly what that is. Even though I invest large chunks of time into world of warcraft, if a fun "normal game" was released, I would buy that and play it on and off with WoW. If it wasn't going to be good I wouldnt. Still comes down to personal taste on games. But it may be surprising that even with all the MMOs acting like that, except for the start of this year (2012) video game revenue has never been higher. And besides the emergence of f2p, game prices haven't changed much over a decade. So it isn't hurting the market as much as one would think, because people will still buy a game if they like it, even though they spend much time on another.
But yea, f2p was a perfect psycological strategy. I told my dad whos halfway across the country about steam and its summer sale while it was going on. He rarly ever plays or buys games. He spent a little over $100 on steam that week. (Never hearing about the program before). "Oh hey a $1 iphone game app, /buy (only $1)" play for like 10minutes and never see it again. 20 game apps later...
Steam can shoot up sales with those cheap prices - but then there's another effect, when you have 50 under-$5 games to play, you're less likely to buy that new $60 game.
You're still missing my point about the different type of games and how it's not just 'competition', but otherwise, ya it's more complicated as far as the industry.
For example, more good games 'grow the market' - there are various factors in whether game sales go up or not.
That's why I said, what could be damaging isn't much harm when it's the exception.
It's a little like the DVR effect on commercial television - it destroys the business for a viewer using one, but when not many people are using them, it doesn't destroy it.
Steam can shoot up sales with those cheap prices - but then there's another effect, when you have 50 under-$5 games to play, you're less likely to buy that new $60 game.
There is always a time where the gratification of buying something overcomes waiting for a cheaper price.
Always? I wouldn't use that word. I'm sure there are some buyers who *would* buy $60 games if it was the only choice, but the existence of $15 steam sales has caused them to shift and only buy cheaper games.
But how many would they buy?
Sales make me buy more games, not less.
And there are games I would look if they cost $0.
That isn't true.
What those sales make is for people to spend money in games they wouldn't buy otherwise - and since it is a digital copy there is no expenses manufacturing it (just a little bandwidth cost).
There is always a time where the gratification of buying something overcomes waiting for a cheaper price.
Then it is there fault for not making a game worth $60 and/or allowing programs like steam to purchase rights to allow them to sell it that cheap. (Part of Competition)
If the game to me sounds like it is worth it, Ill spend $60. I have no problem with that.
I've not been following this game too closely, but soon I'll want a new MMORPG...can this game be zoomed in and played first person?
Is the stress test open to anyone, or just Beta testers?
Open to all pre-purchasers.
Some people claim that they can access it with their Beta weekend event key, so you can try if you have a key.