ArenaNet Founders Interview

[Rushster]

GamersGlobal managed to pin down Mike O'Brien and Jeff Stratin, two of the ArenaNet founders to find out what's been happening at ArenaNet, GuildWars, GW:EN and their reasons for leaving Blizzard. Here's a snip from the interview:

GG: You’ve already announced that Guild Wars 1 will still be actively supported by its own team when the successor has been released. But there will come the time, when, after all, Guild Wars 1 will be over.


Jeff Strain: Our goal is to make Guild Wars 2 so phenomenally cool that no one will even consider not to play it! If we succeed in that, then we expect the vast majority of players is going to play Guild Wars 2. However, some will be willing to continue GW1. And as long as there are people who play Guild Wars 1, we will keep that game going. We’re not going to shut down servers and kick thousands of people out! There may come a time where we will not keep adding new content to GW1, though.

[Alaris]

If GW2 is much more fun than GW1, then I have no problem with that statement. And I have no reason to believe that GW2 would be disappointing.

[Tamer Of Spiders]

I don't understand why they are so hush hush about the number of players. This question has come up in a couple interviews and always gets the same response, 'We don't share that number'.

Anyway, interesting read.

[Skyy High]

90% chance that it's because they don't want WoW saying, "Oh yeah, well we have THIS many!"

[Xunlai Agent]

Or the controversy with the double accounts and all the sweat shop farmers and bots...

[Ranger Nietzsche]

How about because they have no real idea?


Even WoW doesn't know how many players they have. All they have is the number of subscriptions.

All Anet has is the number of units sold.

[Tamer Of Spiders]

You would think just by the unique email/account names (barring gold farming sweat shops) ANet would have a good idea of how many active users they have.

I also found this line interesting:
"There may come a time where we will not keep adding new content to GW1, though."

Granted, the BMP just came out and we still have the Design a Weapon items coming but could there be more in the works?

[Gules Rampant]

All Anet has is the number of units sold.

On the contrary, they have much more. Anyone running an online game typically tracks who logs in when, for how long, and what they do while they're on.

While they may not know how many people have multiple accounts, I'd say the that number is low enough to be negligable, and an estimate would be easy to calculate if needed.

If they wanted to, they could likely tell you the exact number of American-played female rangers with red FoW armor and black storm bows who used Double Shot to kill a moa bird in Old Ascalon while chatting with guild members about "suxor newbs" between 3 and 5 in the morning on July 16, 2006, (just for example).

So to get to the point, they know how many active accounts there are. Jeff Strain probably checks this number at least once a week.

[Ranger Nietzsche]

If they wanted to, they could likely tell you the exact number of American-played female rangers with red FoW armor and black storm bows who used Double Shot to kill a moa bird in Old Ascalon while chatting with guild members about "suxor newbs" between 3 and 5 in the morning on July 16, 2006, (just for example).

except retrieving that information is more trouble than its worth.

And the kind of estimate you get from counting accounts is as good as you'd get by just guessing based on units sold.

[Soku]

However, some will be willing to continue GW1. And as long as there are people who play Guild Wars 1, we will keep that game going. We’re not going to shut down servers and kick thousands of people out!

All I needed to hear. I'll sleep sound tonight.