Diablo 3 the MMORPG?

[Curois]

Of course Blizzard and any other company who published a popular MMORPG makes a lot of profit. And of course they actually don't need your monthly fee for the server-upkeep.
Look at Arenanet. They're able to keep servers running and make updates to their game without any monthly fee. I'm not saying that GW is better or worse than other MMORPGs but you gotta admire the spirit of Arenanet. They're able to pull it of so far.

 

[DarkSign]

Of course Blizzard and any other company who published a popular MMORPG makes a lot of profit. And of course they actually don't need your monthly fee for the server-upkeep.
Look at Arenanet. They're able to keep servers running and make updates to their game without any monthly fee. I'm not saying that GW is better or worse than other MMORPGs but you gotta admire the spirit of Arenanet. They're able to pull it of so far.

Arena net may be doing it, but that's not the business model of every MMOG publisher. So if you're attempting to extrapolate their system to every other group, put your hippie-loving, sandal-wearing, crackpipe down.

Servers and bandwidth cost money. Yes box sales are great, but they arent everything. I know everyone wants to get all they can for free, but you wouldnt expect them to eat ramen and delay putting their kids through college just so you can kill L337-dood3359342 for time #23432? People deserve to earn money.

Agreed that some successful companies make waaaay too much cash, but simplifying the whole business to "OMG Ar3na N3t did it! They should all be fr33!" would be silly.

But perhaps thats not what you meant, forgive me.

 

[Astromarine]

fake

 

[Zomg]

I agree with the "Maybe in a few years." sentiment.

But I can also see a VUG drone VP bringing it up at a board meeting. "Sure, WoW is a bottomless bucket of money... but we could have TWO bottomless buckets of money."

 

[kingcomrade]

NO MORE GODDAMN SEQUELS

 

[Curois]

Of course Blizzard and any other company who published a popular MMORPG makes a lot of profit. And of course they actually don't need your monthly fee for the server-upkeep.
Look at Arenanet. They're able to keep servers running and make updates to their game without any monthly fee. I'm not saying that GW is better or worse than other MMORPGs but you gotta admire the spirit of Arenanet. They're able to pull it of so far.

Arena net may be doing it, but that's not the business model of every MMOG publisher. So if you're attempting to extrapolate their system to every other group, put your hippie-loving, sandal-wearing, crackpipe down.

Servers and bandwidth cost money. Yes box sales are great, but they arent everything. I know everyone wants to get all they can for free, but you wouldnt expect them to eat ramen and delay putting their kids through college just so you can kill L337-dood3359342 for time #23432? People deserve to earn money.

Agreed that some successful companies make waaaay too much cash, but simplifying the whole business to "OMG Ar3na N3t did it! They should all be fr33!" would be silly.

But perhaps thats not what you meant, forgive me.

What I meant is not that every company should take on Arenanet's model, but that not every company can hide itself behind talk about server costs, bandwidth costs etc. Arenanet proved that it -is- possible to have MMOG without monthly fee.

 

[DarkSign]

Well...

they've merely illustrated that a company like them might be able to do it.

They already had certain cash flow coming in...
They already had servers with a similar product...
They brought a unique design to market that, if copied, might seem stale and unsuccessful...

Not to say is cant be done again, but its far from a slam dunk for anyone else.

 

[Curois]

You could be right about that. I agree that their unique design helped them get an advantage in the market that could pay for all the servers etc. And I also think that it might be a lot harder to pull that off again.
But you say they already had a certain cash flow coming in and already had the servers with a similar product. As far as I know, GW is Arenanet's first game right?