Guild Wars hits the 6 million milestone

by Lesley Smith Apr 24th 2009 at 10:30AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Business models, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, News items

Just in time for their fourth anniversary celebrations, ArenaNet have announced that Guild Wars has sold over six million copies. Coincidence? We think not but it's still a remarkable milestone for this popular MMO. Remember that market leader World of Warcraft has 11.5 million players worldwide and is subscription based. Guild Wars meanwhile, is free-to-play (plus box costs) and only a few months younger than WoW.

ArenaNet are understandably chuffed about the whole thing, particularly their studio head, Mike O'Brien: "We are humbled by how gamers have responded to Guild Wars over the past four years, and we are proud that the game and its community have helped to continually shape, define, and expand the genre. Our subscription-free business model has proven to be a big hit with gamers, bringing an enormous and diverse online community to the game."

Tags: guild-wars, guild-wars-anniversary, guild-wars-milestones, units-shipped, unitssold

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

THAC0 said on 10:39AM 4-24-2009

I want GW2 info damn it! lol

khia Mann said on 10:57AM 4-24-2009

I would also like to know more about GW2, but since today we're talking about GW1 I would like to leave a small comment.

For those that have never played GW1, I think it would be worth your $19.99 to check this game out. Notice how beautiful and well designed it is, especially when compared to a lot of the junk that is released nowadays.

DurEdhil said on 10:56AM 4-24-2009

Six-million sold copies does not give any sort of estimation of the number of actual players in the game. I purchased the game at launch, played it for a week and have not touched it since. Of those six-million purchased, how many are actually playing?

WoW's 11.5 million subscriptions gives readers a better estimate of how many people *could* be playing WoW at any given time. Its not exact - just because someone is paying monthly does not mean they are playing.

What I want to know is, of the however many people are *playing* Guild Wars, how well is the game doing for NCSoft? Are Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 and Aion going to be enough to pull them out of the hole that Tabula Rasa put them in?

Kyoji said on 11:17AM 4-24-2009

The thing about GW is that it doesn't matter how many people are playing, since technically the more people don't play the more money they "make." And since thats pretty much a useless metric, all they have to go on is box sales.

lethality said on 11:04AM 4-24-2009

6 million boxes - of all games and expansions - total. So divide that number somewhat by 3 or 4, and you have your real answer.

And then, how many people really still play? I purchased at launch and haven't touched it (despite buying each expansion to check out)

Iokthemonkey said on 11:45AM 4-24-2009

That's not strictly accurate either, Lethality. Aside from Eye of the North, you can play any of the scenarios/games without the other - it's not like Burning Crusade where you have to have the WoW core game to play.

So whilst, yes, I'd imagine most players have all four games, there may be some players who only own and play a single campaign.

Lethality said on 11:05AM 4-24-2009

Let me just add, it's non a true MMO. If you like how Warcraft is set up, this will befuddle you.

tanek said on 11:58AM 4-24-2009

I would not say it isn't a "true" MMO so much as I would say it is set up very differently from the majority of MMOs most people would know. I happen to really like the style of Guild Wars for what it is and I hope they are able to maintain some of that uniqueness in GW2 rather than just falling in line with the current "standard".

Havok said on 12:58PM 4-24-2009

I'd have to agree. Its a single-player game that you have to be online to play. Oh, and where you've got to put up with lag whenever you go into cities.

Jack said on 12:11PM 4-24-2009

Yep I my self did buy a copy of Guild wars and there addons. Got bored with the instant world type and grind to the green x behind the arrow pointing the way type of questing and bad voice acting and gone back to Warcraft where I did care for the story!

Sente said on 12:25PM 4-24-2009

Guild Wars has perhaps the best story oriented content of the MMO-type games out there.
I bought myself the game when it was initially launched and did not play for long at all, the click-to-walk interface being one of the issues - it is not necessary to use that though, traditional WASD exist also.
The same short visits happened with the Factions and Nightfalls campaigns.

But last summer I jumped into the game again to give it another try to decide whether I should uninstall it completely or not. And this time I was hooked. It is a very good game and less grindy than most MMOs out there and fun both with PvE and PvP.

miktal.chris said on 9:41AM 4-28-2009

I move in GW the same way I do in WoW (yes, I play both and enjoy them both immensely) ... hold down both mouse buttons then move around. You have several options in place to move. And loot. And attack, and change targets, and heal. The game is quite versatile, which is why its PvP aspect blows WoW out of the water.

crsh said on 12:29PM 4-24-2009

"Remember that market leader World of Warcraft has 11.5 million players worldwide and is subscription based."

That's got to be one of the most overused and *misused* piece of statistics in the gaming industry.

Over half of those 11.5 million players are not subscribers, they pay by the minute/hour. There's no telling how often they play either.

Havok said on 1:00PM 4-24-2009

How exactly do you pay by the minute/hour?

Where are you getting your statistics?

Who cares how often they play? It hardly makes any difference if they're subscribed.

torak said on 2:48PM 4-24-2009

There are about 2 million US subs, roughly 2 million EU subs and the rest are in Asia where they don't "subscribe". It's set up more like a F2P only you buy batches of minutes.

khai Mann said on 3:13PM 4-24-2009

In China, where most Wow players are located, they pay per hour. Basically, they buy time cards with a number of hours instead of the normal "unlimited play" monthly fee we have here in the West.

Cithrax said on 1:52PM 4-24-2009

I would say that about 3 million people play Guild Wars actively, since not everyone buys all four parts of it. I would also like to note that even if it's only 2 million, that's still more than most MMO's. (Not counting crap like R-scape) War has about 350000 or something.

khai Mann said on 3:16PM 4-24-2009

I would make that number around 70.000 to 100.000. I've played it extensively since last December and can guarantee that the number of people that play on a regular basis can not exceed those numbers.