http://www.guildwars.com/press/pr11-22-09-05.html What do you think made this game so successful? Is it marketing? Is it the no monthly fee pseudo massive multiplayer game? I have played the game. Its ok, at the beginning its more fun. I like it that you always have missions to do and you never go out to harvest monsters hust for the loot and not for completing a mission. However, what made this game to be such a hit? That is a mystery. What do you think?

No monthly fee is definitely attractive, coming from people who worked for Blizzard and created Battle.net, would you expect any less?

Quote: Original post by I_Smell_Tuna
No monthly fee is definitely attractive, coming from people who worked for Blizzard and created Battle.net, would you expect any less?

Sure, there are good graphics and good multiplayer infrastructure.
However, overall, the game isnt that good.

Well, maybe it is just the idea of no fees, an alternative to WoW or battle.net, or just the marketing. Although I have not seen much marketing for the game, but it may just be the location that I am in.

I've seen a lot of marketing for the game. Ads have appeared in most video game magazines, and on game websites such as IGN. I think that the advertising, as well as the game's strong marketing tool (no monthly fees), is what made the game sell so many copies.

I think in addition to the above mentioned reasons, there are a few other reasons the game was appealing. The first thing you see is the fantastic artwork on the packaging. For me, that was the hook. I had not seen any advertisements for the game but the artwork on the box compelled me to pick it up. Of course the no online fee's were a HUGE factor after spending several years on the dime for UO and later EQ. But if it were not for the visual appeal of the packaging, I may have never picked it up.

I do agree. Some games could potentially be best sellers with the right marketing, but they are not. In this case, the good marketing led to a "good" title, even if it is not as good as a competitor.

The marketing through interviews helped them alot as they're the unhappy ex-blizzard employees of the games most people liked.

I think its success is because it's a casual-friendly game, and up until now there has been a huge gap in casual-friendly MMOs. Most MMOs are very scary and intimidating to casual players, since they require a ridiculous amount of time commitment in order to keep up with other players.

The no-monthly-fee thing is a terrific selling point, because it makes all the casual gamers immediately perk up their ears, and realize right away that GW is the game they've been looking for.

You have to remember that 90% to 95% of people out there are "casual" gamers. We tend to forget about them because we're pretty much all hardcore gamers ourselves and we only care about hardcore games. And since there's so many casual gamers out there, it can be a very good move marketing-wise to target the casual market and forget about the hardcore market.

Quote: Original post by pinacolada
You have to remember that 90% to 95% of people out there are "casual" gamers. We tend to forget about them because we're pretty much all hardcore gamers ourselves and we only care about hardcore games. And since there's so many casual gamers out there, it can be a very good move marketing-wise to target the casual market and forget about the hardcore market.

IMHO, the casual market is not as solid as the hardcore market, and that's why we don't see a lot of commercial games that appeal to this market. It's nearly impossible to tell how many casual gamers will buy a product. With a game for hardcore gamers, on the other hand, developers can make a fairly accurate estimate of sales.