Guild Wars 2: what is it worth to you?

  We already know how much Guild Wars 2 will cost, they have announced that it will have the same standard cost of a regular game where we live and with no monthly cost. This is the reason why games cost $60 in the USA cost €60 in Europe and a lot of people complain about this, it's not because of shipping costs like most have said, if that was truly the case then a digital version would not have the same 1-to-1 ratio conversion.

  Back on topic, when we pay for a game regardless of the genre or if its Console/PC game we are paying for entertainment and/or stress release. So the game's worth depends not only on how much fun it is to you obviously, but it also depends on why we play, how we play the game and how much time we spend doing it.

  One thing i like to do when I'm angry or frustrated is PvP, and I think the 5v5 PvP in Guild Wars 2 will be great for this. The lobby style quick-join is great when you don't have the patience to do anything else, and the lack of an annoying healer that "fully heals players when their are about to die" will do wonders for my sanity.
 
  So just turn off your brain, go completely Hulk and smash some skulls, preferably with some music. Its like that feeling you get when you are really fatigued and you hit the shower, but for the brain.
  Entertainment is the most common reason to play games, just like going to an art gallery, watching TV/movie, listening to music or reading a book is a form of personal entertainment as they provide a way for you to have fun, in fact games nowadays such as Guild Wars 2 are all that and more.


  In Guild Wars 2 we have amazingly beautiful scenarios which were literally hand painted, the sound is a masterpiece giving that additional boost we need to be fully immersed into the game, the music itself is nothing short of epic and it conveys the right feeling according to the zone you are in, the lore in the world of Tyria is vast, and the ability to create your own personal story through the choices you make will be even more exciting than reading a book.

   With every thing we talked so far, all that's left to talk about is the amount of time we spend playing and the amount of content the game offers. If we look at an average game which has the same cost at release as Guild Wars 2, more than likely it will have less than 8h of gameplay and an additional 50h assuming it even has multiplayer, which will more then likely be limited to small maps with a few players and will get boring soon enough.

  If all Guild Wars 2 needs to do is provide 60+ hours of entertainment to have a similar worth to other games, then that's a walk in the park for GW2, not only will it provide with at least several hundred hours of gameplay, it will do so with a massive community,  official PvP tournaments, an engaging story, difficult challenges and a world that will make you wish you could do like in TRON and digitalise yourself into it.

So how much would you pay for all this? is it worth the current price?

6 comments:

Thomas Duder, Author of the Things said...

Unless it comes with extra material (manual with great artwork, soundtrack, etc), a digital copy costing 60 bucks (american or euro) is pure and utter bullshit. There's NO overhead with a freakin' digital copy outside of whatever you use to handle the downloading process, and even if it sells only 100,000 copies there's still all the other ways Guild Wars makes money, y'know?

Ain't there people makin' tons of cash from the metagame aspects? I was just reading (a month or two ago) about how some major group got taken out by another thanks to the metagame, spy networks established and worked OUTSIDE of the game.

I reckon for a digital copy, 20-30 bucks, but for a hard copy yeah...40-50. Yes, ten to twenty bucks difference makes ALL the difference to me as a consumer.

Otherwise, great article m'man! 'S why I'm here readin' ya. :D

Vague Raconteur said...

I think for a digital copy it's ridiculous to charge more than £10 - you're losing nothing, if people are buying the rite to use a programme they don't physically have a product of, why should we pay any more?

Techlessmin said...

Excelente juego pero soy mas dedicado y me encantan los chooters MW3 y BF3 :) coollll gamesss saludos

Magnum said...

This difference is gigantic! Paying 60 USD is not the same as 60 EUR! Apparently, the price is going to differ even more when it comes to small currencies like the one in my country - in some cases, we get the same versions of games with a price tag equalling 50% of the Euro Zone price.

Siveon said...

It makes no sense to pay much less for a digital copy, you are paying for the years of works they put into the game not the CD and a plastic box with a manual that they get for a few cents.

frankcom said...

It is a little silly, if anything, I think there should not be a physical copy, just digital, and save resources, and money for the company!

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