I keep hearing about this "special relationship" between ArenaNet & NC$oft ... but let's take a look at some facts ...
Fact: NC$oft laid off quite a few ANet employees. Why didn't this "special relationship" do anything to salvage developer jobs?
Fact: Money paid into GW2 does not go back into GW2, and heck, doesn't even go directly to ArenaNet ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3F_ZcvR-pg ).
So ... only after NC$oft has lined their pockets for the quarter do they get to decide it's okay for ANet to work on content?
I'm sorry, but until I actually see proof of this "special relationship," I consider it nothing more than baseless conjecture.
Ah Jeez the Dontain video cropped up here now.
He's drawing conclusions from a news article about the 1Q earnings where the NCSOFT mouth piece again says an expansion is due for GW2. He quotes this
article. Problem is that article doesn't say anything he attributed to it.
He is reading into that so badly it's sad. On top of that it ignores that ANet the next day again
dismissed the notion that they will be doing an expansion anytime in the foreseeable future. But lets go back to his assertion that NCSOFT said they and not ArenaNet decided to fund an expansion. Where does it say that in either the Polygon article or any article reporting on the conference call? Nowhere. And it's that assertion the NCSOFT is funding it which leads to his declaration that the Cash shop money doesn't flow back to ArenaNet.
At one level he is sort of, if you squint, right. ArenaNet is owned 100%, via a holding company, by NCSOFT. All sales of GW2 go into NCSOFT's pockets. Or you could say any profits ArenaNet has after deducting operating costs, overhead, R&D, etc. goes right back to NCSOFT. You could say that from a corporate PoV, NCSOFT calls the shots whether an expansion or new game is developed by one of their studios. But we, at least those that realize what 100% wholly owned subsidiary means and have looked at all of the published investor info for the last 7 years, knew that.
NCSOFT isn't just a publisher who gets a cut. They are the boss. Now how much they dictate day to day affairs if ArenaNet is in question since ArenaNet seems to have no problem publicly saying NCSOFT is wrong every time corporate says they are working on an expansion. You have to remember NCSOFT's rep during the phone call is answering questions from large investors and stock analysts and the "income just from cash shop" is completely new to a major NCSOFT MMO. These folk can't believe an MMO can survive just on that so they keep pestering about "when is the expansion coming out?" So NCSOFT tries it's best to keep these folks happy by saying that an expansion is coming eventually. So the press skimming the transcript or the CC itself reports expansion in the works and we end up with videos on YouTube spouting how ArenaNet isn't in control of it's own destiny.
And before someone perks up about it, yes GW had a cash shop but the bulk of the sales it had came from box sales from the 3 expanshalone games (they were like CoV) and the one true expansion (plus all the combo box sets and the like). The GW cash shop had mainly account based items like renames, character slots, feature unlocks and makeover kits but they did have a few costumes. The cash shop in GW2 is more like what you would find on other cash shop MMOs. Besides what was found in GW's cash shop, GW2 has various boosters, grab bags, costume pieces as well as sets, but nothing that could be construed as B2W.
Dontain then goes off about the lack of a true expansion and what ANet is doing, which is dribbling a story out like how we had the Signature Story chapters. He misses the "expansalones" that GW had. A new level 1-20 content every year or so. GW2 isn't even out a year yet, it has level 1-80 content across 5 races (well 1-60/70 content for each race with an end game area for all races to 80).
Then he goes off about their grab bags with a slight chance for a rare armor or weapon skins. Sounds familiar (cough, booster packs, cough)? He even mentions the currency exchange which lets you buy the proxy currency used in the cash store with in game gold. It was set up with a floating exchange rate. The more gems the player base buys with gold, the higher the rate goes. It's okay because a high rate should attract player who buy gems with cash to then convert them into gold, a legal RMT system, which would lower the exchange rate.
Actually he checks off just about every major complaint that has a vocal minority on the forums. Content too easy, RNG driven rewards, currency exchange and whatever else he is going to rant about for the remaining 14 minutes I'm not willing to listen to (I'm going to guess time gated rewards, too may currencies, performance issues, problems with crafting for profit, strict enforcement of conduct, end game conduct, no LFG feature, no MMO triad).
He's someone with his little video soap box on the corner and is going to give his perspective on the state of that game and since he's unhappy about it, because ANet tried to make a friendly MMO, he's going to have very little positive things to say.
