Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Astropuyo

This is one of the reasons the game market is tanking, direct from publisher effects many jobs in retail.

Start thinking like adults and less like every company is out to kill/steal from you.

This is simply them abiding by the law and looking cool doing it.

What are you talking about?  Every retailer knows that publishers sell their games online in competition with them.  This has nothing to do with antitrust.  I've never heard of another MMO halting their own digital sales, not even the record selling SWTOR.

 

Regarding what others have said, I guess it's possible that they made a deal with retailers that they would garner a certain % of overall sales.  I doubt it, but it's possible.  If that's the case suspending only their own sales would help in that area.

 

It's telling that they didn't stop ALL digital sales of their product.  They only stopped their own sales.

Hold on, you've never heard of sales being halted?

Could you blast back to the last popular game such as this ? Wow?

Pre digital sales is when they released. That's the last release this big, so you have no trend for the current.

I have heard of plenty of distribution being halted to not undermine the value. I've never seen manufacturers sell direct. You need a business tax id in general for that.

You mention TOR: EA's practices won't let them halt any kind of production, ANET is ANET. TOR was Bioware/EA

Publishers = manufacturers.

The reason you are seeing a tanked game economy is DUE to these practices, there is a fine balance in the economy and newbies messing it up tends to do that. You see lotsa money if i sell direct.

I see detrimental crushing to the service industry.

[mod edit]

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

I will say I am amazed at how many people will just accept what a company says at face value.

Sorry, but not all of us run around with tin foil hats in our back pockets. 

 Difference between tin foil hats and rational thinking.

 

Physical copies are still for sale -> therefore stopping digital sales doesn't stop queues from increasing. -> their reasoning makes little sense.

 

How many products have you bought where the commercials say something like "Best coffee ever" or other similar things. Since it would apparently require a tin foil hat to think that maybe they are exagerating the claims that it is the best coffee ever.

I am not really sure if you are thinking rationally there.

Yes of course they will slow down the expansion of the game by not offering the game digitally from their own store.

That is the only reasonable thing they can do, right?

It would be horrible wrong if they stopped the possibilty to registrering a retail copy... imagine the situation when people come home from the store and tries to register their game key.

But now they do not stop physical copies, hinder the business of 3rd party retailers, hence you think their resoning doesn't make sence. That is not rational thinking.

Originally posted by MrReality
It is a pure marketing ploy. When I log into the Northern Shiverpeaks it is always at medium level. Do you think they are really selling out of a digital exe file ? LOL ok...

do think making support tickets wait 72 hours is a marketing ploy?

Originally posted by Badaboom

Originally posted by Rayshe
My opinion is that they need to slow the sales so that their support team can get big enough so people aren't waiting days to get a GM to help them. they are likely hireing new GM's ATM.

Your opinion is quite different from what Anet has said.  Your opinion reeks of alarmist rhetoric.

 

No it is not quite different. To get the support team to catch up might very well be one of the reasons for them to announce this.

And if so, making it possible for the support team to catch is a positive thing...

"o ensure the highest quality service we have temporarily limited the number of copies of Guild Wars 2.

As more capacity becomes available, we will make Guild Wars 2 available for sale again.

In the meantime, we encourage you to visit our retail partners , who may still have copies available."

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by MrReality
It is a pure marketing ploy. When I log into the Northern Shiverpeaks it is always at medium level. Do you think they are really selling out of a digital exe file ? LOL ok...

do think making support tickets wait 72 hours is a marketing ploy?

No that is just poor planning on their part. How could you not expcet atleast a million at launch and not have proper customer service coverage ? Sounds like Ncsoft wants to cut corners by not hiring extra people. Heck, atleast they could have hired people part time to help until the dust clears.

Originally posted by Astropuyo

Simple facts to consider.

 

Of course things are spun positively, on the flip side to that is when things go baddly if you accept the responsibility for it..the base will forgive you. (Bet you didn't see that did you guru's?)

GAMES: Games compete with manufacturers (publishers) this is a rarity in the world where buying direct from manufacturer is not generally allowed, only in software is this really able to be done.

 

This cuts into your retailers bottom lines, your retailers will give you the fist of god via a anti-trust (As you guys have bound together under an agreement). You undermine your "partners" and you'll get sued.

You may not lose the case but the case against you is usually enough for retailers to be wary and enough cases and bam you look like a terrible lot with great lawyers.

 

So while it's cute to hear artificial demand/supply the facts are you can still buy them from the retailer.

 

This is one of the reasons the game market is tanking, direct from publisher effects many jobs in retail.

Start thinking like adults and less like every company is out to kill/steal from you.

This is simply them abiding by the law and looking cool doing it.

 You should maybe look at where job growth is occuring in the U.S.  In most states it's retail, and then nursing.  My state alone is expected to have some ridiculous increase in the number of retail jobs needed within the next 10 years.  Stores are being built all over the damn place, it's insane considering we're supposed to be in a recession.

Obviously online sales is going to have some impact on box sales, but to think that any company is stopping their digital distribution for the sake of box sales is beyond idiotic.  It benefits Anet more to sell the digital copies then it does to supply retail stores with boxes.

And what law?  Where do you people get this stuff from.

It's real simple. 

When I log into a game, on a U.S. server, at 10 in the morning EST time and I'm getting dumped into an overflow map, there's to damn many people on. 

When I log in in the early afternoon, and I have to wait over an hour to get off the overflow map, and then more then hour after that just to do WvW pvp, the problem gets pretty obvious.

There's to damned many people in the game.

Believe it or not, and I know many people here refuse to believe anything but their own jaded opinions, GW2 is a pretty good MMO.  It caters to pretty much everyone, and there's no subscription fee. 

The servers are way overcrowded, new account registration can't keep pace, and customer service isn't able to keep up.  GW2 isn't another ToR, TSW, or TERA, it's pretty much another WoW like event and they don't have 100+ servers to for everyone.  Getting new servers up, hiring personel, expanding the current server limits, all these things take time; they don't happen over night. 

I wouldn't be suprised if they already limitted restock orders, but didn't say anything to anyone.  Going into a store and hearing we're sold out is pretty common and easy to understand.  Going to a website and trying to buy a digital copy of something, and instead getting a sorry we're sold out message is a little harder to swallow as a consumer. 

You have to announce halts to digital distribution, retail distribution doesn't require them to say anything.  Retailers are rarely ever informed when a product is being intentionally delayed, they usually only get a notice of backstock issues, but rarely an actual explenation for it.  They can't exactly stop letting people buy current stock, but they can tell retailers they're only allowed to restock to a specific amount. 

@Snarlingwolf

you re not alone pal, the corporate world is full of wolfs and snakes in sheepskin,anet is not any diferent. they just have a shiner and more inocent disguise. only a fool take a PR stuff seriously.  

Originally posted by Rayshe
My opinion is that they need to slow the sales so that their support team can get big enough so people aren't waiting days to get a GM to help them. they are likely hireing new GM's ATM.

Yes they are.  I know 28 new CSRs finished training and went live yesterday (they tell us these things) and more are being trained.   

Originally posted by TsaboHavoc

@Snarlingwolf

 

you re not alone pal, the corporate world is full of wolfs and snakes in sheepskin,anet is not any diferent. they just have a shiner and more inocent disguise. only a fool take a PR stuff seriously.  

No, but I will say this phony, 'sophisticated I see through this' position you and some of the other 'cool kids' take is pretty laughable.   Being skeptical is one thing...   But all things considered, you've taken it beyond the event horizon.

Originally posted by Uhwop

Originally posted by Astropuyo

Simple facts to consider.

 

Of course things are spun positively, on the flip side to that is when things go baddly if you accept the responsibility for it..the base will forgive you. (Bet you didn't see that did you guru's?)

GAMES: Games compete with manufacturers (publishers) this is a rarity in the world where buying direct from manufacturer is not generally allowed, only in software is this really able to be done.

 

This cuts into your retailers bottom lines, your retailers will give you the fist of god via a anti-trust (As you guys have bound together under an agreement). You undermine your "partners" and you'll get sued.

You may not lose the case but the case against you is usually enough for retailers to be wary and enough cases and bam you look like a terrible lot with great lawyers.

 

So while it's cute to hear artificial demand/supply the facts are you can still buy them from the retailer.

 

This is one of the reasons the game market is tanking, direct from publisher effects many jobs in retail.

Start thinking like adults and less like every company is out to kill/steal from you.

This is simply them abiding by the law and looking cool doing it.

 You should maybe look at where job growth is occuring in the U.S.  In most states it's retail, and then nursing.  My state alone is expected to have some ridiculous increase in the number of retail jobs needed within the next 10 years.  Stores are being built all over the damn place, it's insane considering we're supposed to be in a recession.

True> Jobs are at a low, retail is service. When someone works for a industry they are serving, too many think service means you serve fries. It means you provide no products for money, you provide your SERVICE.

You are thinking markets, retail,food,medical. These are a market.

This is a huge problem in journalism even they've misinformed a population on the difference between product based and service based because they hear SERVE.

Obviously online sales is going to have some impact on box sales, but to think that any company is stopping their digital distribution for the sake of box sales is beyond idiotic.  It benefits Anet more to sell the digital copies then it does to supply retail stores with boxes.

And what law?  Where do you people get this stuff from.

There are contracts drawn, i have one drawn with ---- right now that states they cannot undermine my pricepoints and me theirs. It's an agreement. Bound by law. The results of infringement are very clear.

Where do "we" people get it from, this is my industry. Software Sales, digital downloads, games. I have a retailers agreement with another unmentioned mentioned company that is pretty much the standard, hint: This topic.

 

It's real simple. 

When I log into a game, on a U.S. server, at 10 in the morning EST time and I'm getting dumped into an overflow map, there's to damn many people on. 

So true, imagine how many box sales for retailers that is?

When I log in in the early afternoon, and I have to wait over an hour to get off the overflow map, and then more then hour after that just to do WvW pvp, the problem gets pretty obvious.

Tell me about it

There's to damned many people in the game.

Yep, it's pretty popular, it's economy stimulating.

Believe it or not, and I know many people here refuse to believe anything but their own jaded opinions, GW2 is a pretty good MMO.  It caters to pretty much everyone, and there's no subscription fee. 

It's freaking awesome, and I have two active paid for subs, TOR and TSW.

The servers are way overcrowded, new account registration can't keep pace, and customer service isn't able to keep up.  GW2 isn't another ToR, TSW, or TERA, it's pretty much another WoW like event and they don't have 100+ servers to for everyone.  Getting new servers up, hiring personel, expanding the current server limits, all these things take time; they don't happen over night. 

It literally is wow as far as sales goes, you people clearly have no idea but the sales alone is enough to put one of your kids through college ...in a month....margins are crazy big.

I wouldn't be suprised if they already limitted restock orders, but didn't say anything to anyone.  Going into a store and hearing we're sold out is pretty common and easy to understand.  Going to a website and trying to buy a digital copy of something, and instead getting a sorry we're sold out message is a little harder to swallow as a consumer. 

They've issued no orders as of yet, and are still providing copies to retailers.

You have to announce halts to digital distribution, retail distribution doesn't require them to say anything.  Retailers are rarely ever informed when a product is being intentionally delayed, they usually only get a notice of backstock issues, but rarely an actual explenation for it.  They can't exactly stop letting people buy current stock, but they can tell retailers they're only allowed to restock to a specific amount. 

^this is un true, you don't have to announce anything, most of the time things go un noticed because they aren't polarized, for instance how many of you know of when the samsung483958392 tv is halted in production? They never say anything, it goes into "we do not support" mode. Quietly.

You need to recognize only in software can you go straight to the manufacturer. (Publisher).

I challenge you to do that with TV's , stereo's , or whatever without a tax ID and/or business ID.

 

For fun: Just imagine @65 dollars per box, 1 million sold (that's a min number I think?).

Don't scoff at the cuts a publisher takes from the economy when they break the mould.

Now take in taxes lost to the state (I pay so many taxes it's insane, I pay for 50% of my customers taxes even! ARRRG)

Take into account VAT,etc and you will see how much money direct from publisher takes from the economy. Business is a symbiotic relationship. That's consumerism, you have to have consumers and they must have places to consume from. Imagine if you bought all your meat from the farm. What would happen to super markets.

There is a very real battle being played out in the market over this and  Anet recognizes how much damage they are doing to their partners.

Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by TsaboHavoc

@Snarlingwolf

 

you re not alone pal, the corporate world is full of wolfs and snakes in sheepskin,anet is not any diferent. they just have a shiner and more inocent disguise. only a fool take a PR stuff seriously.  

 

No, but I will say this phony, 'sophisticated I see through this' position you and some of the other 'cool kids' take is pretty laughable.   Being skeptical is one thing...   But all things considered, you've taken it beyond the event horizon.

I always say "when you've worked a day in corp american, come talk to me".

Truth is: Corp America is too into their late's and promotions to give a crap about if they can wrong you. Hell you aren't even a blip on the radar, you are literally a number.

A figure, a figure no one can hate, dislike, love, or like. You are a number. You are most likely in the billions.

Would you like your name declared and people to get personal with you in this setting? Because they have access to all your data from crim history to credit history. All of it.

You want to be a number. You don't want to have your face behind that, you don't want personal.

Imagine every bad call with a customer service ending with you being arrested for FBI related things? Such as you know..fraud..

Just saying, don't look down on the system. It's designed for security, from the ground up to protect you.

Corp America thrives on vampirism, once you get the mind there you realize you can hate CHAD , it's hard to hate 5482812-248211A though.

I can't hate 5482812-248211A, they are just a number...but I HATE THE NAME CHAD. :D

Originally posted by Orphes

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

I will say I am amazed at how many people will just accept what a company says at face value.

Sorry, but not all of us run around with tin foil hats in our back pockets. 

 Difference between tin foil hats and rational thinking.

 

Physical copies are still for sale -> therefore stopping digital sales doesn't stop queues from increasing. -> their reasoning makes little sense.

 

How many products have you bought where the commercials say something like "Best coffee ever" or other similar things. Since it would apparently require a tin foil hat to think that maybe they are exagerating the claims that it is the best coffee ever.

I am not really sure if you are thinking rationally there.

Yes of course they will slow down the expansion of the game by not offering the game digitally from their own store.

That is the only reasonable thing they can do, right?

It would be horrible wrong if they stopped the possibilty to registrering a retail copy... imagine the situation when people come home from the store and tries to register their game key.

 

But now they do not stop physical copies, hinder the business of 3rd party retailers, hence you think their resoning doesn't make sence. That is not rational thinking.

 You can buy a digital download version from places that aren't ANet. That means there is an infinite supply available so anyone who would buy from ANet will just buy it digitally somewhere else. That means no influx is actually slowed down at all. Which means that can't be the actual reasoning.

Artificial demand + hype.

"Look at us, our game is such a fantastic, polished and well executed WOW-Clone that we had to stop selling DIGITAL versions of it! You can't buy it, but you want to!"

Originally posted by Zeymere

So why did they stop selling the digital copy?  For a game that is not subscription based this really concerns me.  It is very odd.  Please enlighten me.

They said it on twitter at some point. Don't have a link to that anymore. Too much people on servers. Game was huge success. They are having problems managing all that traffic.

Do you remember trade post issues and login server issues ? That was it. Right not both work like a charm so in some time we should expect to see digital version back in action.

I can't complain. Today I was resurected by some guy on very very remote location that I was just checking out to see what is out there :) You can't have enough people in MMO right ? But server can have too many of them. That's why sales stopped. Retail copy is still selling if it's not sold out. And they said that GW2 is on top in 10 european countries.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

 

 

My theory is it involved the deals with the brick and mortar stores. In order to make sure the stores can make some money they might have signed an agreement on how many digital copies they could sell compared to physical copies and are waiting for the physical copies to catch up.

this is what I was thinking. 

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Orphes

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

I will say I am amazed at how many people will just accept what a company says at face value.

Sorry, but not all of us run around with tin foil hats in our back pockets. 

 Difference between tin foil hats and rational thinking.

 

Physical copies are still for sale -> therefore stopping digital sales doesn't stop queues from increasing. -> their reasoning makes little sense.

 

How many products have you bought where the commercials say something like "Best coffee ever" or other similar things. Since it would apparently require a tin foil hat to think that maybe they are exagerating the claims that it is the best coffee ever.

I am not really sure if you are thinking rationally there.

Yes of course they will slow down the expansion of the game by not offering the game digitally from their own store.

That is the only reasonable thing they can do, right?

It would be horrible wrong if they stopped the possibilty to registrering a retail copy... imagine the situation when people come home from the store and tries to register their game key.

 

But now they do not stop physical copies, hinder the business of 3rd party retailers, hence you think their resoning doesn't make sence. That is not rational thinking.

 You can buy a digital download version from places that aren't ANet. That means there is an infinite supply available so anyone who would buy from ANet will just buy it digitally somewhere else. That means no influx is actually slowed down at all. Which means that can't be the actual reasoning.

They are supplied out.

IE they send 40,999 keys to gamestop, game stop can only sell so many of those keys right?

They upload the keys as products and create the end path (Download link) to a download licensed version of the client.

This is handled EXACLTY like real world goods, you need to understand that part because if that is the basis of your debate there is no basis.

People will always believe what they want and not the facts. It's some dark conspiricy made by a game maker to ....rule the world? Make 560,000 dollar more?

Come on folks, get with it. Unless you have seriously done business in this sector of business I think it comes down to ..common sense.

Common sense indicates the demand is there, no need to pump it.

Supply is there, on 3rd party sites/stores.

Supply is no longer on 1st party shelves.

Maybe because I live business it seems derp derp, I just can't seem to fathom how this can be seen anything as a "oh snap we've undermined the market to people WE HAVE SOLD KEYS to" that's what you folks aren't getting.

We generally buy these keys. At a good rate and then Anet pubs the game and undermines our sales. This causes a huge reaction, it's like selling us great dirt and then offering to customers directly.

Like I said there is a huge battle going on, you just don't see it because..well you aren't educated to. You don't have the experience to. That is ok. Nothing wrong with that. Just STOP trying to be experts on things you have no idea on. It's one thing to role play an expert it's another to create a constant chain of misinformation.

Edit: Did I mention we BUY these keys from Anet? I did mention that part right? With contracted terms?  If anyone else has a vested interest here for INFORMING the public it's me.

You guys cannot be made to believe these keys cost nothing and there are infinite amounts, because that is just wrong on so many levels, it's literally my duty to educate you that digital downloads cost equal to physical and it's the business owner giving you a BUY option , digital downloads do not need be provided and are in general more costly to you the consumer as you pay the bandwidth cost, it also costs us alot to host a 5 gig file.

Just saying there is cost to digital that goes beyond the box. We have to maintain your download for up to a term, (We do it for a year as we're really cool about that) and we lost that much in hosted data. Basically we lose money with digital but business is not about bilking for dollars, it's about providing service and products people want and accepting the cut on the bottom dollar.

I guess it has something to do with Physical copys having to sell.

They claim that the game got more attention than they expected but who in there right minds would believe that if you have 1mil purchases already i doubt that they anticipated anything less but a huge crowd.

Seeing how huge sells numbers are one of the best sells tools do i dare question why no such numbers were used yet if the game really did in fact exceed expectations in sells.

I also think that as long as you can register a new gaming account it is not really doing anything in regards to try and get the players to have an as stable experience as possible.

But maybe i am wrong completely and NCsoft really did just screw up and were not able to draw the right conclusions based on preorders/purchases

Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by TsaboHavoc

@Snarlingwolf

 

you re not alone pal, the corporate world is full of wolfs and snakes in sheepskin,anet is not any diferent. they just have a shiner and more inocent disguise. only a fool take a PR stuff seriously.  

 

No, but I will say this phony, 'sophisticated I see through this' position you and some of the other 'cool kids' take is pretty laughable.   Being skeptical is one thing...   But all things considered, you've taken it beyond the event horizon.

Agreed.  I'm all for people realizing that corporations, when treated as people, pretty much always act like sociopaths.  You honestly can't trust them when they are out of sight.  The bigger they are, the worse they are, typically.  One reason why we need government there representing the people.

That said, the overall situation with GW2 seems pretty straightforward.  They sold a lot more a lot faster than they expected and their hardware is stretched thin.  So they had to clamp down on sales while they caught up.  A lot of facts in and out of the game back it up.