Here is something I don't understand by Guild Wars 2, it's free to play yet you have to buy the game to play it which is simple enough but box sales only pay for the servers for a short term. I have no idea if the game will have an cash shop of such but if the game is designed not to not have a cash shop like other free to plays then how will they pay for the servers for the long run say 6 months after release?

Cash shop and expansions.  Just like Guild Wars 1 but this time the cash shop is a bit bigger.  Still not Pay to Win, thankfully and just tons of xp boosts and cosmetic stuff, but a money maker none the less.  

Originally posted by elocke

Cash shop and expansions.  Just like Guild Wars 1 but this time the cash shop is a bit bigger.  Still not Pay to Win, thankfully and just tons of xp boosts and cosmetic stuff, but a money maker none the less.  

Ok, thanks for answering my question.

Yeah and it seems that nowadays servers just don't cost that much. Once the game is ready, the cost comes from adding content, and setting forth a new game or an expansion. So don't worry about the servers themselves. The question is really: will GW2 give Anet enough money for great expansions, or for GW3 in the long run... And with the estimated sales numbers, it should be all right.

Guild wars have been running for more than 7 years without a subscription. For the first few years they did not even have a cosmetic cash shop.

A-net have definately shown that their business model is viable. I guess you could say that a lot of subscription based games have a bigger problem explaining why they need a sub :-)

for context, GW1 ran for over a year with no game store and no paid content

GW1 launched in April 2005

the first paid content, Factions wasnt released until April 2006

GW1 store wasnt added until July 2006

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_In-Game_Store

ANET manages server costs pretty well

Server costs are dead cheap these days. I really don't see a problem. It's not like the initial box sale is everything they will get. They have a cash shop and they will sell plenty of expansions.

Here are some of the items in the cash shop:

Gems  (it takes gems to buy anything in the store, so you spend real $ on gems, and then spend the gems on the items)

Killsteak XP boost

XP boost

Vault access

Dye pack

extra character slot

These are all "convenience items" that don't break the game or make a player "win" by paying.  Also, you can actually buy gems with in game gold from other players.  It takes a LOT of gold to get a little bit of gems, but if you gold farm anyway for items, you can just gold farm for gems.  It's a great way to get gold in the game too.  Just buy some gems and then sell them on the player market for in game gold!

Originally posted by RudyRaccoon

Here is something I don't understand by Guild Wars 2, it's free to play yet you have to buy the game to play it which is simple enough but box sales only pay for the servers for a short term. I have no idea if the game will have an cash shop of such but if the game is designed not to not have a cash shop like other free to plays then how will they pay for the servers for the long run say 6 months after release?

It will have Cash Shop.

Quite a sizeable one as well.  Much bigger than GW1 one.

Originally posted by Blackbrrd

Server costs are dead cheap these days. I really don't see a problem. It's not like the initial box sale is everything they will get. They have a cash shop and they will sell plenty of expansions.

Yeah, I wonder why people still believe in the myth that Servers cost MMO companies a lot to run & maintain. Heck, they've probably already earned enough to maintain the servers for several years, from the pre-purchasers alone. Really the bulk of the cost comes from staffing the company and with ArenaNet's 250+ dev team, that's a lot of staff on their payroll.

Simply, they won't, it's all a scam and there is no content beyond lvl 35. The high level stuff they showed during presentations are just small areas with almost nothing in it.

Just kidding :) now seriously, like they already said, server cost isn't such a big problem, staff is. Anyways, i believe they will be working on new expansions every 6-12 months (which will cost money) and a lot of people will buy stuff from the cash shop (like me for example), those 2 things should be enough to keep gw2 profitable.

If it's not enough tho, then the game failed and you will probably see people getting fired from arenanet or they will be assigned to a new project and gw2 will have little new content after release.