Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Astropuyo

When has a company ever denied money for "technical" reasons. Come on now. They admit they undermined their distro pattern they get sued, you have to make it spin positive like you care.

In reality 50 lawyers are barking constantly because of the huge investments being made into these keys and license rights.

Blizzard admits to 'grossly underestimating demand' for World of Warcraft in 2004

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/blizzard-admits-to-grossly-underestimating-demand-for-world-of/2

Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce was quite up-front with the studio's stumbles in 2004 as WoW launched to unprecedented demand; he's admitted that Blizzard execs "grossly underestimated" how many people wanted to play the game, forcing the company to cease shipping boxes to stores while tech was improved to deal with the influx.

"I don't think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into," Pearce said at the recent DICE executive summit. The studio quickly ramped up from its 500-employee taskforce to 4,700 people in 11 cities across the world.

 Also, in response to Astro's legal theory about sales being stopped...

If this were true, then ANet would simply say that they will not be selling GW2 directly anymore, but it is available at your friendly neighborhood game store or website.

Saying that they "sold out" when the real issue is a legal dispute is absolutely stupid because people are going to expect them to start selling again.  If they never sell a single copy of their game directly again, then everyone is going to realize that it was BS...it's not like they could hide that forever.

No...ANet "sold out" because their servers got slammed.  You can spin that positively by saying that they sold more than expected, or negatively by saying that they failed to forecast demand.  The reality is somewhere in the middle there.

Mult quote is on the fritz...

The manufacturer had to stop kid. That being the publisher. They undermined the market at launch.

Anet will say absolutely nothing of the sort, that's incrimination, they have lawyers, people wait on that.

You've clearly never been hinted at a class action law suit being slammed up your ass during an afternoon lunch break.

That tends to stir motivation (not saying that is what happened but you get the idea). Look you cannot sell people

PIZZA, then say yeah here sell PIZZA here.

Then go and sell PIZZA right next to them , you being the manufacturer of PIZZA.

You cannot give people dirt and sell dirt direct to their customers.

Does anyone know what anti trust is? I mean NOT role playing like you are a big bad businessman , does anyone know what Anti Trust is?

Does anyone know all those stipulations within a anti-trust case?

How many folks here have reseller agreements tied up?

These are the things I wonder when i read some of the responses I've gotten. I swear you kids are more abusive towards information than 4chan and they have an excuse.

Edit: As for servers, I don't know they claim they have multiple overflow channels and plenty of servers as is. It's pretty hard from a player point of view to see how they could buckle, perhaps the login. I just don't see such a low bandwidth game being a cause for slowing sales at any time, even if I had no interest in it, Anet is all huggy washy about their player base.

That's just good pr. It seems to me a compound of multiple issues, from a technical grid to a law grid. This is why you have publishers folks. This tends to not happen when you pay professionals. A bunch of techs, artists and a few business dev guys a company does not make. (We're talking the leads here, not the grunts).

You need to be very structured if you are the role play the manufacturer role. It's super simple. They lacked experience of a personal launch and had had NCsoft for their last one, you know the company with a army of lawyers?

You guys realize this is Anets first time in the waters alone right? This was bound to happen. One can say all they want but at the end of the day I am now making sales and I can concur the data time to start about a hour after Anet shut down sales, I had not moved a single GW2 product prior.

Originally posted by Aelious
Since we're throwing out theories, here's mine:

They are getting their ducks in a row for a big marketing campaign, sometime after *ahem* the 25th of this month.

You know if they opened the gates to the Crystal Desert and start heading for Kralkatorrik and Palawa Joko that would be a big kick in their pants.

Have fun:

The Salary/Business Card sucks guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk

Man.. 5 of you need to chill out and find a better job if you are willing to rage pm people about joking about hourly, I'm sure you are an industrious people. Christ on a cracker lol.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

You'll hear many theories on this.

One theory is there was more demand than they anticipated and needed time to catch up. I'm not a believer of that.

One theory is they're trying to artificially created demand. Not a believer in that either as it is more beneficial to sell more now and release a big sale number to the world to increase demand.

 

 

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.

I also believe this probably had to do with a service agreement probably with either walmart/gamestop/bestbuy or all three.

Originally posted by Astropuyo

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Astropuyo

When has a company ever denied money for "technical" reasons. Come on now. They admit they undermined their distro pattern they get sued, you have to make it spin positive like you care.

In reality 50 lawyers are barking constantly because of the huge investments being made into these keys and license rights.

Blizzard admits to 'grossly underestimating demand' for World of Warcraft in 2004

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/blizzard-admits-to-grossly-underestimating-demand-for-world-of/2

Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce was quite up-front with the studio's stumbles in 2004 as WoW launched to unprecedented demand; he's admitted that Blizzard execs "grossly underestimated" how many people wanted to play the game, forcing the company to cease shipping boxes to stores while tech was improved to deal with the influx.

"I don't think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into," Pearce said at the recent DICE executive summit. The studio quickly ramped up from its 500-employee taskforce to 4,700 people in 11 cities across the world.

 Also, in response to Astro's legal theory about sales being stopped...

If this were true, then ANet would simply say that they will not be selling GW2 directly anymore, but it is available at your friendly neighborhood game store or website.

Saying that they "sold out" when the real issue is a legal dispute is absolutely stupid because people are going to expect them to start selling again.  If they never sell a single copy of their game directly again, then everyone is going to realize that it was BS...it's not like they could hide that forever.

No...ANet "sold out" because their servers got slammed.  You can spin that positively by saying that they sold more than expected, or negatively by saying that they failed to forecast demand.  The reality is somewhere in the middle there.

You people are dim, Oddly enough after today, over 4 colleagues have sold out.

 

Theory? There is no magical theory. It is fact.

 

This is where some of you are really stupid, like class A-stupid.

 

You need to look up self incrimination.

Now you need to recognize they sold us keys for a rate.

 

They then sold keys at a churn out rate, by passing their resellers/(retailers).

In turn they sold us, those of us who sell digital downloads/retail boxes.

 

We I say "we" bought a ton of keys and they could not be moved because anet has been selling them direct using sites like mmorpg as the "Buy now".

It's like debating with tables with some of you folks, there is no theory. It's fact. You clearly have no concept of how key purchasing (rights) works, if you did you'd see this as a very simple issue.

 

They messed up distro, they pre-sold keys and advertised a BUY NOW option that went direct to manufacturer.  (Publisher)

Which on average is fine for a normal mmo, however the sold based on hype release to people.

They then have effectively used this hype to? Sell for themselves and leave those who purchased keys with a very large bill.

 

It's sad I'm explaining such a basic principle to some of you, most of you got it. Cheers on that, but you table heads need to calm down. Stop acting like you have a vested interest in this, it's kinda sad.

I'm sitting on active inventory that for the first time since launch is moving. It was not moving before A-net shut down their direct sales. We also had been looking in civil action.

One again my "Exp" trumps your "Assumption".

Soooo you're really good at calling me stupid and in general just sounding like Gordon Gekko.  I will give you that.

Other than that though here is what is going on...

you are claiming that ANet is lying, you offer no proof other than claiming that you have inside information.  If you really have proof, like a trustworthy document, then show us.  If you're not willing to, then I'm not going to believe you over ANet.

Also, I would like to know if you will publicly admit that you're wrong if ANet resumes selling directly.  You've been pretty rude and demeaning to a lo of people here and I think you owe it to them.

You're overthinking it. Dev standpoint: "We hitting large overflows and lag. We want to keep our players we have now and not lose them to a silly problem. Let's halt digital sales until we can upgrade our servers." 

Anet's concern is players first, stockholders second. They mean it.

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.

maybe cause the digital sell you cant control as the physical and there might be so many players/customers were you will be unable to offer them the proper service (aka server lag/account issues/etc) so they prefer to hault sales and avoid a greedy policy, in micro they loose money but at least they save their asses in macro ... they just try to avoid even more fails in release ... simple

Y'all are missing what is probably the KEY reason. 

The game has had a lot more problems after launch than they originally anticipated and their support staff has been doing a HORRIBLE job of keeping up with things.  Some people are not getting tickets resolved for days!  That's horrible, no matter how you cut it.    

Mind you, I have not had a single issue that required a ticket since I started playing at 9:00 p.m. on Friday of headstart.   But I also am not  so much of a rabid fan that I can't see how many other people are having major problems and waiting a very long time for resolution.

That little tidbit is delicately nestled in the statement they released in way that doesn't draw much attention.  They said that they need to increase their support staff.   And I would bet that it is the #1 reason they halted sales.   It takes time to staff up for support.  (Alternatively, they might not be increasing staff too much, and just trying to work out the issues).

At launch, problems with support like they have been having can snowball and drive the game's chance of long term success right down the drain.  We have seen it before with other MMOs.   I think Arena Net is smart enough to realize this and they are trying to limit the impact of their current support limitations by reducing sales in the short term, giving them time to either work out the biggest bugs and/or increase their support staff.

Seems like a smart move to me.

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.

My closest guess for doing so with any game would be, game is not selling at all as aspected in real shops. They wan't to sell all hard copies. First, problem can be for company having full shells. Problem is for company if all shells are full of their product which is obviously not selling as aspected.

I have read the different theories and claims from people who are in the retail space, and here is what I have come up with:

If Arenanet were having an issue with server load and capacity, stopping digital sales of Guild Wars 2 directly on their website would not resolve this.  Why?  Because of all of the third party digital key distributors and brick & mortar stores with physical copies of the game.

If it were a matter of not being able to handle the load of players coming into the game, they would halt sign-ups and key entries, not just the digital distribution on Arenanet

Originally posted by maxsteele

If it were a matter of not being able to handle the load of players coming into the game, they would halt sign-ups and key entries, not just the digital distribution on Arenanet

Stopping the digital distribution on Arenanet doesn't stop people pouring in from boxed and digital copies sold from other locations.

 

 

Now, I still have the chance to play Guild Wars 2.  I could just walk into Fred Meyer, Best Buy, Gamestop, or any other retailer that is carrying this game and buy a boxed copy.  It doesn't cost me any more than getting a digital key (except for gas and time perhaps).  If I happen to be going grocery shopping, I can just stop into the electronics area and pick up a copy at Fred Meyer.

 

I think I may do exactly this today.  Now, you may ask me:  "Max Steele, why wouldn't you just buy a digital key from a supplier that has them in stock right now?"  That would be because I am not going to trust a site like "bestdigitalkeys.com" or "digitalkeys4u.net" .  I am only going to trust the digital distribution sites that Arenanet lists on their store.  Those are Amazon, Gamefly, Gametap/Impulse, and Gamestop.  All of those digital distributors are sold out of keys.

 

I gotta go grocery shopping at some point today.  If I see a boxed copy of the regular edition, I think I'll pick it up.

as of today,

I dont know of any sites selling digital keys, most or all retailers that had them this past week are now sold out

for USA, you are correct -- you can still find box copies of the NA region game at several places

for Euro, the box copies seem sold out

i have a guildmate that cannot find the Euro region of the game anywhere

for retailers that have sold out of the box copy, USA and Euro

i dont see ANET resupplying them -- I assume ANET has stopped shipping new copies for now

Originally posted by olepi
I have a question, if I buy a digital copy, can I run it on multiple machines? (I have a laptop, a desktop, etc )

yes - its same as any mmo, your key gives you access to your own game acct

you can install the game on unlimited number of computers

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by maxsteele

If it were a matter of not being able to handle the load of players coming into the game, they would halt sign-ups and key entries, not just the digital distribution on Arenanet

Stopping the digital distribution on Arenanet doesn't stop people pouring in from boxed and digital copies sold from other locations.

 

 

Now, I still have the chance to play Guild Wars 2.  I could just walk into Fred Meyer, Best Buy, Gamestop, or any other retailer that is carrying this game and buy a boxed copy.  It doesn't cost me any more than getting a digital key (except for gas and time perhaps).  If I happen to be going grocery shopping, I can just stop into the electronics area and pick up a copy at Fred Meyer.

 

I think I may do exactly this today.  Now, you may ask me:  "Max Steele, why wouldn't you just buy a digital key from a supplier that has them in stock right now?"  That would be because I am not going to trust a site like "bestdigitalkeys.com" or "digitalkeys4u.net" .  I am only going to trust the digital distribution sites that Arenanet lists on their store.  Those are Amazon, Gamefly, Gametap/Impulse, and Gamestop.  All of those digital distributors are sold out of keys.

 

I gotta go grocery shopping at some point today.  If I see a boxed copy of the regular edition, I think I'll pick it up.

as of today,

I dont know of any sites selling digital keys, most or all retailers that had them this past week are now sold out

 

for USA, you are correct -- you can still find box copies of the NA region game at several places

 

for Euro, the box copies seem sold out

i have a guildmate that cannot find the Euro region of the game anywhere

 

for retailers that have sold out of the box copy, USA and Euro

i dont see ANET resupplying them -- I assume ANET has stopped shipping new copies for now

Word of advice, try not to assume something so far fetching as them stopping shipments. Best Buy, GameStop and Amazon all still have copies available for shipping (hard copies). And before they'd stop shipping anything they'd have to for fill their contractual obligation to all their retailers. Then they'd make an announcement that only digital versions are available. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by olepi
I have a question, if I buy a digital copy, can I run it on multiple machines? (I have a laptop, a desktop, etc )

yes - its same as any mmo, your key gives you access to your own game acct

you can install the game on unlimited number of computers

Great! Thanks!

Think it will show up on Steam?

Originally posted by Ramonski7

Word of advice, try not to assume something so far fetching as them stopping shipments. Best Buy, GameStop and Amazon all still have copies available for shipping (hard copies). And before they'd stop shipping anything they'd have to for fill their contractual obligation to all their retailers. Then they'd make an announcement that only digital versions are available. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

i used the word assume because i know of its implications

none of the places you mention have sold out on their web site

other places, like WalMart Online have sold out - and do not have restock

Originally posted by olepi

Think it will show up on Steam?

doubtful - ANET stated earlier this year GW2 will not be available on Steam