Guild Wars 2 (PC)

  GuildWars money in Guild Wars 2 is very important. I recently spent some time on the phone with ArenaNet co-founder Jeff Strain and a number of the Guild Wars development crew. After talking to them, I have came to realize that they are crazy. Or they might be geniuses. Or maybe both. How else do you explain the decision by a developer to just abandon a successful MMO? Guild Wars launched in April 2005 amidst a flurry of critical praise and PVP fan huzzahs. The unusual MMO experience had no monthly fee to play. Players simply bought the game and could play as much as they wanted for as long as the wanted. The company would make GuildWars Gold with a series of stand-alone content additions that would be released every six months or so.

  This resulted in the highly successful Factions and Nightfall campaigns. Then ArenaNet dropped a bombshell. The next campaign in the series was being cancelled in favor of Eye of the North, the first true expansion pack. Even bigger news than that was that Eye of the North would be the last product for the original Guild Wars . Instead of new campaigns, there would instead be a full-blown sequel called Guild Wars 2. I wondered why, when most MMOS are designed to run for years and years (if not in perpetuity), ArenaNet would mess with something that was clearly working? This conversation would be my chance to find out.