Guild Wars 2 Pre-Launch Turnout Numbers Are Impressive
Guild Wars 2 has posted up 1 million copies sold in just a few days of release.
Though most MMOs are suffering from the growing pains of a market transitioning from subscription models to a free-to-play one riddled with microtransaction and vanity items, ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 is in the interesting position of never having to face such a dilemma. Instead, Guild Wars 2 relies on a pay-only-once model to sustain the game.
After building up plenty of hype due to the game's many innovations in the MMO realm, including its unique dynamic events and storylines, it's not much of a surprise that Guild Wars 2's done well at the numbers game. According to ArenaNet, the game sold over 1 million copies and sustained 400,000 concurrent players at its launch. No doubt early access to the game for pre-orders helped cushion the numbers quite a bit, but posting such numbers is still no small feat.
Guild Wars 2's success is refreshing, especially when other MMOs have had relatively little luck. Recently, BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic, despite having a strong start, has abandoned the subscription model for free-to-play (with level restrictions) after its numbers began dropping. Even Blizzard's ever popular World of Warcraft is losing traction, bleeding a million subscribers within a matter of months. One of the most recent story-based, recurring subscription MMOs, Funcom's The Secret World, is struggling to capture its market. Even vampires and zombies, usually winning formulas, aren't enough to attract players, apparently, as Funcom has revealed that The Secret World has sold only over 200,000 copies. The developer's lost something close to $35 million and has suffered a slew of layoffs.
Though Guild Wars 2 has had successes in the first few days, it'll be interesting to see the game's numbers in a few months. Will the new content that ArenaNet continues to push out be enough to capture current players' interest while drawing in new players?

All mmorps released this year and last year are trying to have things that World of Warcraft doesn't have. This is really nice for us, the customers, however an mmorpg isn't going to survive for long if it just have stuff that wow doesn't.
Uniqueness, gameplay, long term / end game gameplay are really important. I don't mean to say that GW2 doesn't have them, it is really a nice surprise to see such a nice mmorpg that makes you want to play and level up again (after hours and hours on many other mmorpgs the last 10 years for me), but i am curious if the pve endgame is there or not.
And as i am the first to post (strange!) i will also say, that buy once and play forever without subscription is really really nice but that means that microtransaction system will appear and will make us pay way more / month in a total of a year..
Since then I have noticed GW2 has a message on support saying PW resets are disabled. Memory also serves me correct the passwords could not contain any symbols only letters and numbers. There is no mobile or physical authentication offered.
I think GW2 is a great game but I also think they need to step up security and service. Two days of being unable to login because of security issues I had no control over.
Obviously I checked my computer out thoroughly for security threats. I would assume to change someones user name you need there PW, Account Security Questions.
Once the account named is changed the registered email address is sent a message saying it was changed to contact support with questions.
Something as simple as having the person verify the change thought email by following a link and inputting a code would have stop the issue.
I guess what I am getting at is simply this if GW2 cant secure there servers it will be short lived because people will not put up with mass hacking, gold bots, etc for very long.
This, SW:TOR had impressive numbers as well at launch and look at where it is now.
That and the fact that the second you hit level 2 you can go into sPvP and not have to worry about gear at all. If you like instanced and tourney style PvP you can level all classes to 2 and never have to worry one bit about a gear grind or some try-hard carrying big stupid purple sword of "I raided the same PvE instance 50 times so I earned to right to win" one shotting you in PvP.
The WvWvW brings me back to DAoC and while i haven't dipped much into that it seems like a blast so far.
I haven't looked too deeply into this, but Anet is aware of the security issues - that's why they disabled p/w resets and the mail system. Iirc, you can still get your account back through email authentication. Check this.
Thanks for giving me that link personally I dont use reddedit(what ever its called) so I had no idea they even knew about the issue to tell yea the truth. I just noticed them making odd changes.
The game is fun. It does not need a huge population of concurrent users for years to come to remain being fun. It just needs people who love the game. GW1 has lasted for 7 years. Even if the number of concurrent users dropped in a year, so what. As long as people are playing, guilds are active and it is fun, most users will be happy.
Then like they did with GW1, there will be expansions. That will increase their revenue and bring back some interested in new content and maybe even attract new players.
So again I ask, how do you measure the success of GW2 given its business model? Box Sales? Then yes, it has achieved its objective.
No prob - I don't use reddit either, but I follow GW2 on the Twitters, and they're posting links to info like that frequently. Something else that may be helpful to you.
Edit: More comprehensive security update notes, for those who need it.
How the hell do you figure that one. GW has always been about the end content which is why the first only had a level cap of 20. Expansions come regularly (if the model will be based like the original) and their expansions are like an entire new game worth of content not just a few more little things to tinker around with and do.