Guild Wars series tops 5 million sales

By Robert Purchese Published 26 February, 2008

ArenaNet gets excited about sequel.

NCsoft is celebrating after sales of its Guild Wars series topped 5 million units worldwide.

The series is comprised of the original Guild Wars game, campaign add-ons Factions and Nightfall plus recent expansion Eye of the North.

Guild Wars launched in May 2005 in the face of competition from none other than World of Warcraft.

However, due to its subscription-free business model and less grind-heavy gameplay, it has picked up a considerable fanbase in the intervening years. A meaty chunk of that base are competitive guilds battling it out in server-wide PvP tournaments.

Developer ArenaNet is now over ten times the size it was when key ex-Blizzard staff formed it in 2000 and boasts more than 130 staff.

"Reaching the five million mark is extremely gratifying for us at ArenaNet because it shows the hard work and dedication we put into our games has resonated with the fans," said Mike O'Brien, one of the co-founders of ArenaNet.

"We are committed to supporting all of our Guild Wars players, and at the same time, we're extremely excited to work on the game's evolution. Certainly the future of Guild Wars is as bright as its past and present."

Guild Wars 2 was unveiled in April last year, and ArenaNet has said it is making it for fans as well as newcomers.

It will continue to be subscription-free but is said to have a much, much higher level cap than 20, along with multiple races to play and a more persistent world - so less instancing, although this will still feature considerably.

Pop over to our Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 gamepages to play catch up.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • syphaa #1 4 years ago

    /me is not excited.

  • TheDudesRug #2 4 years ago

    It's bobbins though isnt it? Anyway, grats to them, always nice to see some competition I guess.
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/08 @ 16:09

  • stepneg #3 4 years ago

    I loved Guild Wars, given that I have a life and couldn't commit 15 hours a day to grind away playing WoW it is the ideal alternative. I must admit it they never quite captured the magic of the original with the expansions and I have since drifted away to gaming on the 360 but would consider picking up 2 when it comes out. Even better would be to release GW2 on Live, sub free, given the alternatives are Final Fantasy which is dated and shit and PSU which is just shit, GW2 would clean up! Less of course MS buys blizzard and releases WoW !

  • BrokenSymmetry #4 4 years ago

    Guild Wars is still unique in that it is an MMO-like game where you can achieve something in 20-30 minutes, either alone or with other people. The core of the game are its 20 or so missions in each of its games/expansions, and each of these can be completed in 20-40 minutes. It's the MMO for the rest of us who don't have blocks of 2-4 hours to spend on raids...

  • riz23 #5 4 years ago

    I echo what BrokenSymmetry says. It's a CORPG that allows me to play other games as well. My life is not consumed with it as happens with most MMO's. This is not just down to design, it's also the revenue model. If you don't pay every month to play then there is no guilt felt if you give it a rest for a couple of months. Your house (Yes I know you don't actually have one but that is beside the point) doesn't decay and fall down either if you don't log on for three months. One thing I would be wary of is the system specs for GW2. Guild wars is an 'occaisonal' game and nowadays like many others I am an occaisonal PC Gamer. In fact other than GW and Civ I don't really play games on my PC any more. My system reflects this. GW2 better not end up needing a beast to play it. I suspect it won't.

  • ZuluHero #6 4 years ago

    on top of all what the last 2 posters have said given that it will run on a very mediocre PC these days its still a very pretty game, and all the expansions have strong storylines that carry you through them. I've been a die hard GWs fan from the very beginning, and even now I still find my self playing. I have 6 charas all at 20, but the game is never about levelling and grinding (as most will find they hit that cap very early on). Quests are all very well written and engaging and its easy to play through the game and get a slightly different slant or find information or quests that you missed the first time through that all help pad out the GWs world or the events taking place in them, and there's just something magic about the formula that makes GWs so good and makes it just work.

    To put things all in perspective, i played wow for nearly 3 years and dipped in and out of it a lot in that time. Aside from the wasted subs where i didn't play for any considerable length, after my first character hit 70 it was mostly very dull and the thought of leveling another chara to 70 always filled me with dread. I will probably go back to wow for WOTLK (and then stop playing after i hit the cap and run all the PUG instances a few times ;) but until then wow is dead to me, but GW's - i'm still playing and loving it everytime i log in! And like others have said, there's no bitter taste in my mouth (or my wallet) when I've stopped playing it for whatever reason, so theres no hidden resentment there.

    I personally cant wait for GW2 - its gonna look great and as they are making it for the fans (read:me ;) its just gonna be brilliant. Now i must get back to GWEN so when GW2 hits ill have something to show for it! :)

    Edited by 2 at 26/02/08 @ 21:54

  • Melan #7 4 years ago

    thumbs up for "no sub".

    i cant believe that Hellgate did not take the GW-road. Strange.

  • Jigglybean #8 4 years ago

    Sold 5 million units? But isnt the PC market dead? Kick in the balls for those who said it is.

  • Orange #9 4 years ago

    Guild Wars pvp is excellent.

    The pve is a bit meh though. It's accessible and the levelling is nicely paced, but a bit too samey.