Guild Wars sells 2 million

ArenaNet's online RPG hits sales milestone; Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions sell more than 2 million units combined.

Another impressive sales figure was reached in the online role-playing game market today, courtesy of NCsoft and ArenaNet. This time it was the Guild Wars franchise ringing the bell, with its publisher and developer announcing that it had reached 2 million units sold. The series tallied its first million sold in September 2005.

So far, two Guild Wars games have been released for the PC. The original Guild Wars was released in late April of 2005, and Guild Wars Factions, a stand-alone follow-up, was released almost a year later. Both games have sat atop the best-selling PC game charts, with Factions in the number one slot for the month of May 2006.

"ArenaNet continues to take chances in both game design and business model, and it's great to have the fans respond so enthusiastically right out of the gate with Guild Wars Factions," said Patrick Wyatt, cofounder of ArenaNet.

The "chances" Wyatt described include the decision to forgo a monthly subscription fee--something other online games rely on--and instead opt to sell full-priced stand-alone expansions a few times a year.

ArenaNet's other cofounder, Jeff Strain, previously announced that new "episodes" of Guild Wars would come semiannually, and he implied that a third Guild Wars game could come before the end of 2006. Fans of the series have even discovered that the company has registered the domain name www.guildwarsnightfall.com, which they believe will be the name of the game.

Both Guild Wars and Guild Wars Factions are rated T for Teen and retail for $49.99.

86 Comments

  • MyKillz

    Posted Aug 18, 2008 5:05 am GMT

    I bought all games cant wait till guildwars 2 comes out.
    its the MMORPG i ever played

  • jakeboudville

    Posted Aug 21, 2006 6:38 pm GMT

    I'm one of the two million users they sold too

  • gohan69er

    Posted Jul 27, 2006 2:53 am GMT

    Well done areanet and NCsoft, on creating 2 amazing games,and earning the sales it deserves. after playing WOw for 7 months, i decided to give up playing as i refused to pay money to play it anymore, I felt a void when playing games on my pc after tha, and tried many demo's and read many reviews and watched hundreds of videos to see if there was a game to fill the "WOW" shaped void.

    Then one day i was at a friend of the familys house, and as i walked through the front door, i heard, sounds that seemed to be familer, the sounds of spells being cast, signets being used, but with this great soundtack in the back. As i walked into the room i instantly thought "WOW" no pun intended . The same familer gameplay but with a much better organised ,less tacky and clutterd screen, and with superb graphics, And as soon as i heard, there was no monthly fee's i ran to my local "Game" store and purchased a copy of "Guild Wars - Factions" and am now happy to say ive been playing for about 2 and a half months, and am still going strong with both of my characters, i havent once considerd going back to "WOW" even after getting a new job and earning double the money, i found myself asking i can now afford to play "WOW" should aye? and the answer came back dont be so silly . guild wars is an incredible game, with many brilliantly thought out idea's, and stunning scenery with the most epic soundtracks ive heard in any game, FULLSTOP.

    I had played WOW for around about 7 months , and tbh i feel like i have wasted £107 pounds, excluding the game price Now im not saying WoW is a bad game, far from it, but the whole 7 months i played i felt no real reward except ,maybe playing for a few extra hours a day to get my moneys worth..i feel tht it isent the game u get addicted to its the fact if u dont level up ur "Tauren warrior" in this month, ur gonna have to pay more money to do so, making u sit in front of ur pc ,in all ur free time. Also one of the major factors in Wow being succseful is as most ppl have all ready said "WARCRAFT" and "BLIZZARD" are well known franchise and company,but i also would like to comment on ppl's views on the seamless enternity as ppl describes WOW's world to be, I personaly felt as soon as i was dropped in the WOW world tht i was helpless, this big map with loads of ppl talking, about rare items and using outlandish names etc. It felt like there was no goal, and the "seamless" world just made this worse there seems to be no rest ,this can be very frustarting.

    Now as i said bfr WOW is not a bad game, for ppl willing to spend so much time playing, and the money, but here is the bottom line of ur going to buy "WOW" be ready annoying ratty looking player's wanting to fight with u all the time, people begging for money, and annoying part time guilds who pay £52.50 for 1000gold and now have good items, wepons and armours. I think the biggest let down with "WOW" is obviously not the gameplay, but the community, there attidude stinks for the most part.

  • chadw_genx

    Posted Jul 3, 2006 11:58 am GMT

    Congrats! GuildWars has awesome PvP and no monthly fee's. I have owned this game from day 1 and convinced a lot of friends and family to buy it. However, I don't play it much anymore. As much as I like GW, I don't like the invisible walls, which happen to be EVERYWHERE it seems. Also, the community of players tend to be very immature for the most part. I'm partial to EQ II though, which is very expensive to play - but worth it, if you're a hardcore rp'er. Cheers.

  • v_p

    Posted Jul 3, 2006 1:12 am GMT

    im not surprised guild wars + factions has sold 2 million, i started playing about a month later and spent over 200+ hours on this game, the community is very great. Great first game for a new company.

  • DEMOGAMER

    Posted Jun 24, 2006 11:07 pm GMT

    I love both Factions and Prophecies. I tried WoW at a friends house, and while its a neat game, I certainly wouldnt pay 16$ (or whatever the amount) to have a hobgoblin run around a dessert for a couple of hours to get that rough piece of linen that will later be used for a rought piece of dynamite. That said, I think both games are extremely good at accomplishing the goals they set out to do, and I definetly think that this isn't the place to argue whether you like WoW or GW more.

    On that note, congratulations to ArenaNet and NCsoft, can't wait for the next installment.

  • comboz

    Posted Jun 22, 2006 7:37 am GMT

    so they are guaranteed to have another chapter then!? GW has classic gameplay. In a way, I don't even think GW is in the same category as WoW. GW can be great single player game and WoW is a huge explorable world where in-game community is important.

    I wonder what they are planning for the next chapter. Factions was a nice little game but not as long or epic as the 1st. Hopefully, the next Chapter will have better pacing than Factions did.

  • Ambassador_Kwan

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 10:50 pm GMT

    I'm two of those 2 million...origonal and factions. I've been playing it for about a week since it came out, and I still love it. And there are people like me who still play the game too. A lot of people hate wow, and a lot of people hate GW...it's up to the person to decide, and not all the raving fanboys. If you look at the score both the games have gotten, it is apparent that someone with an objective opinion seems to find good things in both of these games. You are all entitled to your own OPINIONS, but do not try to pass them off as facts. I'm glad Anet is getting some recognition for their great game, and I'm proud to have been with this game for over a year, can't wait till I get my extra character slots, and chapter three.

  • i_love_my_ds

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 4:13 pm GMT

    i dont like mmo's......... too addictive and time-consuming

  • ranglah33

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 4:00 pm GMT

    "For a newly formed company to come out with their first game and having it be as good and as succesful as GW is just not rare, it just might be a first."

    I certainly wouldn't call it a first.

    One that comes to the top of my head that did it before ArenaNet is a lil company called VALVE.

  • ranglah33

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 4:00 pm GMT

    "For a newly formed company to come out with their first game and having it be as good and as succesful as GW is just not rare, it just might be a first."

    I certainly wouldn't call it a first.

    One that comes to the top of my head that did it before ArenaNet is a lil company called VALVE.

  • ranglah33

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 3:51 pm GMT

    The problem with these figures is that they include the original and Factions. It's likely that at least 20%+ (very rough estimate) of those that enjoyed the first bought the second. So a large number of those players are the same person.

  • lundis123

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 8:55 am GMT

    i have played gw for 4 months without a break and it's the best game u have eveer played. actually it is even funnier than it was when i started!
    if you say that it sucks then it's not gw that sucks... it's you....

  • d429

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 8:08 am GMT

    Thats great i want this game but my pc cant take it right now. Ive played it at a friends house and it is great.

  • Merl57

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 7:55 am GMT

    Yeah go my favorite game ever go!

  • d1ab10cm

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 5:56 am GMT

    The only reason that WoW has more sales is due to the fact that Blizzard is a very famous company in many parts of the world, especially with the Warcraft franchise, with such a large database, World Of Warcraft's high sales in inevitable.

    Although you have to admit Guild Wars, especially since it's the company's (ArenaNet's) first attempt at a game, you have to at least give them credit for that. They have very innovative ideas that many people can really benefit from, like most people though, the idea of just buying the game then playing it for as long as you want is definitely worth the money!

  • SnuffDaddyNZ

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 3:23 am GMT

    I bought Guild Wars last year so I am one of the 2 million sales, but that doesn't actually mean I PLAY the game.

    I think one of the problems with Guild Wars when one is starting out for the first time is that you have no idea of the value of the items you are looting. I think that the character can carry about 16 items, and of course items can stack. But when that bag is full, as a player starting out, it's not exactly clear what to throw out if you are considering trading with other players.

    Besides not being able to making my character jump, and scenery navigation being quite annoying (perhaps as a consequence of said fact) the one thing that ultimately has killed off my interest in Guild Wars each and every time I have tried to give the game another chance - is the lag.

    This isn't a fault of the game, it's just I'm most likely too far away from the servers. What's odd though is I can play with a 350-700 ping in World Of Warcraft quite easily.

    Then things get a little odder when I can play City Of Heroes, another NC Soft game, without any of the warping/lag issues I get with Guild Wars.

    If these few things were fixed I'd probably be playing Guild Wars right now.

  • thedarkoracle

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 10:04 pm GMT

    Rurik for Prez!

  • OmegaBob

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 6:44 pm GMT

    I own WoW and both GWs (and I like them all) and I say again, GW is NOT a MMO. It has some (note I said "some") of the features of standard MMOs, but since its almost entirely instanced, since you can only interact with folks (other than those in your party and/or in chat) inside of towns, its not v. massively multiplayer.

    Like I said, its like a modified version of Diablo 2 - modified chat rooms (towns) with an instanced world outside.

  • Jedi_Osborn

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 6:40 pm GMT

    I'm one of 2 million.
    Its a cool game. there's some issues, like the level 20 cap that you get to relatively quickly.
    but minor details aside, great graphics, fun online play, henchmen to round out parties and NO FEES.

  • rynmls

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 6:26 pm GMT

    i wanna have this, i guess i need a pc first...

  • spudsofpoo

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 5:40 pm GMT

    I started out playing Guild Wars and immeadiately got bored of it after hitting 20. The only positivce to it was paying 0$ a month. I tried WoW and now , since I couldn't return it to EB, GW lies in splinters against the facing of a nearby brick building.

  • Ekustix

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 5:12 pm GMT

    Hands down best PvP. Go Arenanet!!!

  • mattxavier

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 5:06 pm GMT

    Who cares?

  • Trindris

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:59 pm GMT

    I played SWG for 2 years and loved it, then it went to hell. I tryed to fill the hole in my heart by playing WoW, and I absolutely hated it. It wasn't the least bit fun for me, but I still gave it a chance due to my lack of things to do. I played WoW on and off for probubly a little more than a year. Then last week my WoW subscription ran out and I decided I was going to quit so I picked up Guild Wars Faction. I love it, I finally have something to replace SWG. Great job Arenanet and ncsoft!

    P.S. Shut up -Unreal-

  • Jinxed_Gohan

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:51 pm GMT

    @-unreal-
    "Guild Wars isn't an MMO"

    good then...why dont u send an e-mail to all the known sites in the world, to arena net and NCsoft....who owns many more MMOs ... and just tell em not too call gw a MMO anyomore, Just because your big tauren head won't understand its a multi player , ON-line , Massevely (2 mil man , 2 mil thats a massssss) game.

    "If it was, it would be CRUSHED even more than it already is by the mighty World of Warcraft becuase it would be in complete comparison with it."

    what are u saying man ??? u mean My tuned car in NFS:MW isn't better than a F1 care O_o.... or that my Frodo !! can't pawn Tanya from red alert ?

    at stup with the "ohhhh so mighty power of warcraft".... Blizzard and wow are not tyrants....and they will not intend to be.

    "WoW has a seamless world in which you see real players travelling, moving, talking, trading, fighting all at the one time, no matter where you are in the open environment, even if that means the whole server in one place."

    okay then........but still....arent those cooperative missions in GW the same thing as ur Instances ? ....hmmmm....but i guess ur right . (for the love of god


    I agree battlemen !!! long live and prosper GW !! grate job NCsoft and ArenaNET

  • battlemen

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:48 pm GMT

    Come on guys, ur fighting about which is better GW or WoW like little babies, especially u unreal.... By the way this is ABOUT GUILD WARS read the title on the top "Guild Wars sells 2 million" and all u WoW fanboys are wreaking the Guild Wars time to shine... now plz stop talking about wow and just talk about how a good job guild wars did. Who agrees with me?

  • map4000

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:48 pm GMT

    2 million!
    Nice,i might buy it and if it aint really good NP i can keep playing when i feel like without paying 15$.

  • Paul_Phoenicks

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:48 pm GMT

    It's good news, especially seeing as how this is a free-to-play-online MM(ish)ORPG.

    Perhaps, if it continues to be a success, Blizzard or some other companies will lower the subscription fees for their games?

    Well, I can dream, can't I...

  • Grinch123456

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:47 pm GMT

    I'm sorry -Unreal-, but I bought WoW, and while downloading nothing, with 0 internet load, started up WoW, after a week of playing, I decided the lag was terrible, and quit. I got GW, and the lag was practically non-existant, even while running BitComet and/or Trillian! GWs rocks, and if you don't have it, get it. End of story.

  • -Unreal-

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:33 pm GMT

    Quiron, have you even got World of Warcraft? You say they delete your character after you stop playing it for 3-6 months when in truth they NEVER delete your character unless YOU, the player authorise them to. That's like one of the simplest and most commonly known things about the game.
    And no, Guild Wars isn't an MMO. If it was, it would be CRUSHED even more than it already is by the mighty World of Warcraft becuase it would be in complete comparison with it. WoW has a seamless world in which you see real players travelling, moving, talking, trading, fighting all at the one time, no matter where you are in the open environment, even if that means the whole server in one place. In WoW you can follow someone accross from one continent to another, stalking them the entire way and kill them whever you want. That's called a seamless world, not your excuse for an MMO game Guild Wars is.

    Also, Guild Wars doesn't have a "Huge" team updating it, it has the developement team that made the game. WoW has employees for everything. You think about how many people Blizzard employ just to provide 24 hours a day customer support both in-game and out. Does that happen in Guild Wars? No, it doesn't becuase they don't have the income to support it.
    In Guild Wars do they have hundreds of servers worldwide, each one supporting thousands of players at any given time? Hell no, of course they don't, and why? becuase Guild Wars isn't an MMO, it's not Massively Multiplayer.

    And WoW has little lag too, even on realms that are labled as "full". Must just be you using your cheap internet service as an excuse.

    World of Warcraft is also updated with a crazy amount of fixes. If you had the game you would realize that by looking at just one major patch note for the game. The amount of fixes to bugs, technical and even just gameplay tweaks is astounding, and that's not even me getting into new dungeons and areas they add, plus weapons, armor, items and talents to try.

    The support for World of Warcraft is far beyond Guild Wars, not just customer support, but support from the developers, into the actual game progression. Guild Wars doesn't come close to it in just this aspect.

  • Jinxed_Gohan

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 4:19 pm GMT

    what can i say .... GW is a good game ...i own the game my slef....and each new game GW launches is:

    -free to play
    -stand alone (dose not require previous versions to play)
    -new spells
    -new classes (ex: in factions new classes are assasin and ritualist)
    -new continent (world)
    -and probably even new pvp modes (at least factions broght with it a lot of new arenas and bigger battles)

    and one small thing to add....if u ever played a tradeing card game....and if u liked a tradeing card game...buy GW ....its almost the same thing...only real-time and MMO

  • Qiron

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:27 pm GMT

    "People here are totally brain washed by the "free to play" slogan they use. Guild Wars is just an online RPG game. Of course it's free to play. Every PC game is free to play online unless it's an MMO game, which costs the makers money to employ people, maintain servers and websites, provide 24/7 customer support and have all that bandwidth going too.
    Guild Wars is free, so what? Nothing new, nothing great. If Guild Wars cost money to play people would take a look at the game and ask "why?", but since it doesn't, people don't ask the question, but people that see through it ask the alternative question "why should it?" "

    - GW is a persistent world game just like wow and other games. because it uses heavy use of instances changes nothing. they still need to make a profit from expansions to keep it alive.

    GW is free...

    it has a hugh live team updating it constantly

    it has little lag

    little downtime

    they dont delete your character if you havent played in 3-6 months like in WoW

    they store all your character info, stats and so on, on their servers, UNLIKE D2, neverwinter nights, dungeon siege and so on.

    gw is just bloddy amazing and revolutionary and that is all there is to it.

  • Maui00

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:24 pm GMT

    mmhhhh...maybe I'll get this

  • Fallout_red

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:23 pm GMT

    Guild Wars >>>>>>>>> wow. The reason behind incredible wow sales is big Warcraft/Blizzard fan base. They just buy the game for name sake.

  • Gr33nHippo

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:22 pm GMT

    yay go guild wars!!! awesome game

  • Qiron

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:18 pm GMT

    "GW is NOT an MMO.

    Though it does share similarities, its closer to what Diablo 2 is than other MMOs."

    I disagree to an extent.

    GW is very global. its many small servers but they are all unified over an entire shard. its not that different from wow which also has tons of instances in forms of pvp areas(battlegrounds) and dungeons.

    But the cool thing about GW is that its global. im from europe so im competing with USA and Korea and Japan and Taiwan at the same time.

    In WoW you can only play with and against other people from your own originallity which sucks, because there is alot of charm with meeting people from around the world with totally different cultures.

  • -Unreal-

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:18 pm GMT

    People here are totally brain washed by the "free to play" slogan they use. Guild Wars is just an online RPG game. Of course it's free to play. Every PC game is free to play online unless it's an MMO game, which costs the makers money to employ people, maintain servers and websites, provide 24/7 customer support and have all that bandwidth going too.
    Guild Wars is free, so what? Nothing new, nothing great. If Guild Wars cost money to play people would take a look at the game and ask "why?", but since it doesn't, people don't ask the question, but people that see through it ask the alternative question "why should it?"

  • OmegaBob

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 3:02 pm GMT

    GW is NOT an MMO.

    Though it does share similarities, its closer to what Diablo 2 is than other MMOs.

  • haasdt

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:38 pm GMT

    I can easilty believe this. I've been playing since Dec and love it. Beautiful and great community. And FREE!!!! This company knows that free play brings people in the door and a great game keeps them coming back!

  • Hondje89

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:32 pm GMT

    Really sweet to hear that Guild Wars is so popular

  • Igwababa

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:27 pm GMT

    Nice, I might pick up a copy, I think though that kind of releasing an expansion say every few months makes alot of sense. Lots pf people turn away the moment they hear subscription. And for WoW, I was going to get it but paying monthly was a drag and most of the time I wouldnt even play.

  • sykonfc

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:22 pm GMT

    Congradulations ArenaNet and NCSoft! Your first project and you're making millions off of it (literally), good job.

  • blackIceJoe

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:21 pm GMT

    I liked the first and Factions is good too and can't wait to play the third one they make.I am surprised there would not be more players its free to play.

  • DS_fan_atic

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:06 pm GMT

    I like the idea of free online, I would never be able to justify monthly fee's for online play. I may pick up this game for my new Laptop, yay high schools over!!!

  • Flickering

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:03 pm GMT

    "To be fair, Arena Net's three founders are all ex-blizzard employees. I believe one of them was a lead developer for Starcraft and Diablo, as well as a developer for the Battle.net infrastructure. "

    Well sure, but just because they used to work at Blizzard doesn't give them a get rich/ instant success card. Starting a company isn't easy business. They deserve their success because they worked hard for it.

  • ReyWing

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:02 pm GMT

    I'm still trying to beat Factions. Great game so far =D Other "CHANCES" Arenanet has taken are having a LEVEL CAP at 20! Attempting to cater to both PVP and PVE masses and basing gameplay on SKILL rather than TIME put forth into the game. Can't wait for more details about GW:Nightfall!

  • EvanO_O

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 2:00 pm GMT

    Yeah, Guild Wars rules. Monthly fees blow.

  • Link165

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 1:58 pm GMT

    Sadly, I'm one of those 2 million.

    I got the original and stopped after two weeks. I hated it.

  • Qiron

    Posted Jun 19, 2006 1:56 pm GMT

    "To be fair, Arena Net's three founders are all ex-blizzard employees. I believe one of them was a lead developer for Starcraft and Diablo, as well as a developer for the Battle.net infrastructure. "

    allot of the quality that was in blizzard is at ArenaNet true. But that does not mean that people in generel know ArenaNet as a brand like people know Blizzard.

    Many of Blizzards first titles didn't sell anywear near as good as this. Hell.. not even the first Diablo or the first Warcraft did as good as Guild Wars has done. In 10 years only the gods can know were Guild Wars will be... It takes years and games to build a strong frachise.

    For a newly formed company to come out with their first game and having it be as good and as succesful as GW is just not rare, it just might be a first.

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