Guild Wars franchise hits 5 million unit sold mark

by Alexander Sliwinski { Feb 26th 2008 at 12:25PM }

NCsoft announced today that its distinctly non pay-for-play MMORPG, Guild Wars, has sold five million units globally in a little under three years. The Guild Wars milestone takes into account the original game plus its three expansions: Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North.

Guild Wars 2 is currently in development and (if it's still on track) is expected in the second half of this year. ArenaNet, developers of Guild Wars, says it will continue to support the original game and its "millions of customers." For the sake of semantics it's worth noting that this doesn't mean five million players ever consistently played Guild Wars, just that five million copies from the franchise have sold, but it's still a milestone in an arena dominated by the one.

Tags: guild-wars, guild-wars-2, guildwars, mmorpg

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Esupio @ Feb 26th 2008 12:53PM

That ranger stands no chance.

Good for Guild Wars, was fun, should probably start playing again, but GIVE US GUILD WARS 2.

kaioshade @ Feb 26th 2008 12:56PM

Indeed. Guild Wars is definitely a fun online game. I hesitate to cell it a MMO at times, as it does so many things that are different from a "traditional" MMO. In some ways i liken it to the original Phantasy Star Online.

Hopefully Guild Wars 2 will continue the great precedent that the first one has set.

WiNG @ Feb 26th 2008 1:02PM

Also, Rangers are actually pretty good for solo Griffin hunting.

ThornedVenom (Patapornographer) @ Feb 26th 2008 12:57PM

I'm a big fan of the Guildwars universe (can't play the game anymore because of time management) but I didn't know that they were still keeping track of the game's sales.

I'm looking forward to Guildwars 2 though: a breeze of fresh air is a good thing for the series.

Ben @ Feb 26th 2008 1:51PM

I'd think with an MMO that's main form of profit is from game sales and not a monthly fee that they would in fact be keeping track of game sales. They broke ground by proving that a non-subscription based MMO can be profitable, so in order for them to still prove it to be true, they'd have to keep looking at those sales.

Dauragon88 @ Feb 26th 2008 12:57PM

Man..i should really get back into guild wars, for old times sake :D

Shawn @ Feb 26th 2008 12:59PM

more good news

WiNG @ Feb 26th 2008 1:02PM

If other companies take away ANYTHING from Guild Wars please let it be the PvP.

Seriously, PvP where skill > time spent grinding for armor is what makes GW great.

Anticrawl @ Feb 26th 2008 1:15PM

Well said, plus the class combinations meant something for PvP, not just doubling your skill list.

Neptune @ Feb 26th 2008 2:00PM

"Seriously, PvP where skill > time spent grinding for armor is what makes GW great."

My shiny white ranger obsidian armor disagrees with you :)

Seriously though, PVP in Guild Wars is great.

Durandel @ Feb 26th 2008 3:56PM

Grinding isn't necessary, but if you want to be good at PvP (Heroe's Ascent or GvG, at least those were the two dominant ones when I played), you have to put a LOT of time into practicing and keeping up with the new builds, etc.

I loved it when I played, and skill IS the determining factor, but it is still very time consuming.

Then again, it's also an MMO :)

WiNG @ Feb 26th 2008 5:32PM

"Grinding isn't necessary, but if you want to be good at PvP (Heroe's Ascent or GvG, at least those were the two dominant ones when I played), you have to put a LOT of time into practicing and keeping up with the new builds, etc."

Yes, but that is true of every competitive game/sport in the world.

Arnie @ Feb 26th 2008 1:50PM

And one thing GW should take from other games is some serious high level stuff. Now that levels will be virtually limitless, I think GW will really appeal to people who just like to play and play.
It makes me sad that you will have to level up a lot to be somewhat powerful. Also, GW had some really cool missions and quests(not always kill X creatures or deliver this)

WiNG @ Feb 26th 2008 5:36PM

"Serious high level stuff"

So I guess when they patched the game to include Hard Mode, making every damn monster in the game 4-10 levels higher than you, wasn't high level enough for ya?

Arnie @ Feb 26th 2008 6:33PM

I played Hard Level and it seemed a bit unfair(esp in group of 4 areas!!) but once you nailed the build it was just pure massacre(of course you couldnt pull everything!!). I had some really really crazy fun in Dungeons and Eye of the North esp because of the team build centric nature of the foes, I am just saying they could have gone that route rather than giving crazy amounts of damage to foes in Hard Mode. I am sorry but the game(except for the first one) was very short in terms of campaign and things like that.
Also, they are moving away from that model(not sure what the new model will be!!)

joevill @ Feb 26th 2008 1:51PM

I'm the only Joystiq reader who still plays Guild Wars?

kaioshade @ Feb 26th 2008 2:04PM

Of course not, I still play about once or twice a week when job, gf, and work doesnt suck the life out of me.

joevill @ Feb 26th 2008 2:13PM

I'm working on my Grandmaster Cartographer... it's so boring! So I've been playing other games to take a break.

dark_inchworm @ Feb 26th 2008 2:00PM

Ugh, marketing spin.

How many people are actually playing?

joevill @ Feb 26th 2008 2:04PM

/waves

Jevanzz @ Feb 26th 2008 2:41PM

/waves

noah @ Feb 26th 2008 3:41PM

/waves

Sora267 @ Feb 26th 2008 5:18PM

/waves

opnickc @ Feb 26th 2008 5:32PM

/waves

WiNG @ Feb 26th 2008 5:36PM

/dance

dark_inchworm @ Feb 26th 2008 10:07PM

I was looking for statistics...

...though I wouldn't be surprised at this point if the player base only consisted of 6 people.

lotrfish @ Feb 26th 2008 10:14PM

/waves

A little late, but I just had to.

Laggy @ Feb 27th 2008 4:02AM

/waves

alu @ Feb 26th 2008 2:47PM

i stopped playing a while ago because i got fed up with trying to find a competant group of players to quest with. i never did find an active guild so i guess that hurt.. and i only made it to factions so i didn't Heroes to use instead of the rtard henchmen.

Shagittarius @ Feb 26th 2008 2:57PM

Guild Wars is no more an MMO than Diablo/Battlenet is an MMO.

NESv1 @ Feb 26th 2008 5:24PM

For the last time, Guild Wars is no more an MMO than Diablo 2 is. Good day.

(and no, I'm not a Guild Wars hater. I have the game and I play it.)

SharpShooter @ Feb 26th 2008 5:45PM

I bought this game and 3 of the expansions, although I quit. And don't let that 5 million fool you, just game is pretty dead once you get to the final missions. It will literally take you over an hour to get into any kind of decent party, if you don't have a clan. Though on the positive side, no monthly fees and the pvp is great.

t_m @ Feb 27th 2008 10:48AM

PC games are dying, just like Cliffy B said.

I mean, WoW has only sold like, 10 million plus the equivilent of another 40 million in subscriptions, and guildwars has only sold 5. Half life 2 is only at around 5 million+ and stalker is only 1.6. And there are only like 15 million steam members.

Brinstar @ Feb 27th 2008 2:44PM

There are three stand-alone Guild Wars games: Guild Wars (also known as Guild Wars Prophecies), Guild Wars Factions, and Guild Wars Nightfall.

There is one Guild Wars expansion: Guild Wars: Eye of the North.