Guild Wars
GameBy ArenaNet · Released Apr 26, 2005
In a world torn by conflict, where human kingdoms are all but destroyed and guilds sacrifice all for a chance to control the Hall of Heroes, a champion must rise from the ruins of a once-proud land to lead refugees from the ashes and fulfill an ancient prophecy. Will that hero be you?
Connections
Each row is a game or company named alongside Guild Wars, each column a document, oldest first. A mark means that document names it. Select a row to see those documents.
About the game
- Released
- Apr 26, 2005
- Developer
- ArenaNet
- Publishers
- NCSOFT, The9
- Genres
- Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Adventure
- Platforms
- PC (Microsoft Windows)
- Links
- Wikipedia
Game data from IGDB.com
Guild Wars sales and key figures
'Guild Wars 3' secured the second spot with 435K new wishlists, and its reveal was strategically timed with a 20% discount on 'Guild Wars 2' DLC, generating over $110K in Steam sales for the older titles.
Alinea Analytics, 2026 · Summer Game Fest: Steam Wishlist Winners
Royalty revenue grew 9% quarter-over-quarter, supported by record-high quarterly sales for Guild Wars 2 in the Chinese market.
NCSoft, 2024 · NCSOFT Q1 2023 Earnings Release, p. 6
Documents about Guild Wars
What Were the Top Games & Showcases During Summer Game Fest?
The article examines the impact of Summer Game Fest 2026 on game discovery, focusing on livestream viewership, wishlist activity, and platform coverage.
- Summer Game Fest 2026 viewership reached 62 million, a 23% year-over-year increase, with co-streaming driving nearly two-thirds of the total audience.
- Resident Evil: Veronica led all titles with 803,000 new Steam wishlists, followed by Guild Wars 3 (496,000) and Assassin’s Creed 1666: Amsterdam (494,000).
- The main Summer Game Fest showcase generated the highest median wishlist growth per title at 72,000, outperforming PlayStation State of Play (52,000) and Xbox Games Showcase (46,000).
Summer Game Fest: Steam Wishlist Winners
The analysis evaluates the impact of the 2026 Summer Game Fest (SGF) on consumer interest by tracking new Steam wishlist additions between June 2 and June 8, 2026.
- Summer Game Fest 2026 was highly successful, generating a significant number of Steam wishlists for announced games between June 2nd and 8th.
- Capcom's 'Resident Evil Veronica' led the new wishlists with 522K, demonstrating strong interest from existing Resident Evil players (55% played RE2 Remake, 53% played RE4 Remake).
- Known quantities such as remakes, sequels, licensed IP, and revived franchises dominated the top wishlist spots, indicating a preference for established brands among players.
Inside That Scopely-Niantic Deal, Xbox's Odd 'North Star', Subway Surfers, Emulation, More
This industry digest provides a comprehensive overview of the mobile gaming landscape as of May 2026, focusing on high-profile acquisitions, platform policy shifts, and strategic corporate realignments.
- Scopely and Niantic completed a $3.5 billion acquisition, a significant deal in the mobile gaming industry.
- Emulation on the App Store has seen 60 million downloads since its arrival two years ago, with developers like Provenance covering costs through in-app purchases.
- Subway Surfers, the most downloaded game of all time, is still being considered for a movie adaptation, and new spin-off games are in development, including 'Subway Surfers City' and another in soft launch.
NCSOFT Q4 2025 Earnings Release
NCSOFT’s financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025 demonstrate a return to operating profitability, with quarterly revenue reaching KRW 404.2 billion.
- NCSOFT returned to operating profitability in Q4 2025 with an operating income of KRW 3.2 billion, following losses in the previous period.
- Full-year 2025 net income surged 269% to KRW 347.4 billion, primarily due to a one-time gain from a real estate sale.
- Quarterly revenue reached KRW 404.2 billion, a 12% increase quarter-over-quarter, driven by a 92% spike in PC online game revenue to KRW 168.2 billion following the launch of Aion 2.
The Archetype Trap | Design Club
The traditional Holy Trinity of tank, healer, and damage dealer (DPS) serves as a pervasive, yet increasingly contentious, framework in modern game design.
- The 'Holy Trinity' of Tank, Healer, and DPS is a design shorthand used to simplify party management and matchmaking in large-scale games like Final Fantasy 14 and Warhammer Online, rather than a fundamental requirement of game design.
- Strict adherence to archetypes can lead to poor gameplay if developers prioritize these roles over the actual needs and mechanics of the game they are building.
- Game archetypes are often fluid; for example, modern tanking roles frequently incorporate crowd control to manage player-controlled opponents, whereas traditional aggro tables are primarily designed for NPCs.
Why is NCSoft entering the hyper competitive live service shooter market?
NCSoft is undergoing a fundamental strategic pivot, transitioning from its three-decade legacy as a dedicated massively multiplayer online game developer toward the hyper-competitive global shooter market.
- NCSoft is executing a strategic pivot away from its 30-year focus on MMOs to enter the global live service shooter market with titles such as Cinder City and Time Takers.
- The company is diversifying its portfolio through seven new projects, utilizing a mix of internal development and external studio partnerships to mitigate risk.
- NCSoft aims to differentiate its shooters by combining its expertise in open-world architecture and server infrastructure with distinct Korean aesthetics and narrative-driven gameplay.
The State of Publishing and Live Ops
The video game industry has undergone a fundamental transformation over the past two decades, shifting from the production of static, boxed products to the maintenance of persistent, social virtual worlds.
- Effective live operations require high-level flexibility, such as the ability to deploy events via web-based tools rather than relying on pre-baked code updates that require months of lead time.
- The industry has shifted from the short-term mobile strategy of aggressively monetizing high-spenders and churning the rest, toward a model focused on long-term player retention and sustainable community relationships.
- Publishing is primarily a function of capital allocation, where publishers act as financiers for developers who cannot self-fund, necessitating a strategic alignment between the developer's growth goals and the publisher's investment thesis.
NCSOFT Q1 2023 Earnings Release
The first quarter of 2023 for NCSOFT reflects a period of significant contraction in top-line revenue alongside a strategic reduction in operating expenditures.
- NCSOFT Q1 2023 revenue fell to KRW 478.8 billion, representing a 13% quarter-over-quarter and 39% year-over-year decline.
- Operating profit reached KRW 81.6 billion, a 72% increase from the previous quarter, despite being 67% lower than Q1 2022.
- Total operating expenses decreased by 21% quarter-over-quarter to KRW 397.1 billion, driven primarily by a 90% reduction in marketing spend.
NCSoft Q2 2024 Financial Results
NCSoft’s financial results for the second quarter of 2024, ending June 30, reveal a period of mixed performance characterized by a significant decline in top-line revenue alongside a substantial surge in net profitability.
- The Lineage franchise remains the core of NCSoft's business, accounting for 70% of the company's total revenue in Q2 2024.
- NCSoft reported a 133% year-over-year increase in net income to ₩71.1 billion ($52.1 million), despite a 16% decline in total revenue to ₩368.8 billion ($270.3 million).
- Operating profit for the second quarter fell 75% year-over-year to ₩8.8 billion ($6.5 million).
Plus: Super-Dynamic Steam Charts
This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the global video game market during late August 2022, focusing on sales performance, player engagement, and upcoming release trends across Steam, consoles, and mobile platforms.
- Destiny 2’s premium expansion packs maintained revenue dominance during late August 2022, while Hogwarts Legacy and F1 Manager 2022 generated significant pre-order momentum.
- SD Gundam Battle Alliance achieved a successful $60 debut on Steam, reaching a peak concurrent user (CCU) count of 21.9k.
- Madden NFL 23 and the Saints Row reboot served as the primary volume drivers for the PlayStation and Xbox platforms during August.
TWIG #180 Ex-Blizzard / Riot executives as founders. Opportunity or threat?
The studio One More Game (OMG) recently secured $22 million in funding to develop its debut title, Spellcraft, a PC-focused competitive strategy game.
- One More Game (OMG) secured $22 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Griffin Gaming Partners to develop its debut PC strategy title, Spellcraft.
- OMG founders Pat Wyatt and James Windsor are viewed as credible exceptions to industry skepticism because they previously co-founded ArenaNet and successfully launched the Guild Wars franchise.
- The industry is seeing a trend of venture capital firms aggressively backing startups led by veterans from major studios like Blizzard and Riot Games, despite many of these ventures having yet to ship a commercial product.
Beyond Games as a Service with Live Ops
The transition from viewing video games as discrete, one-time products to the Games as a Service model has fundamentally altered industry priorities, often at the expense of player experience.
- LiveOps should be viewed as an additive, iterative process rather than a sequential development phase, requiring game architecture that supports frequent, small-scale updates rather than just large, pre-planned DLC.
- Designers must identify and support the game's intrinsic motivators—such as social relatedness—rather than focusing solely on optimizing easily measurable KPIs like combat loops or microtransaction funnels.
- LiveOps maturity progresses through three stages: basic iterative updates based on player feedback, optimization through A/B testing and personalization, and finally mastering engagement by extending the game experience beyond the client.
Companies behind it
As the documents state it.