
There definitely won't be a sudden flood of IAPs that will be semi-required to go through the game, but there will be some changes to separate free users from those who bought the game. Aside from the free base game, everything else remains the same. And now, anyone curious about the game can also try it out for free.ĪrenaNet, however, insists that it isn't switching to that often derided free-to-play model. First, anyone who buys the expansion will automatically have the base game included for free. Guild Wars 2 will solve this problem in two ways. This means that, while the expansion is mouthwatering and appetizing to new gamers, these will be discouraged by the double amount they have to pay. While you have to of course pay for the expansion, you will also have to buy the base game if they haven't done so before. While the game did have options for in-app purchases, those are non-essential benefits and can even be purchased using in-game gold instead of real-world money.Įxpansions, especially a major one like the Heart of Thorns, present a slight logistics problem for games with this model. No monthly fees, no gated content behind paywalls. You only needed to buy the Guild Wars box once and that's it. When Guild Wars 2 launched 3 years ago, and the original Guild Wars almost a decade ago, the MMORPG brought a surprising new business model to a market that was filled with subscriptions as well as is now called, sometimes derisively, as "freemium" business models. But that sounds a bit too much like going "free-to-play" and that is exactly the perception that ArenaNet is trying to avoid by not using the term and emphasizing that most things are still in status quo.

Anyone can now play the base game of Guild Wars 2 absolutely for free. With barely two months to go before its first and most massive expansion yet, ArenaNet has dropped a bombshell to entice more gamers to try out one of the longest (but definitely not the oldest) running MMORPG franchises in the market.
