Guild Wars 2 Goes Free-to-Play - News
by Craig S , posted on 29 August 2015 / 3,387 ViewsArenaNet has announced that the base version of Guild Wars 2 is now free-to-play. The game launched as a buy-to-play title without a subscription model back in August of 2012.
“We believe the buy to play, subscription-free model for MMOs is good for players, and it’s good for developers,” said Mike O’Brien, co-founder and president of ArenaNet.
“It gets a little tricky when a buy-to-play MMO introduces an expansion pack, leaving new players guessing about what they need to buy in order to start playing with their friends. As we get ready to release our first expansion for Guild Wars 2, we want to ensure that we keep a simple business model where new players can play the core game for free, while all players need only purchase one thing – Heart of Thorns – to get access to all of our new and future content.”
ArenaNet is keen to stress that it will "not aggressively monetising free players through microtransactions", however.
Meanwhile, the company also announced that Heart of Thorns will add raids to the game when it launches as a buy-to-play expansion on October 23rd. You can find out more about the expansion here.