Mike O'Brien, President and co-founder of ArenaNet, had offered his thoughts on moving Guild Wars 2 to the Free To Play model in an update from the company. For those who missed the news over the weekend, the company decided to drop the initial purchase of the product and only charge for the expansions, giving players access to the core quest and features.
"In making Guild Wars 2 free, we're not switching business models to a traditional free-to-play game, and we're not aggressively monetizing free players through microtransactions,"" said O'Brien. "We're making the base game free because we're confident that anyone who loves Guild Wars 2 will consider buying Heart of Thorns, continuing their experience into the expansion and beyond with Living World and our newly announced raids."
O'Brien is correct in what he is saying as this is not a traditional free-to-play format. In comparison, a title such as Perfect World International is completely free to play, but pushes their cash shop of items heavily to get boosts, weapon upgrades, and distinct advantages. O'Brien has always believed that no player should have a huge advantage if they're willing to spend extra money, so ArenaNet appears to be sticking to their guns, which is nice to see.
