Arcantia

Filed under: Business Models , Culture , Interviews , MMO Industry , News Items , Opinion A few days ago we reported on RIFT’s impending free-to-play conversion, followed by the news that Trion was undergoing a second set of apparently unrelated layoffs. Former Trion studio GM and CCO Scott Hartsman responded to the layoffs on Twitter, intimating that aspects of the gaming industry are “fundamentally broken.” After we invited your thoughts on that same subject in a Daily Grind earlier this week, we contacted Hartsman in the hopes of getting him to elaborate. Join us after the cut for the resulting interview.

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Hartsman: ‘The traditional AAA style of development and distribution’ is broken

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Filed under: Betas , Fantasy , Business Models , Culture , News Items , Guild Wars 2 , Buy-to-Play This morning, ArenaNet dropped the price point of Guild Wars 2 by $10 across all available editions .

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Guild Wars 2 developers share APIs, hopes for the future

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Filed under: Fantasy , Business Models , Economy , News Items , Guild Wars 2 , Buy-to-Play ArenaNet has made the call to permanently lower the price point for Guild Wars 2 . The game previously sold for $59.99 for the Digital Edition and $79.99 for the Deluxe Edition. Both of those prices are being lowered by $10

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ArenaNet permanently lowers Guild Wars 2’s price point

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Filed under: Fantasy , Bugs , Business Models , Economy , Events (Real-World) , Game Mechanics , MMO Industry , News Items , Opinion , Free-to-Play , The Daily Grind , Miscellaneous , Diablo III , Neverwinter In the last few weeks, two big games we cover on Massively have been slammed with exploits that have injured their respective economies: Diablo III and Neverwinter . In Diablo III’s case, a gold duping bug apparently pumped insane amounts of cash into the economy. And as reported by players, Neverwinter exploits run the gamut from Foundry abuses to negative auction hall bids that don’t consume gold to classes that can one-shot bosses making farming trivial.

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The Daily Grind: When are rollbacks and wipes absolutely necessary?

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Filed under: Sci-Fi , Business Models , MMO Industry , News Items , Defiance , Buy-to-Play Were you waiting for Trion to drop Defiance’s $59.99 launch price point before taking a look? That day has arrived, as the B2P shooter MMO is now available for $29.99.

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Defiance PC client half off through Sunday

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Filed under: Sci-Fi , Screenshots , Business Models , Culture , Game Mechanics , PvP , Opinion , War , Free-to-Play , Casual , MMOFPS , PlanetSide 2 , Why I Play , Subscription I was this close to saving myself a lot of time by finishing this article with only a few simple words: Why do I play PlanetSide 2 ? Because it’s fun .

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Why I Play: PlanetSide 2

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Filed under: Business Models , Culture , Economy , Game Mechanics , MMO Industry , Opinion , Free-to-Play , Consoles , Casual , The Soapbox I love MUDs. When I go through a several-hour long MUD session, I feel as if I took part in a greater story, and most of the fun was not based on stats or gear.

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The Soapbox: MMOs are to kids what MUDs are to us

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Filed under: Business Models , MMO Industry , Browser , Mobile If you love to hate on browser-based MMOs and feel as though their time has passed, China might like to have a word or two with you . Sales of browser-based titles in the country have risen substantially in the past two years, increasing 46% in 2011 and 35% in 2012 according to a Taiwanese games company president, whereas client-based MMOs only made a 13% increase in growth in 2012

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Browser game market in China ‘booming’

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Filed under: Fantasy , Business Models , Launches , MMO Industry , New Titles , News Items , Crowdfunding Cryptozoic Entertainmen t has just revealed the Kickstarter for its upcoming MMO trading card game , HEX: Shards of Fate . Cryptozoic is claiming that the game “combines the amazing community and storytelling aspects” of MMOs with the “compelling collectible and strategic game play” of TCGs

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Introducing HEX, the MMOTCG by Cryptozoic

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Filed under: Screenshots , Business Models , Culture , Game Mechanics , Opinion , Free-to-Play , Hands-On , Roleplaying , Free for All , Miscellaneous Welcome back to the second installment of MUD May ! Almost any time I write an article, I try to keep new players in mind.

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Free for All: An intro to basic combat in MUDs

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