I dislike monthly subscriptions. I would relinquish my soul to Mythic’s Warhammer Online or Blizzard’s World of Warcraft if I didn’t have to forsake my wallet in exchange. NCsoft’s aging title Guild Wars is different. It’s a big budget title that doesn’t kill its players with periodic money grabbing. The sequel to the game — aptly titled Guild Wars 2 — will be built much the same. Unfortunately, it appears that fans hungry for the fresh take will have to wait at least another year before they can get their MMO on.
A tipster sent us a picture of a profit number presentation from NCsoft, showing Guild Wars 2 in an ambiguous 2010-2011 window. It’s a hearty delay, and I can only poke at the reason with the usual setback, cutback, bareback, or market deluge speculation. I’ll spare you my theories and toss out a few facts:
As Kotaku pointed out, NCsoft experienced a 40 percent profit drop last year. The company plans to make up its losses with another MMO called Aion: The Tower of Eternity — a title set to hit in 2009, unlike Guild Wars 2.
[Thanks, Tadej!]
