NCsoft's Guild Wars franchise posts impressive sales as it hits 20 years

NCsoft is seeing impressive sales and user ratings with the Guild Wars franchise, as the game celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

Guild Wars' ″20th Anniversary Masterpiece Collection″ [NCSOFT]

NCsoft is seeing impressive sales and user ratings with the Guild Wars franchise, as the game celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

The game developer said that the original game's sales spiked more than 3,200 percent following the special launch of the "20th Anniversary Masterpiece Collection" event from April 5 to 29. The sequel, Guild Wars 2, also maintained "top-tier user ratings globally," NCsoft said in a press release Friday.

First launched in 2005, Guild Wars broke industry norms by abandoning the traditional monthly subscription model. The game sold over 7 million copies worldwide. Its sequel, Guild Wars 2, released in 2012, has since established a global user base of 20 million.

Last month, concurrent users jumped by 150 percent compared to the previous two weeks, while game sales soared 3,226 percent — 142 percent higher than the total annual sales recorded last year.

As of Monday, Guild Wars 2 holds a score of 90 on review aggregator Metacritic. On the gaming platform Steam, 88 percent of 21,323 user reviews are positive, giving it a “Very Positive” rating.

A wave of returning players inviting friends to join has also been noted. In an interview with foreign media, game director Steven Clarke-Wilson said, “It seems that when players return, they sometimes bring their friends along with them as new players.”

BY KIM MIN-YOUNG [kim.minyoung5@joongang.co.kr]