Guild Wars 2 will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor and not charge a monthly subscription fee as many MMOs do. What you would then expect is for premium downloadable content to be released after the game comes out, something that lead game designer Eric Flannum acknowledged was a possibility in an interview with PC Gamer before later somewhat backing off on the particulars of what was extrapolated from the interview.
Explaining that he thinks having a subscription model can make developers lazy about producing new content, he said, “We don’t get to say, ‘Oh well, you know, we don’t have to release this content this month, since they’re all going to give us their subscription fee anyways. Let’s just wait until next month and release this cool thing.’ We’re actually kind of bound because if we need income, if we need this game to make some money, we better provide things that people want to buy.”
He continued, “I think our content model ensures that you’re getting your money’s worth, because as the consumer you have the option to say ‘You know, I’m not going to buy that. That’s not good enough.’ Whereas the monthly fee [business model] takes it out of your hand. You better be getting something good every month for that — but that’s just not the case with a lot of games.”
