Arenanet vs Ncsoft?

I'm just curious, what does Ncsoft really do in terms of game production? Are they just funding Guild Wars 2, or are they actually "working" on the game. It seems as if Arenanet is doing all the work but Ncsoft is taking partial credit for it. Arenanet has to benefit from Ncsoft some way or they wouldn't be with Ncsoft. Also some people don't even credit Arenanet when they talk about Guild wars 2 e.g "oh yeah Ncsoft is doing such a great job with Guild Wars 2" I think Ncsoft is just a company that funds all these games and then leeches on them to make profit. I have no proof, and I'm just flat out uncertain what Ncsoft does. That's why im asking you guys to explain to me the facts so i am not so confused all the time.

Arenanet is wholly owned by NCSoft. These business relationships are complex affairs, beyond the understanding of folk like us. NCSoft has a sub-division NCWest who 'control' Arenanet.

Arenanet are the developers, they make the game, NCSoft are the publishers, they market and sell the game, and provide enough finance( in theory) to enable its subsidiary (Arenanet) to function as developers.

This is how I understand things but as always, shoot me down, or add more detail if you like :)

What Jack has said is correct, but I'll gladly accept his invitation to add more detail. :)

Basically, back when ArenaNet was founded, they didn't have the money to develop a game on their own, so they pitched the idea of GW and its business model to several companies, but none of the western publishers were really interested. NCsoft saw the potential for the game and figured the business model might work since they had experience with f2p MMOs, so they bought ANet and gave them the budget they needed to make the game.

For GW2's development, we don't really know, but given the scale of the project and the fact that it's been a while since GW has had a new box to sell, it's likely that there is still some funding coming from NCsoft (and we really don't know how it works, but all of the money probably goes through NCsoft anyways, since they do own ANet).

As for NCsoft's involvement in the actual production of the game... we have no way of knowing for sure, and I know there were a few threads created by some incredibly annoying troll and/or total idiot on GW2 Guru forums along the lines of "oh noes GW2 is like Aion maybe NCsoft is taking a hand in development." Really though, GW2 is nothing like Aion or any other NCsoft game... which is good because they're generally pretty bad and/or grindy.

I see no evidence whatsoever that NCsoft is tampering in ANet's creative process, and honestly if any of them have half a brain, they should know to just let ANet do their thing and rake in the money - GW is far more successful in the western market than any game NCsoft has ever made (Aion was a total flop outside of Asia).

There may be no hard evidence to stop the doomsday prophets, naysayers, and conspiracy theorists from ranting about how NCsoft could ruin the game, but I think that so far GW2 is shaping up into an amazing game and I see no reason to be concerned.

So, yeah, sorry, I know you were just being confused but I wanted to address that as well because it bugs me... and also it bugs me when some people say things like "nah GW2 won't be any good - look at the other games NCsoft has made, like Aion" >.<

Edit: Late response to Jack's post following mine; basically what I meant to say is that NCsoft already has successful games in the eastern market and that's probably not what they want out of GW2 - they want a game that's successful in the western market because their other developers have so far failed to produce one.

It is important to bear in mind in discussions such as this though, that the fact that we may think or say that a particular game is rubbish doesn't make it rubbish. Aion for example was designed for the Eastern (Korea for example) markets, therefore I consider it unfair to use Aion as a comparison for Guild Wars 2. Some people just seem to like bad and/or grindy, it is their choice :)

As Sarda so rightly says, if NCSoft let Arenanet get on with making GW2, all will be fine :)

I agree with you jack i personally don't like Korean MMO's, mainly because of the grinding that they enforce. That was one of the reasons i never tried Guild Wars. First the screenshots i were looking at were from factions, so immediately i thought it was an Asian MMO and didn't want to play it. (kind of ironic because I'm Asian)I also was going through the WoW faze where i thought any MMO fails except for WoW...Anyways I don't know why people would think that Guild Wars 2 would incorporate grinding when Anet specifically says its going to be anti-grind. One thing thats kind of strange on Ncsoft's part is that they fired everyone that was working on their casual MMO's like Dungeon Runners and Exteel. I don't have any idea why they would do that.