Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure the poster you replied to meant the original Guild Wars, which, so far as I'm aware of, was a 'buy once, and play for life' model. No micro transactions there.

View on HN

Guild Wars 1 had micro-transactions for additional (DRM-ed!) music to unlock if you got bored with the base game songs as some of us did. It was an odd experiment (that I recall I paid for) that got shut down, taking the DRMed music with it as the DRM servers also shutdown, to some frustration at least from me as I had assumed it to be a more traditional soundtrack purchase.

I recall there being other micro-transactions for cosmetics in Guild Wars 1 as well, across its early lifespan, but of course, it certainly was not quite to the degree of Guild Wars 2's "Gem Shop".

(ETA: You don't have to take my word for it. It was called "DirectSong": https://guildwars.fandom.com/wiki/DirectSong)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com