Guild Wars sells 2 million

Another impressive sales figure was reached in the online role-playing game market today, courtesy of NCsoft and ArenaNet. This time it was the Guild Wars franchise ringing the bell, with its publisher and developer announcing that it had reached 2 million units sold. The series tallied its first million sold in September 2005.

So far, two Guild Wars games have been released for the PC. The original Guild Wars was released in late April of 2005, and Guild Wars Factions, a stand-alone follow-up, was released almost a year later. Both games have sat atop the best-selling PC game charts, with Factions in the number one slot for the month of May 2006.

"ArenaNet continues to take chances in both game design and business model, and it's great to have the fans respond so enthusiastically right out of the gate with Guild Wars Factions," said Patrick Wyatt, cofounder of ArenaNet.

The "chances" Wyatt described include the decision to forgo a monthly subscription fee--something other online games rely on--and instead opt to sell full-priced stand-alone expansions a few times a year.

ArenaNet's other cofounder, Jeff Strain, previously announced that new "episodes" of Guild Wars would come semiannually, and he implied that a third Guild Wars game could come before the end of 2006. Fans of the series have even discovered that the company has registered the domain name www.guildwarsnightfall.com, which they believe will be the name of the game.

Both Guild Wars and Guild Wars Factions are rated T for Teen and retail for $49.99.