By all the current evidence, Guild Wars 2 seems to have had a successful MMO launch. Just last week, ArenaNet re-released the game for online purchase. This is after halting sales on the title to make sure the overwhelming rush of new players didn’t bring their game crashing to a halt. Today, ArenaNet is releasing Guild Wars 2 to a group not often associated with MMO gaming: Mac users.
ArenaNet stated that the beta version of Guild Wars 2 for OS X is now available to anyone who purchases the game or who has already purchased the game. It connects to the same servers as the PC version and has the same features. It was emphasized, however, that the Mac version of Guild Wars 2 is still in beta, and might have issues.
David Campbell, ArenaNet marketing and web coordinator, stated on the Guild Wars 2 news blog that many ArenaNet employees are Mac users themselves. From the blog post:
Bringing Guild Wars 2 to the Mac is huge for us, because it introduces the game to an entire group of players who are often ignored by game developers. The ability to play together with your friends is one of the underlying principles of Guild Wars 2, and providing a Mac client means that friends and guildmates can play together regardless of what operating system they favor.
On top of it all, ArenaNet staffers are big fans of Macs. We offer them as part of our employee laptop subsidy program, and our president Mike O’Brien is rarely seen without his Mac laptop. We’re as excited as anyone to play Guild Wars 2 on OS X.
Any questions that gamers have about the Mac version of Guild Wars 2 are likely answered in ArenaNet’s Mac Edition FAQ.