A few days ago, ArenaNet finally spread the news of when you will be able to pre-purchase Guild Wars 2, and what goodies you can expect from pre-purchasing one of three upcoming editions. While still not an announcement of the much yearned for release date, the news is an important milestone in the development of the game. On April 10, those who are sure about the success of Guild Wars 2 will be able to voice their certainty with their wallets, and ArenaNet will be able to gauge the preliminary measure of interest there is in their ambitious project. In addition to this mutual benefit, the news also comes with an unspoken message – ArenaNet are steadily nearing completion. Good news all around, and that’s not even mentioning the goodies all three editions will come with – a free ticket to all beta events, the ability to join the game three days ahead of launch, and a fashionable ring to aid you in early levels.

The official page ArenaNet has put up – https://buy.guildwars2.com/ – details the aforementioned editions, on top of the promise to accept digital pre-purchases come next month. The page fails to mention an important note here but one of ArenaNet’s always helpful community managers pointed out on the Guild Wars 2 Guru forums: you will not only be able to pre-purchase physical (and in the case of some stores, digital) copies via retail, some retailers will also offer a pre-order program, meaning you can order without paying in full in advance – just in case you need to save up for that Rytlock statue that comes with the luxurious Collector’s Edition. If you decide on pre-ordering instead of pre-purchasing, take note you will only have one-day headstart access to the final game, as opposed to three.

So, to reiterate the news, the three editions of the game that will become available for pre-purchase on April 10 are Standard/Digital Edition, Digital Deluxe and Collector’s Edition. Although initially the official page only had a price tag on the Collector’s Edition, recently the page has been updated to include the prices retailers and news sites have been reporting. As it has been known before, the first edition is priced at $60/£50/€55, while the Digital Deluxe is priced at $80/£65/€75. The ultimate edition – Collector’s Edition – costs a whopping $149.99/£129.99/€149,99. This is what many fans came across as they read the news, and it’s not hard to understand that, upon noticing the pricing, the excitement took a bit of a hit for many. Controversy has risen. Are such high prices justified? Well, let’s start from the top.

The Digital Edition, or otherwise Standard Edition, is perhaps the easiest to justify. The price tag is still more than what you would shell out for a video game a few years ago, but the truth is, the same could have been said “a few years ago