Can Elder Scrolls Online Live With a Subscription Fee?

US Gamer - Today, Zenimax Online general manager Matt Firor announced that the Elder Scrolls Online would have a subscription fee. No free-to-play options, just the classic $14.99 a month deal some have been paying for World of Warcraft since 2004. In a talk with GameStar, Firor said that a subscription fee just feels right for Elder Scrolls Online.

[adventureghost124]

not for me. If we have to pay 60$ for the game and then 15 $ month for a subscription than that's outrageous. No game is worth that much. IM TALKING ABOUT YOU FFXIV! I've seen the gameplay and this subscription will surely kill it. You just cant survive in the mmo market with having it behind a paywall, considering that most are free to begin with

[Monkeysmarts]

FFXIV is less than $30 on PC and $40 for PS3. Remains to be seen what the price will be on PS4 but I would imagine around the same... hopefully PS3 gamers will be able to get the PS4 version at a discount to cross over. FFXIV actually is a very good game though... it's essentially the kind of game that FF fans have been kicking and screaming for the franchise to return to. Well worth a subscription to keep the game at a quality level in my opinion.

ESO looks several notches below FFXIV... or any other big MMO for that matter. It will fail miserably with a $15 sub and I think the game will be F2P before it's even 3 months out of the gate.

FFXIV on the other hand will be more popular than FFXI was - and FFXI maintained a sub fairly successfully for years.

[adventureghost124]

Good point but still do you honestly feel good that you would spend a month on a game you are only going to get so much out of? there are plenty of other mmorpg's that are F2P sure there is stuff in game to purchase but that's how they work. If I already pay for a game I shouldn't have to pay more to use it. To me it just shows that they knew it was going to sell terribly. So they just squeezed as much as they could out of it

[Monkeysmarts]

Well I know some people have that psychological thing with a monthly sub... like if you're not playing it constantly then you are wasting your money. I just don't have that, personally. The $12 or $15 per month is a price to pay for a game that's going to give you much longer life than most AAA titles even... plus the servers are not cheap at all to maintain.

F2P is good for trying out games you'd probably never buy in the first place, but I am really not a fan of F2P MMOs. They always rope you into some pay to win mechanic where you can't even really enjoy the game unless you're dumping cash into it all the time. I hate getting nickel and dimed for my gameplay experience. Subs or a system like GW2 put everyone on a level playing field at least. Although I would say the vast majority of MMOs are not worth it.

[mewhy32]

RIP

[BlingBlaine]

Not a chance Im paying monthly for skyrim online, Im burned out anyways after 500 hrs of skyrim.

[bohemian 23]

Not happening. Unless that's the only game I played.

[spaceg0st]

I would've picked it up, as I did skyrim... But I'm no longer interested. Too bad

[VitaOwner]

Wow, Elder Scrolls Online just lost a lot of customers including myself. Like bohemian 23 said, I would only pay that if that was the only game I planned on playing. With so many great games coming out, my attention will be too divided to get my money's worth out of paying a monthly fee. Hopefully the pay to play model for this game fails and they go free to play.

[FRAKISTAN]

Not on the consoles anyway,I'm going to pay $60-70 for the game and than pay for PS plus as well and than pay the damn subscription as well.

the model they should have followed on consoles atleast was buy to play,where u buy the game and just play it.

[DrRobotnik]

There are too many good F2P MMO's out there right now. Even the mighty WOW is switching to a F2P format. Bethesda might need to re-think there strategy.

[k3x]

Blizzard's making a fukton of money off of the subs they have. Why would they be going F2P and giving it all up? Just because they're testing microtransactions doesn't mean they're going F2P; they're adding some F2P-like items/microtransactions to make some additional cash from people who are subbed AND are willing to spend even more. Any other scenario does not even make sense for a game that, even after losing over 1.5mil players, is still at a level of popularity that no other MMO in the Western market could dream of.

Why are so many new MMOs F2P nowadays? 9/10 MMOs come from Asia. They look the same, they play the same, they're the same cookie cutter pieces of crap nobody in their right mind would pay a monthly fee for, so they have to be F2P in hopes of attracting a few people with more money than sense and taste. Then there are the Western MMOs that had to go F2P soon after release because they tried to be WOW too much. It turns out, though, that WOW is better at being WOW than some unimaginative copy of it. I don't think anyone in the game development business caught on yet, so expect a few more big budget flops like SWTOR.

I'd gladly go back to the days when paying a monthly sub for playing MMOs was something to be expected. There was a lot of freshness and diversity and everyone seemed to have their own ideas about how to do things instead of trying to emulate their competitors in a pathetically desperate manner. And I'll gladly sub to this game if it turns out to be good after the first, "free" month.

[kornbeaner]

I wish some of these MMOs gave their users a discount if they bought subscription blocks instead of sticking them with a high monthly payment. $100 a year is a better deal than $15 a month or $35 for 3 months would be good as well. We'll have to see how it goes.

[k3x]

That's how it's usually done. If you sub for 3 months, you get a discount. Bigger ones for 6 and then 12 months.

[kornbeaner]

I haven't really noticed it though. Granted my MMO experience is limited, I have only noticed that when you buy subscription blocks you buy blocks at the regular rate. 3 months for $45 and so on. But Sub cost needs to be lower in this day in age. In a age where F2P have brought up the quality of MMOs I see no reason to pay $15 a month for any game.

[310dodo]

I love Bethesda games but I wont pay $15 a month to play them.

no thanks