Bethesda Explains Why the Monthly Subscription to Elder Scrolls Online is Indisputable

"The wait is almost over, The Elder Scrolls Online launches this week with only three more days to go until we reach its official release date. With undue anticipation, as well as some initial hesitation from the gaming community; Bethesda chose to comment on their decision to construct the MMO through a monthly subscription model. Undermining the audience’s consecutive disappointment that The Elder Scrolls Online wouldn’t be free-to-play, like some of Bethesda’s distinct competitors. Despite the MMORPG niche being rather confined due to the sheer collection of developers, Bethesda and Zenimax Online presented themselves with a great deal of confidence. Reassuring that The Elder Scrolls Online is worth the price tag, and maintains the capability to preserve their subscribers whilst immersing them in the astounding lands of Tamriel."

[Cyb3r]

We want Mo Money

[zeusky]

give us some of that internet monay

http://fourthquartermeltdow...

[Palitera]

60 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 (...)

1. The ones who pay for this, they deserve to be scammed.
2. The game will fail SO hard. People were disliking the beta even being free. And, on PC, you have actually good, cheaper and way more creative MMOs to play.

I am really hoping the sales hit them hard. :)

[Back-to-Back]

MMO monthly pay is a fast way to spell death for your game. WOW is the only game that can get away with this.

[Godmars290]

Unless not enough people pay the subscription.

[DeadRabbits]

Tamriel is going to be as populated as an xbone display booth in downtown Tokoyo!

[joab777]

Yeah, when no one pays subs, it goes free to play, and then the nightmare t ruely begins.

Trust me, for a game that will offer 100's and thousands of hours over the next yrs, its worth the monthly sub to keep content coming.

Seriously, go play a f2p game and come back. U will think differently. Microtransactions ruin everything and ultimately cost much, much more.

Its just odd gow console players will drop $60 for a game that lasts 8 hrs or$15 for dlc but not for something that u will play more than every other game combined.

Thats why I always suggest to play for1 month. If after a month, u dont think its worth $10-15 to keep playing, then it isnt for u. But for those who love it and want more and more content, it is much cheaper to pay a sub than to buy 2-3 new games a month.

[papashango]

Free 2 plays have no place as in MMORPG. They only turn into pay 2 wins.

Subscriptions keep things as even as it gets. people still buy gold however.

[orakle44]

Well said, I never understood why people get so up in arms over paying $15 a month for literally 1000's of hours of game play. I mean $15 is literally 5 coffees/soft drinks, its absolutely peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

[Rickgrimes95]

Dude you are talking about 240$ for one game for the first year are you insane? 60$ up front 180$ a year hell no. With 240$ I can buy 4 brand new 60$ games. Watch dogs, destiny, arkham knight, assassins creed. I'm gonna go buy those instead of spending 240 on one fuckin game

[rdgneoz3]

@ papashango No sub means it would be just pay once and you can use forever (as long as servers are up), not F2P.

And games like Guild Wars 2 show that that kind of model works. It has a cash shop, but for aesthetics only really. Nothing that gives you an advantage over others. And seeing as ESO has a cash shop while have a subscription...

[DragonKnight]

If the want to charge a sub for this game, I personally feel as though they shouldn't have the right to also charge $60 to get the game. It's all about greed.

[Zeroyosh]

@ Joab777,

My problem is not that they are offering a subscription model, im an old hat to that format via wow, eve online etc.

my problem is with the content that is being sold for 15 bucks a month. It's sub standard to the current state of Elder Scrolls games, ok yes skyrim was stripped down to the bare essentials version of an elder scrolls game. but the core gameplay story etc, breathed elder scrolls. it was graphically beautiful at the time, and a modder's paradise.

Zenimax, has taken huge steps back in terms of graphics, and gameplay. and slapped lore in a game looks like it could be any random mmo.

If you never played an Elder Scrolls game, then yeah you might enjoy this, but ...as a ES player, this is just another MMO soup with a few chunks of Elder scrolls, sprinkled into it. that's my problem.

[Hellsvacancy]

What? "for example, you love Skyrim, you played it for 125 hours, but after three or four weeks you were done, then you can do the exact same thing in Elder Scrolls Online.”

But you can go back to Skyrim anytime you want without paying, if after 3 or 4 weeks you want to play ESO you have to cough up money for a month

This game will die on consoles after afew months

[Irishguy95]

But you're replaying content you already played in Skyrim...ESO has new content.

Either way price is too high imo

[Are_The_MaDNess]

still play Skyrim on a weekly basis and have over 900 hours put into that game. and people still is coming back to it since new and great mods gets released every month.

why would i get a stale MMO with the husk of an elder scrolls game over a good elder scrolls game i already have and is still fun?

[Passenger]

Although I defend ESO on PC, I totally agree that it´s a pain to foresee ESOs future on consoles :(

[Cyb3r]

Sorry Bethesda I cant dedicate my wallet to ESO spend my life and money on a single game when there are so many other games I could be playing that don't have a monthly subscription.

[papashango]

You are not the demographic they are looking for.

Move along.

[Bassmint]

What's the demographic,Idiots?

[Applejack]

Are you sure? His avatar and name say otherwise :)

[papashango]

For any MMO the demographic is not gamers that collect a library of games.

MMO's since WOW came along have been catered to people that stick to one game. Usually an mmo that they can dedicate a good few hours of their time each day.

[Agent_hitman]

lol these subscription based MMOs should die. I would rather play Free-to-play MMOs out there that you can download as many times as you want.. And I don't care if it has microtransactions because I think it's just fair.

[Nyromith]

Subscription model is good, as long as you keep the virtual world completely separated from real money. There is nothing I hate more than trading virtual items with real cash - it completely ruins the immersion.

In my opinion real world money should be payed for real world things such as server maintenance and tech support costs, and it has no place in the virtual world economy.

[Meltic]

I'll be having a nice belly laugh when your sales numbers flat line, and the population is practically dead. I'd say good luck but you can't exactly sell that to recoup your losses on this train wreck of an idea. Sorry Bethesda, you got cocky with Skyrim marketing, those sales weren't about to happen again, not with those fees in the way.

I'll gladly try it once you give us all the content for the price of the disc. That should be around the 2 month anniversary when you aren't making money.

[Activemessiah]

I hope this crashes and burn hard.

[RamboRabbi]

Nobody in this comment section has actually played an mmo if you are asking for free to play, completely stupid. WoW has shown everyone for years that a subscription service is the best model for an mmo for regular updates and best developer support, developers aren't going to work for nothing especially considering how big ESO is compared to f2p games like LoL and Dota. If WoW was a free to play game from launch I guarantee it would have shut down by now or just be a complete unsupported mess. Disagree all you want I know for a fact that a game of this size will not survive with a free to play model.

[ArbitorChief]

Yeah... Good luck with that Bethesda, this will be F2P with months.

[il-JumperMT]

I am in favour of payed MMOs, I currently play FFXIV and the new content every 3 months make it worth it.

However from Beta, TESO is an abomination and insult to TES series.

[MasterCornholio]

I'm not against subscription based MMOs but those MMOs have to have a ton of content to justify them.

[Summons75]

And so does this. At launch this is a new elder scrolls game which means it automatically has hundreds of hours of content. Plus over the years we will get updates adding content and fix/maintaining the game and expansions which by normal ES tradition give hundreds more hours of content.

Great thing about this too is it's not forcing you to always be INA group. Except for ones that require you can play solo or with friends.

This'll be fine on subscription. Tons of the beta players loved it and tons more after the last beta. Personally this is the first MMO I can really justify getting behind and investing time into because Ive loved TES since I was a kid. I've played Wow, Ff11/14, Swtor, and a bunch others and I enjoyed them but the forced grouping made it hard to play when friends weren't on plus hotbar controllers I never liked. This plays like TES with some obvious changes for online play/balancing.

[sourav93]

If a game like SWTOR couldn't continue with a subscription model, with all of its amazing new content, I doubt ESO will last very long with a subscription model.

[Summons75]

Difference is swtor had very little end game content. TES games like Skyrim and Oblivion, even Morrowind are still being played today because the seemingly endless content and new content from expansions.

[sourav93]

You sure? Because I remember Bioware releasing expansions with top notch content which including superb voice acting, etc. That's why in my original comment I said "amazing /new/ content". Though I think that was the main downfall of SWTOR, since EA and Bioware could keep releasing enough content of the same quality in time to justify the subscription cost.

[Summons75]

Yeah expansions came way after though. Damage was done at that point. Swtor was a great game but the end game is where a lot of people lost interest.

tES can survive with hundreds of hours without needing a expansions to add in after it should already have been there.

[FoxTC]

On Amazon and I suspect most other retail stores there is no mention of "You can only play this for a month before having to pay out more money." ... Maybe just "First month included" on the box would have sufficed. But nothing! People that loved Skyrim and Oblivion are going to buy this and then have a serious shock that they will have to pay more after a month. Is it even legal? When I buy a game from now on am I going to have to research on the net whether I'm buying a 1 month trial or a full game? Either make it free then charge a monthly or at least include the first YEAR!

[jessupj]

I'm still a little unsure.

I played WoW for a while a few years ago and some of those days are the best moments my gaming life.

But at the same time, $15 a month was very expensive for just one game.

It's not really for console gamers because that demographic likes to play a new game every few weeks or so. So putting that much money into a single game is a very foreign concept to them.

But the people that do play paid MMOs generally just play that game only. That's why they don't have much of an issue spending that much.

[SharnOfTheDEAD]

Nope, have enough going out my account monthly to be forking out more to play a video game. It's stupid, you'll have to pay £50 for the game then have to pay a monthly fee on top?psh

[topgeareasy]

where's fallout 4? FFS

[Smoey]

The game is great.

It's still in the 'headstart' stage and there's 3 of the PVP zones locked already in the EU.

[DFray919]

i cant wait for this to drop on PS4. money no problem!!!! if i dont like it i just stop playin cool wit me!

[Sadist3]

Thy should just charge the initial $60. No game is worth $14 a month

[LAWSON72]

IMO it would be okay if the game did not cost $60.

[Section8]

Indisputably a rip off.