Bethesda Exec Defends Elder Scrolls Online's Subscription Model

[Neverhoodian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't EA come up with the same types of arguments to justify The Old Republic's subscription model? I'm sure we all remember how that turned out...

I still don't see why the Elder Scrolls setting should have any type of multiplayer experience in the first place. One of the main reasons I like games like Morrowind and Skyrim so much is that I get to lose myself in the game world without having other players around to break the immersion. Getting killed by a Greater Bonewalker or dragon is one thing, but I'd rather not have an Elder Scrolls experience where I'm ganked by someone named "XxxGangtsavenom420xxX."

 

[softclocks]

Whether the game's worth it or not, why wouldn't he try to convince people?

Obviously it's a controversial choice and in an industry where a lot of games rely on gamer approval, why would he not try to justify their controversial choice?

Is their subscription-model greedy? hell yes!

Is the decision a bad one because he feels the need to justify it? Not necessarily

Nobody asked for this, and now your trying to justify it to us, no thanks, call me when you have a normal elder scrolls game, or fallout 4.

If somebody asked for it, then why would he justify it?

You act like he should try to justify a move because no one asked for said move, which would be opposite of common sense/logic, all that jazz

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

I don't know either way about this game. I've been playing the beta and it's not really worth the 15$ a month to me personally, just my opinion. I do think they have a point with the f2p, all too often f2p becomes predatory practices that force the user to pay up or play a shitty version of the game. to compare, I've been playing marvel heroes since it's release, all in all I've spent around $100 on it. at $15 a month since release i'd have spent $135 dollars on it. it's not really a huge difference in money spent but it is less, and most of that money I spent was in chunks. I would play for a couple months, they did an ingame sale and i'd blow 20-40 bucks on stuff. also for the first few months the game was out it was almost unplayable. and I really liked not having any kind of pressure to log in and play $15 worth each month. I think a $7-$9 subscription rate is a little more sustainable but that's just my opinion any company worth it's salt is going test various price points till they find one that works. I am a little miffed at the $60 price tage on top of the sub fee.

using WOW as an example is a bad idea. it's like saying nike charges $300 for a sneaker so that's what our brand new sneaker company should charge for sneakers. seeing so many new mmos dying because of development costs or just not being able to draw enough audience your mind should not go to what wow does because they are the traditional model but it's the traditional model from 10 years ago. the games industry and pay models have evolved greatly since then lets not forget when wow launched aol was still a thing. it is kind of an outdated game.

 

[Alandoril]

I have no problems paying for a worthwhile subscription game. I actually prefer it over ftp item shop and paywalled games.

This game has FTP item shop and it has a paywall with pre-orders and unlocking all the classes. It's not the fact that this game is a subscription that's a problem but the fact that it abuses all 3 categories at the same time

The only major thing in the collectors edition is the Imperial RACE, not CLASS.

 

[Karadalis]

Final Fantasy XIV also has a subscription model even after the disastrous initial launching. They are making money.

Well they do have the asian market to fall back onto.

Capcom also has subscriptions for its monster hunter multyplayer segments (on consoles, not sure if the handhelds had subscriptions) in all of their MH games in asia and people pay for it, while they had to make the multyplayer parts free here in the west.

You cant really compare that asian market with the western market... two completly different beasts.

And we have plenty of examples showing that a subscription model is simply not feasable for MMOs nowadays.. bigger names then this offshoot of the elder scrolls series that isnt even made by bethesda themselves but rather a 3rd party have failed with subscriptions (TOR being the most famous one, or Warhammer online)

You see players of the Elder scrolls series wich is completly single player arent necesary looking for a MMO.. so who do you have left? Fans of ES wich are ALSO mmo fans... because all other fantasy mmo players allready have an oversaturated market with the emperror sitting on its golden (yet slowly decaying) subscription throne ontop of the fast ocean of f2p fantasy mmos. So why would fans of MMOs pay a monthly subscription if you have options like guildwars 2 which almost does the exact same thing as ESO or WoW wich will get ANOTHER expansion this year that adds even more features to the massive list that game allready has going for it.

14.99 dollars a month just for the setting and aesthetics? No thank you.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I might get a subscription, if I could afford it.
Currently my monthly expenses are going into maintaining my minecraft server.

 

[Flutterguy]

Still looks better then MMO I've played. Just being able to PvP in an elder scrolls game is enough to make me a happy customer. I'm sorry guys, it doesn't look that bad to me.

 

[ron1n]

The thing that annoys me is that all Sub based MMO's roll out the same arbitrary $15 a month as if it's some kind of unwritten law.

Why not $5 a month? would be a lot more reasonable. Or even better, why not $15 a month for the first couple months and then drop it down to $5 a month for those loyal enough to keep subbing?

There's dozens of different ways they could structure it. Give the customer options!

 

[Karadalis]

Still looks better then MMO I've played. Just being able to PvP in an elder scrolls game is enough to make me a happy customer. I'm sorry guys, it doesn't look that bad to me.

Its not a "elder scrolls" game thought.. its an MMO with MMO mechanics.. complete with standard mmo cooldown skill mechanics and theme park gameplay.

The combat system is nothing like Oblivion or Skyrim so i kinda dont get your comparison here. I mean if the combat system wasnt just a window dressed free target version of every other mmo fighting system out there maybe.. but right now its nothing but hitting your cooldown abilities, and clipjump through your enemies while wildly swinging (clicking) your weapons at your enemy.

Heck TERA does a better job at it.

ESO does nothing unique or interesting enough to warant 15 dollars a month.

Now its still your money and all but dont try to sell the game for more than its really worth, and im afraid that is something that Cenimax is going to have to experirience for themselves... this game is not worth the subscription to most players.

 

[mechalynx]

Come on.

You said, "the $14.99 subscription will be pricier than other MMORPGs,"

All MMORPGs that do have a sub fee, charge that, and they have been for 10+ years.
That's zero inflation in a decade. Try finding that on any other commodity in the marketplace today.

Just saying.

The cost of maintaining an MMO is not constant over the years. As the years pass, there is less and less need for glitch fixes and optimization. You don't need as much manpower to service the game. Look at Guild Wars. It's more or less automated now, so any new money they receive is almost 100% profit.

Just saying.

I am getting more and more miffed by the situation every day. I've read somewhere that Beth will be charging the dirty europeans outside of UK 13 Euros/month. At the currect currency value I'll stand to lose ~20 SEK (3 USD/2GBP) every month just by living in the wrong country, compared to UK and US.

Might not sound much, but still unfair since the Swedish game price is around 78 USD.

Think I'll be cancelling my pre-order, or at least downgrading it to a standard edition.

 

[Dimitriov]

Yeah the problem is that the product is just shitty. The graphics and animations reminded me of Oblivion not Skyrim.

Graphical quality aside the artwork was bland, and somewhat... not good. The models for head-piece armor made a human character look like a gnome in WoW they were so over-sized (only a slight exaggeration).

There isn't even real magic, there is barely any real differentiation between classes, and the whole experience is just kind of boring. I have no idea what beta the people who have said good things about this game were playing.

My initial impression was "well it looks shitty, but at least it also runs poorly."


I love the Elderscrolls and I love MMOs. I am the target audience for this game and they fucked it up so bad I wouldn't play for free, nevermind $15 a month.

 

[Therumancer]

I guess it depends on where you are, I'm sort of burned out on a lot of the MMOS I play so I'm looking forward to this quite a bit after having done the beta. It is not great, but it's not terrible either. The combat reminds me a lot of "Neverwinter", and largely turned into what it is because of so many people complaining about "tab targeting", I think in the end ESO will in part demonstrate why that wasn't a bad idea, while remaining fairly functional in it's own right.

As far as how much it costs, when you consider what a lot of other "free" games oftentimes cost if your not turning them into a lifestyle and want to play them at a high level, $15 a month isn't bad. To put it into perspective you could play ESO for three months for the cost of buying one of the flagship bundles in STO (if you wanted the console set).

I have not seen ESO's cash shop yet (though I haven't really looked) but if that's true I admit this kind of double dipping DOES irk me, especially if they wind up deciding to sell things like inventory spaces and other things that have an actual in-game effect.

That said I don't generally care what most people wind up thinking, when I play it for real I can make my own decisions. If I have a problem I'll drop my opinion on the forums, and if I don't see a good chance of improvement I'll just cancel my subscription and move on. ESO has a lot of direct competition coming up in the near future, I've also been looking at games like "Wildstar" (even if I think the graphics are a little too cartoony and stylized... even more so than WoW).

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Why does he feel the need to defend it? People have already made up their mind.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

It's pretty fucked up you have to "defend" a subscription model now, so many people live in a fantasy world where you can get something expensive for free. And they even feel entitled to it...

Subscription fee is the ONLY way to have a successful MMO of quality and longevity though constant development, it's a question of elementary school math. If you don't think the price tag is worth it you move on and get something else, not demand it's given to you for free -.-

Getting that off my chest I'll also say I've been in ESO beta for a while now and I have no desire to play the game at all.
If it was free tomorrow I still wouldn't play it.

I think we can all agree that the item shop and the paywall are inexcusable, but this jumping on the MMO F2P train THAT DOESN'T EXIST it's starting to piss me off:x

 

[Isalan]

Seems like the gist of this is "Give us money, and I'll give you these questionable promises!"

My problem with ESO has been around since I learned about the collectors edition and the in game real money shop. They're milking this thing like an 8 armed man trapped in a dairy, and its not even OUT yet. What does that tell you about their hopes for the game? Make as much cash, as quickly as possible, free-to-play in 12 months.

I'll be honest, I haven't played it. Some people seem to like it, some people really hate it. No one seems to be deeply in love with the game, spouting hyperbolic gibberish about how it will change everything (at least no one who doesn't work for their marketing department).

Really, that's the other problem for me. When you boil it down, its a hotkey based 3rd/1st person MMO, just like all the rest. The Elder Scrolls universe alone is not even close to getting me interested in another MMO, especially one that looks so generic and bland.

 

[elvor0]

Still looks better then MMO I've played. Just being able to PvP in an elder scrolls game is enough to make me a happy customer. I'm sorry guys, it doesn't look that bad to me.

Just out of interest have you played it? Because while it has promise, it's certainly not in a state to be released in 3 weeks. Because the combat for starters is really clunky and awkward. The main issue is that nothing is solid, thus attacking will 50% of the time, move you through the enemy and out the other side, meaning combat because very fustrating as you're having to readjust for moving through a sodding enemy, makes the combat feel as floaty as a feather, with no meat or satisfaction at all. The enemies don't even have a "reaction" animation to you hitting them.

Clipping through enemies is fine in a standard MMO seting is fine, because you don't really move around a whole lot in PvE, or at least not in a toe to toe sense, but here it feels awful.

It still feels like it's in heavy beta, and really, really needs to be pushed back if they don't want to shoot themselves in the foot, (which they can't, as it's doubtless shipped or at least printed by now) or they're going to have to pull a FF14 and rebuild the damn thing from scratch. I mean FF14 is good fun now, I'm playing it at the moment, but you should /need/ to go down that route with an MMO, the launch is everything.

You can justify subscription model only if you have a service to provide. It this case, service is the potential content that will come in the future. So here's the question: why would I want to pay for something that is not yet ready? Not even that; why would I want to pay for something that I know nothing about? Cable is a service, right? Or interner. I pay monthly for it and I know what I get every single time. What am I getting from this service? A DLC-ish type of content? Okay, what if I dont like it? Or what if I dont care for it? What then? I am certain no one will refund me. I mean there is no way that every single "content update" will appeal to everyone. And yet I have to pay for it. I dont have to pay for my neighbor's cable? Or his car insurance. Or his electric bills. Honestly, I just dont understand this model.

However they try to justify it, the subscription model is, has been, and always will be solely about greed. It doesn't matter how good the game is either, it could be the best video game that ever has or ever will be made and it still would not be worth a subscription. The simple fact is, I paid money to buy this game, it is my possession, and it is the publisher's responsibility to ensure that it works in full now and in the foreseeable future, doesn't matter if it's an MMO or a single player game. The subscription model is the most blatantly obvious ripoff in the entire industry and no other industry could get away with selling their customers a product in full and then taking it away after a month or 2 unless you paid more.

I wouldn't say that myself. At least in a sub scription model, I'm on level ground with everyone else, most F2P mmos, now /they/ are greedy. Sure you can play for free, but can you do anything worth a damn? Most of the time no, you're hamstringed at every turn just so they can get you to pay for stuff, and it's not like League of Legends where buying stuff is just a time saver, a lot of the time you just flat out can't access stuff. Or even then it ends up being cheaper to just buy a sub to the game if it's available than just micro transactions.

SWOTOR for example, in F2P mode you can only have one profession, which is almost pointless as you need a second one to do anything with professions, you have to pay to hide your hat, you have limited bag space and wallet space in DC Universe online. And I'm not fucking paying for that on principle, ergo, those games can do one.

If F2P functioned more like LoL, then I'm more than happy to pay for stuff, because I'm not cut off from anything aside from cosmetics by playing for free. And because I don't constatnly feel like I'm being prodded and poked(or kicked and punched) to pay, I will do to get those cosmetics, or the odd character, because I want to support them for making a decent product.

I'm not playing WoW anymore, but I always felt like my £8.99 a month was worth it, as for 656 hours worth of playtime, that's pretty fucking good, works out at about 10p an hour. Barely anything else is that cheap, I mean if you can't afford that little a month on leisure time, then don't pay it. When I was poor, WoW certainly played last fiddle to paying the rent, food, etc. Then when I was working, I could afford 8.99 a month. Because it's not that much.

 

[elvor0]

-oops misposted instead of adding to my original one-

 

[the27thvoice]

"We're not trying to make a game that everybody who plays games will automatically buy," he said. "It is a certain kind of game. There's no shooter elements. There's no aliens. It is a massive, 'Go where you want, do what you want' game that we think offers the kind of experience that's worthy of a subscription."

Is this true? I haven't played the game, but I'd really like to know if I can move to a small town and start an inn, running that by taking care of weary travellers, brewing mead and maybe hire another player to be a bard. Can I really go where I want and do what I want?
Or does he mean "Go where you want, kill what you want, with a selection of medieval weaponry."

 

[SecondPrize]

1) You have to pay 60$ to buy it
2) You pay 15$ a month to play it
3) It has a real money shop in game
4) Some content is locked behind a paywall (aka collectors edition)

It's pretty obvious they are milking it for more than its worth. After playing beta for 4 hours, I was so bored, I don't think I would be picking it up after it goes f2p 6 months from now.

There's a lot of people who mention this in game cash shop. None of those people work for ZOS. They said they'd offer quality of life stuff like name changes through your account management, they've never mentioned an in game cash shop.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I wouldn't say that myself. At least in a sub scription model, I'm on level ground with everyone else, most F2P mmos, now /they/ are greedy. Sure you can play for free, but can you do anything worth a damn? Most of the time no, you're hamstringed at every turn just so they can get you to pay for stuff, and it's not like League of Legends where buying stuff is just a time saver, a lot of the time you just flat out can't access stuff. Or even then it ends up being cheaper to just buy a sub to the game if it's available than just micro transactions.

SWOTOR for example, in F2P mode you can only have one profession, which is almost pointless as you need a second one to do anything with professions, you have to pay to hide your hat, you have limited bag space and wallet space in DC Universe online. And I'm not fucking paying for that on principle, ergo, those games can do one.

If F2P functioned more like LoL, then I'm more than happy to pay for stuff, because I'm not cut off from anything aside from cosmetics by playing for free. And because I don't constatnly feel like I'm being prodded and poked(or kicked and punched) to pay, I will do to get those cosmetics, or the odd character, because I want to support them for making a decent product.

I'm not playing WoW anymore, but I always felt like my £8.99 a month was worth it, as for 656 hours worth of playtime, that's pretty fucking good, works out at about 10p an hour. Barely anything else is that cheap, I mean if you can't afford that little a month on leisure time, then don't pay it. When I was poor, WoW certainly played last fiddle to paying the rent, food, etc. Then when I was working, I could afford 8.99 a month. Because it's not that much.

Those F2P games that lock away stuff needed to be able to actually play the game like you mentioned are really no better than a subscription model. It doesn't matter how little per hour the fees come to in the end, the truth is all that stuff should be available to the player just for playing the initial purchase price for as long as they possess the game like with single player games. I have gotten hundreds of hours out of single player games just for the initial purchase price and not a cent more, and that's the way it should be with MMOs. The Pay 2 Win and Subscription models exist solely so the people who made it can sit on their asses and pretty much do nothing especially nothing to justify the cost while people throw money at them endlessly, at least that's what they're all going for.