Did you honestly believe ESO would not go b2p before console launch?

Naivefanboi

KBKB wrote: »

No was obvious because.. Sub fees with consoles + ESO too much to pay, Fanbois can suck it so many denied it and said the game was thriving perhaps they will go out and get a pair of glasses now once they stop wailing from the basement.

enjoy watching it fail on console rofl.


yea subs are dead, no one subscribes to final fantasy realm reborn or WoW....

Nazon_Katts

“To hope for the best and prepare for the worst, is a trite but a good maxim.”

mamericus

ZoS said there were no plans to go F2P and I absolutely believed it. I believe in trusting people. Guilty as charged.

staticstorm

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

Uh no kinda had to see it coming cause PS4 and crapbox 1 both require you to buy plus / live to play online. So stack that ontop of ESO subscripton fee and they be like 40... 50 ... bucks a month to pay. Sure you can buy a yearly thing but that be well over 120 bucks just to play a online game. So yea kinda had to see this coming.

FF14 says hi, for the PS4, for game other than F2P games on either console cute that you a fan of sony tho you need XBlive or PS plus.

and for them you also get free games per month.

grimjim398

I had no idea how console subscriptions work since I don't play console games. Now that I understand that there's a subscription to pay just to access the console network, it seems obvious this change was coming all along, which makes me even more puzzled that Zenimax pretended otherwise. Puzzled is actually a mild word. It makes the deception on Zenimax's part seem far more deliberate, and pretty clueless on their part. I don't expect companies to be completely honest (though I certainly prefer that they do) but once you realize you're dealing with a vendor who's clueless, it's time to move on. If I can make the adjustment to a game that's B2P or F2P, then I can also make the adjustment to another game altogether, and that's what I'm going to do in this case. There's no fun left in this game now since every time I log on I'll remember that I was deceived by the developers for no good reason at all, and that doesn't make for a a good way to spend a few hours in a game.

Nazon_Katts

mamericus wrote: »

ZoS said there were no plans to go F2P and I absolutely believed it. I believe in trusting people. Guilty as charged.

Trusting people is ok. Just don't trust corporations.

burningcrow

All those people that burned people for saying it is going B2P have vanished.

Vicodine

Denial - knew it was coming with console release.
- Denied to admit it would be the same for PC/Mac.

Morvul

Vicodine wrote: »

Denial - knew it was coming with console release.
- Denied to admit it would be the same for PC/Mac.

pretty much this.
The B2P/F2P move was relatively obvious - but I dared to hope that they would find a way to stick with P2P

HeroOfNone

I suspected something like this would happen due to one company alone: Microsoft.

The X-Box console has never allowed an online game to skip out of their gold membership, at least to my knowledge. This means that folks would have to pay for gold membership as well as the sub fee.

With Sony, if they made ESO an exclusive title like FF14 did, the may have gotten away with no online fee in addition to subscription, but being cross platform means Sony is going to want it's due, and are not going to let Microsoft get the more profitable deal.

So, at the point you know that there is going to be a 15 dollar a month charge on either before your subscription fee, how can you get people to sign up and make a profit? A B2P model is one of the few viable options.

This is coming to us on PC first though due to "fairness", they don't want to lose more players because the console is getting a different model than us. I feel the announcement was a bit rushed, but hearing the console date at the same time makes me feel the two were connected.

Djem

I started TESO a month ago because it was so cheap during the Christmas sale. Before that opportunity, I was actually waiting for it to go F2P / B2P. It was pretty obvious.

Elsonso

In this case, belief is the signature of faith.

In terms of a cloud of probability, let's just say that the announcement lacked a certain amount of surprise.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

asteldian wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I did not think it would happen because this is such a bad decision I could not fathom how it could cross their mind.

I guess that in todays world, it is naive to expect people to avoid mistakes endengering their livelihood.

11M Skyrim sales on console is what made B2P cross their minds. A serious influx of cash that a decade of subs won't give, even if just half buy this.
Money is always the reason. Why should they care if the game goes to *** in a year? The payout is well worth it from a business sense.
I will stay until the inevitable happens. With all the money they make with console release there will be no reason for them to ruin the game until nexxt financial year. That's when they will really start milking the cash shop and wasting more time there than with content. So until then just have fun and keep an eye out for other mmos in the making

It's a great cash influx now, but at the cost of forfeiting any stability and ongoing growth the sub model allows.
In a business sense, this is a very bad decision, the type of decision that made a lot of companies go bankrupt by focusing on the short term rather than the long term.
MMOs are cash cows, not sell and forget products.

Let's think in terms of raw numbers:
Even if they were to sell as much as Skyrim, which I doubt, that would be 660 millions in one go. And that's being generous and admit they could completely exhaust their potential market.

ESO has been reported to have 772k subscribers in last July, there is no way to confirm tangibly those numbers, but if an hardcore PvP game like eve can get 700k subs, a high profile TES based themepark can definitely reach 800k.
Of course that would require ongoing improvement, following the traditional MMO model, but it should keep on growing over the years. And burn out is a myth, only games that became bad lose customers.
So that's 144m revenue a year, without counting box sales, for a virtually unlimited time.

And 800k subscribers is a low estimate. If Eve has been growing for the past 11 years with a small pool of available players, how high can ESO end with the pool of players it has at its disposition?
(themepark players (17M) and Skyrim players(20M overall) )

The best business decision is to always make the choice that will gain the most absolute money, and the subscription model is exactly that.

Cogo

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

ESO has been reported to have 772k subscribers in last July, there is no way to confirm tangibly those numbers, but if an hardcore PvP game like eve can get 700k subs, a high profile TES based themepark can definitely reach 800k.

Where did you get this? Source?

rylixav

Blud wrote: »

Where you actually surprised by this?

I personally don't think it will ever actually launch on consoles at all. Lots of MMOs claim that they'll be on consoles eventually, and then after multiple delays they quietly kill it. That's what I expect to happen here.

Elridge

Their choice was either:

make the console launch as a sub fee game (which has been tested but has never worked on a console to my knowledge, customers would be paying 2 sub fees, one to ZoS and the other to the console)

Make the consoles b2p but keep the sub fee on computer (which would anger Pc players due to unfairness)

or make them both b2p (the most logical option of the 3)

I mean they could have just said no to consoles as a fourth option, which personally I would have liked more (but that's just me). It will reach a larger audience, to bring in more cash, to "hopefully" create a better game.

purple-magicb16_ESO

Knew it was inevitable at some point (noting the high cost as a good plan for business suicide) but I didn't think it would happen before console launch. Guess they weren't as committed to their original plan as I thought...

Syldayan

I believe they have enought sub for taking the game more than a year in sub and i dont know how console works.

But i'm sure at a time the game going f2p , but not now ...

eventide03b14a_ESO

Sweet vindication. I said two days ago:

"Would anyone honestly be surprised if they announced upon the release of 1.6 that there is a new integrated store to purchase items right in the game and that it's now F2P? Is it possible that's why it's January 20th and we still have no idea when 1.6 is going to PTS? This game as severely disappointment longtime fans of TES and hasn't really offered an alternative to veteran MMO players. They tried too hard to appeal to both and I'm sad to say that strategy has failed. "

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/146749/f2p-rumours-gathering-pace-in-the-media/p1

Take those 10 LOL and shove them.

@lordrichter‌ I believe you quoted me and then replied:

I saw "The Mole" posting his stuff and was unimpressed. As I recall, it was like two paragraphs that basically restated what others have already said.

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »
Would anyone honestly be surprised if they announced upon the release of 1.6 that there is a new integrated store to purchase items right in the game and that it's now F2P?


Actually, yes. I would be surprised.

Edit: And "gathering pace" is an interesting choice of words for something that has really been cooling off in the media for the last week.

Don't underestimate their complete disregard for us.

LonePirate

When ZOS committed themselves to the consoles, they made B2P/F2P an inevitability. Console players won't pay two sub fees and PC players won't pay a sub fee if console players don't have to pay one.

ZOS dumping the consoles was the only way to maintain the sub fee model. As a business, they could not pass up the chance to sell a couple million copies (at a minimum) of the game at $60 apiece.

The only things those of us on the PC can hope for is that cash shop doesn't consume the game and that we will continue (start?) to receive content updates. Unfortunately, neither of those is guaranteed.

eventide03b14a_ESO

EQOAnostalgia wrote: »

Knew this would happen waaaay back when the game was still being beta tested lol. MMO's are a very very very tough space to compete in. Right now the only sub based mmo's making money are WoW and FFXIV... i think FFXI is still going too so i guess 3? I'm not aware of any others with sub fees actually making money. I don't mind B2P as long as it's done right and isn't P2W, straight up F2P on the other hand is pure garbage.

It's only because they made bad decisions at every turn. If they had stayed true to Elder Scrolls mechanics and game play instead of WoW with an Elder Scrolls skin they could have had a very dedicated fanbase. They were handed success on a silver platter and they completely ruined it. Skyrim sold over 20 million copies as of last year.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/446995/skyrim-reaches-20-million-sales-milestone/

WoW at it's pinnacle only had 12.5 million subscribers.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/

They literally only had to make "Skyrim Online" to be successful and yet they chose to make "World of Elder Warcraft-Short Bus Edtion". The likelihood that we are going to ever get a good TES MMO is now pretty much nonexistent. I can only hope that TES VI has multiplayer support because that's the closest we are going to get. This game has become an embarrassment to the franchise.

kieso

I'm innocent!

eventide03b14a_ESO

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

I suspected something like this would happen due to one company alone: Microsoft.

The X-Box console has never allowed an online game to skip out of their gold membership, at least to my knowledge. This means that folks would have to pay for gold membership as well as the sub fee.

With Sony, if they made ESO an exclusive title like FF14 did, the may have gotten away with no online fee in addition to subscription, but being cross platform means Sony is going to want it's due, and are not going to let Microsoft get the more profitable deal.

So, at the point you know that there is going to be a 15 dollar a month charge on either before your subscription fee, how can you get people to sign up and make a profit? A B2P model is one of the few viable options.

This is coming to us on PC first though due to "fairness", they don't want to lose more players because the console is getting a different model than us. I feel the announcement was a bit rushed, but hearing the console date at the same time makes me feel the two were connected.

Don't blame Microsoft for ESO's bad decisions.

HeroOfNone

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

I suspected something like this would happen due to one company alone: Microsoft.

The X-Box console has never allowed an online game to skip out of their gold membership, at least to my knowledge. This means that folks would have to pay for gold membership as well as the sub fee.

With Sony, if they made ESO an exclusive title like FF14 did, the may have gotten away with no online fee in addition to subscription, but being cross platform means Sony is going to want it's due, and are not going to let Microsoft get the more profitable deal.

So, at the point you know that there is going to be a 15 dollar a month charge on either before your subscription fee, how can you get people to sign up and make a profit? A B2P model is one of the few viable options.

This is coming to us on PC first though due to "fairness", they don't want to lose more players because the console is getting a different model than us. I feel the announcement was a bit rushed, but hearing the console date at the same time makes me feel the two were connected.

Don't blame Microsoft for ESO's bad decisions.

Blame is a strong word, but ZOS is absolutely dancing to the tune of what Microsoft would offer. It was ZOS's choice to offer ESO on all consoles and to go with the B2P model, but those choices are largely colored by the restrictions Microsoft places on its online access.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Cogo wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

ESO has been reported to have 772k subscribers in last July, there is no way to confirm tangibly those numbers, but if an hardcore PvP game like eve can get 700k subs, a high profile TES based themepark can definitely reach 800k.

Where did you get this? Source?

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/18/report-swtor-fourth-biggest-sub-mmo-elder-scrolls-has-over-770/

Follow the link web towards superdata and read up a bit. A lot of very interesting data.
The company that released them is suposed to be in contact directly with publishers and companies and has been cited in high profile publications so they are somewhat credible. No one came out and said they were wrong though.
But as I said, there is no way to confirm those numbers so take them with a grain of salt.

@Elridge‌ and @LonePirate‌

There is a precedent in the form of Final Fantasy.
The issue is not that console players are not willing to pay for MMOs, it is that there are very little valid offering of MMOs on console.
In the end, could someone confirm, but I believe that the PSN+ and xbox live are mandatory to play online, so if it is the case, most gamers that would be interested on ESO are probably already playing it for other games.

The sub model never was a limitation for good games that were worth it.

@eventide03b14a_ESO‌

While I do enjoy ESO as it is, I do agree that taking a sandbox approach rather than a themepark approach would have been far more succesful and could have carved a stronger niche.
The fantasy sandbox space is currently empty and full of indie projects in development or completely dead. An AAA fantasy MMO with the strength of the TES IP would have killed it.

But on the bright side, AvA is fairly sandbox and a great zone to do PvE too. The justice system and the upcoming spell crafting research concept are interesting too.
I hope that despite the switch of model we'll still get those player driven or exploration system implemented, and more to come i nthe same vein.
Unfortunately, such systems are not compatible with an f2p model, so it is highly unlikely we'll see more than what has already been announced.

eventide03b14a_ESO

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Cogo wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

ESO has been reported to have 772k subscribers in last July, there is no way to confirm tangibly those numbers, but if an hardcore PvP game like eve can get 700k subs, a high profile TES based themepark can definitely reach 800k.

Where did you get this? Source?

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/18/report-swtor-fourth-biggest-sub-mmo-elder-scrolls-has-over-770/

Follow the link web towards superdata and read up a bit. A lot of very interesting data.
The company that released them is suposed to be in contact directly with publishers and companies and has been cited in high profile publications so they are somewhat credible. No one came out and said they were wrong though.
But as I said, there is no way to confirm those numbers so take them with a grain of salt.

@Elridge‌ and @LonePirate‌

There is a precedent in the form of Final Fantasy.
The issue is not that console players are not willing to pay for MMOs, it is that there are very little valid offering of MMOs on console.
In the end, could someone confirm, but I believe that the PSN+ and xbox live are mandatory to play online, so if it is the case, most gamers that would be interested on ESO are probably already playing it for other games.

The sub model never was a limitation for good games that were worth it.

@eventide03b14a_ESO‌

While I do enjoy ESO as it is, I do agree that taking a sandbox approach rather than a themepark approach would have been far more succesful and could have carved a stronger niche.
The fantasy sandbox space is currently empty and full of indie projects in development or completely dead. An AAA fantasy MMO with the strength of the TES IP would have killed it.

But on the bright side, AvA is fairly sandbox and a great zone to do PvE too. The justice system and the upcoming spell crafting research concept are interesting too.
I hope that despite the switch of model we'll still get those player driven or exploration system implemented, and more to come i nthe same vein.
Unfortunately, such systems are not compatible with an f2p model, so it is highly unlikely we'll see more than what has already been announced.

I really hope you're right. I cancelled my sub today. At the very least I don't have to pay for a shoddy TES game anymore.

bosmern_ESO

I knew something was going to be changed with the subscriptions because Console players would only have been paying for PS+ or XBL, while PC players are paying $15.

I knew that this would happen, in no way would it be fair if PC gamers who supported the game from the start would have to pay more to play than console gamers.

Terminus

The question was,
Did you think it would go B2P before Consoles launched.

I did not.

What I thought was, they were going to release Update 6, and based on the reactions towards it (seeing as its the largest patch that has ever been done to ESO), that it would determine if it went B2P or not.

Aka... The decision would be dependent on the success of Update 6.

Elridge

@frosth.darkomenb16_ESO‌ I know they stated in the recent twitch stream people will need to pay for Plus or Live, to play. (not positive at what time though, so you may still want to check my facts)

To be honest there's very little valid offers for MMOs on PC too, not just consoles lol (at least in my opinion) which might be why we haven't seen a successful sub model in quite some time. The market is flooded with sub par MMOs that barely compete with the others. While the giant MMOs from a decade ago got a grip on people while the market was fresh with little competition and kept their customers pretty happy. The "standard" right now is just set pretty low (not saying that's ZoS fault, but rather the MMO market as a whole)

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Elridge wrote: »

@frosth.darkomenb16_ESO‌ I know they stated in the recent twitch stream people will need to pay for Plus or Live, to play. (not positive at what time though, so you may still want to check my facts)

To be honest there's very little valid offers for MMOs on PC too, not just consoles lol (at least in my opinion) which might be why we haven't seen a successful sub model in quite some time. The market is flooded with sub par MMOs that barely compete with the others. While the giant MMOs from a decade ago got a grip on people while the market was fresh with little competition and kept their customers pretty happy. The "standard" right now is just set pretty low (not saying that's ZoS fault, but rather the MMO market as a whole)

There are only a handfull valid offers, and you're right that the competition is hard on the PC. But a handfull is more than 1 that exist on the consoles.
To be honest, I tried a lot of MMOs over the years, and I found ESO to be a very solid one at its core.

In the end, I think it's not that games are bad or failing but that publishers have a strategy. They milk early adopters with collector editions and subscription, then switch to f2p to milk the rest of the population.
For instance, on a financial standpoint, WAR was successfull, it broke even and made some profit, yet it still got scraped. Suits are just transforming the MMOs in sell and forget games with some extra sugar on top for them.
In the end, they are just cutting the grass under their feet and eventually no one will buy into MMOs anymore.

We just got fooled yet another time by shady business practices.
And seeing the stream, I got a feeling the devs got somewhat coerced too with that random VP of PR and Marketing coming out of nowhere and interviewing them. Felt like corporate oversight.