Should ESO go back to a subscription only game?

CaineCarver

With all the controversy lately surrounding loot boxes in the news and all the players who think they are "evil" Gambling devices I find myself looking at how games are funding themselves and the future of games. With the current free play models, there are several problems that I fear hurt the future of MMOs in particular. With players demanding free to play (even complaining about buy to play products like ESO / Morrowind) game companies find themselves needing to provide hosting for players that may or may not buy content to support needed hardware. One need only experience the holiday server overloads to realize companies are trying to balance huge numbers of extra casual players with costs (this is true in all games buy much more so in free to play products).

In addition to the costs of supporting the extra hardware for free players, companies are forced to race new content to market as they depend on DLC and cosmetic sales for income (some even fall to the temptation of pay to win items). This means they can not afford staff and resources to fix bugs and improve current systems the way they did in the older subscription game days. Overall the free play games are having a hard time keeping quality to the standards of the past.

With all of these struggles, many game studios are hesitant to take on new MMOs. The number of potential games out there in various stages of "go fund me" has skyrocketed in the last few years. Yes, we have more titles to choose from but most of them are just "reskins" over the same engines with only cosmetic and theme changes. Companies try to squeeze more and more out of the work by simply tossing another free to play version on the market. The current marketing play models realize the current gamers as a whole are hopping from one free to play product to the next. Players are spending months instead of years in a game as they chase the easy "high" of learning and leveling "fun" instead of the "grind" needed to max and master end game content. The hope is to catch more casual players that might spend some money on DLCs or cosmetics. Making long-term investments and development a gamble for even the best studios. As a whole, the one and done stand alone and online version box games are much safer investments than MMO persistent games.

In my opinion, the future of MMOs is not looking stellar unless we convince the player base there is no such thing as a free lunch and the game companies start standing their ground on subscriptions. What do you think?

Marabornwingrion

I wish ESO could go back to required subscription model.

newtinmpls

Subs again: Yes!

Dismantle classes: Yes!

In-game rewards for quests including mounts, pets, costumes (not just "show up at new Zone X" but something with meaning/story to it): Yes!

GrigorijMalahevich

I would agree, however, imagine the tears... "omg such a bad decision" bla bla bla

Also, the price for different countries...

mirta000b16_ESO

The game would not be good enough to survive on a subscription model considering for what kind of budget they planned as they were building it.

FFXIV was built to run off 100K users or less. ESO developers expected 6 million concurrent players or so. What they got was not enough to pay back their budget so they were going into the minus.

So no, I don't think that ESO should go back to sub model. I think it could if it was being developed right now and developed with far lower expectations of how many monthly payers they will need to support the game, but that boat is long gone.

That being said, I've kept my sub running to FFXIV for 3 years and I'm keeping my sub running here too, so it would make very little difference to me, save for quality of life improvements, such as being able to earn costumes in game rather than buy them on the store, or worse, gamble for them.

MilwaukeeScott

Back?

ESO on PS4 has never been a sub only game.

Shardan4968

Yeah, let's kill the game. It can be soloed anyway, unless they just lock the servers. And btw. It's like asking ZOS "Hey! Do you want to earn less???".

ThePrinceOfBargains

No. The loot crates are not required for them to support the game; they’re just being greedy. And the amount of money they get from exploiting players with them is much higher than what they were ever making with forced subscriptions.

Their subscription in particular was always BS and everyone knew it, including them. If they wanted to charge people for membership every month, they shouldn’t have sold the game for $60.

Huyen

Blizzard-entertainment still manages fine with their sub model. I dont see why ESO cant do the same, and get rid of the horrible lootboxes. They just have to up their game a bit with better stability and quality dlc's.

mirta000b16_ESO

Huyen wrote: »

Blizzard-entertainment still manages fine with their sub model. I dont see why ESO cant do the same, and get rid of the horrible lootboxes. They just have to up their game a bit with better stability and quality dlc's.

Blizzard has over 14 million concurrent subscribers, while being built to survive off less than 1 million. ESO was being built with an expectation of 6-7 million, while their initial sub numbers were around 1 million. They did not budget right for sub model to work, hence why they had to drop to B2P to begin with.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I think the real question is, 'how many of those players who wail that the game needs to be F2P ultimately do spend money on it?' If the percentage is small enough they aren't making anything, then there's no benefit for the game to go F2P from the maker's perspective. If it's high enough then it isn't really F2P, it just hid the fees. The only real benefit to F2P for players I can see is that you can try before you buy, and ESO does free weekends for that.

I will also say I cancelled my sub due to the Crown Crates, so if those went away (and WEREN'T replaced with something as bad or worse) I'd have no problem re-subbing.

R4TTIUS

Yeah this is a weird subject as basically loot crates are extra income they make in the 10s to hundreds of millions, eso have over a million subscribers, in English pounds thats 9-11 million per month in subscriptions alone, or 108-132 million a year in subs alone, then you can add a another couple hundred million in crown store sales (not including crown crates).

I can't remember whether it was EA or Activision for last year ON 1 GAME, they Made a steady 450-600 million profit, theyve even said they don't need any more profit to keep the game at the forefront, now when they added the sales from loot crates & SOLELY LOOT CRATES there profits jumped to 1.4 billion.

I will find the article about this and post it when I do so you can see.

And you believe these company's need this extra income, it's just icing on the cake.

Korah_Eaglecry

Will never happen. Even if Crown Crates become an issue for ZOS and its removed from the game all together. All of those items will flow back into the game as individually priced items. And I would not be surprised if many of them would be through the roof price wise. That Sheogorath costume would of been no cheaper than 2500 Crowns for sure. Most of those Apex rewards would be 5000 Crowns. People would complain, but people would also open their wallets.

R4TTIUS

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Will never happen. Even if Crown Crates become an issue for ZOS and its removed from the game all together. All of those items will flow back into the game as individually priced items. And I would not be surprised if many of them would be through the roof price wise. That Sheogorath costume would of been no cheaper than 2500 Crowns for sure. Most of those Apex rewards would be 5000 Crowns. People would complain, but people would also open their wallets.

The thing is that's how it should be even if things are overpriced in our perspective you have a clear knowledge of what your spending and your guaranteed 1 million percent that you will get the exact item you want.

Some house can currently cost around £100 you don't see people complaining about it really because they know what they are in for and they had ALL the info to make a decision.

Jade1986

OH GOD!!!! The game will be FINE without the loot boxes. they can take all the stuff in those boxes and put it in the crown store and more people will buy the stuff because they KNOW what they are getting! Enough with the doom and gloom!

mb10

and why TF would anyone whos already bought the game want to continue paying after 2-3 years of not doing that?

AzraelKrieg

MilwaukeeScott wrote: »

Back?

ESO on PS4 has never been a sub only game.

Consoles are the reason why it's not a sub only game right now. When it launched on PC in 2014 it was sub only until March because MS and Sony kicked up a fuss.

Vaoh

Didn’t ESO have to remove its Sub requirement because it was failing?

Dread_Viking

yes

neverwalk

A monthly fee, plus ESO+ fee = no thanks, ESO+ is enough

CaineCarver

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

MilwaukeeScott wrote: »

Back?

ESO on PS4 has never been a sub only game.

Consoles are the reason why it's not a sub only game right now. When it launched on PC in 2014 it was sub only until March because MS and Sony kicked up a fuss.

That is exactly why the sub fee had to go. Sony and Microsoft currently hold the consoles hostage to their fees and do not want to lose any pa5rt of that.

AzraelKrieg

neverwalk wrote: »

A monthly fee, plus ESO+ fee = no thanks, ESO+ is enough

The monthly fee would replace ESO+

Demycilian

Yes.

madeeh91rwb17_ESO

Apart from the hardcore MMO-loving fanboys not many others will play this game after that.
So if they can fund this game with their own pockets then they can go ahead.

ESO dropped the subscription model for a reason.
If it was some sort of a genuine INNOVATIVE elderscrolls game with MMO aspects embed in, then it would ave been a different story.

This is why many like me just left with 1-2 months after launch.

lagrue

Even as a console player: Yes. I would rather see quality pumped back into this game through mandatory subs, than everybody accuse ZOS of doing cashgrabs with lootboxes.

I think alot of people fail to realize that their initial $60 purchase nearly 3-4 years ago wouldn't be enough to keep the game healthy forever. They see anything with a pricetag higher than what they're willing to pay and *** their pants. I understand their fears - but I also know why it happens. You can't maintain an MMO tier game successfully on initial purchases alone.

I already subscribe to ESO plus of my own free will - but I also know people who choose not to, and then moan and groan they can't play DLC and the likes - because they outright refuse to put more money into the game, but expect everything handed back to them for free.

Subs would be a great way to (hopefully) encourage ZOS to price things in the Crown Store more modestly, would allow for a continuous revenue steam - and would ultimately do things I would personally like, like filter out the casuals. Of all the people irl I've known to play this game, I'm the only one who ever even made it to level 50... people pick up the game and then leave. They'd be alot less likely to do so if they had to pay a sub to play... that alone is an issue to me because these same friends beg me to carry them through stuff when they are on, but refuse to actually commit to the game. It waters up the playerbase with people who don't care, people who post 90990 Gold Green Recipes out of stupidity, and encourages people to be lax in a game which endgame requires people to actually be knowledgeable about things.

lagrue

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

MilwaukeeScott wrote: »

Back?

ESO on PS4 has never been a sub only game.

Consoles are the reason why it's not a sub only game right now. When it launched on PC in 2014 it was sub only until March because MS and Sony kicked up a fuss.

Well then why does FF14 get away with it?

Weps

I have no problem with the lootcrate model, to me is much more important that the population stays active and conspicuous

Asardes

Although I played in Beta I didn't buy the game until it became B2P, since I wasn't sure if I would like it - I tried a few other F2P MMOs before and I found them boring and tedious - and I'm pretty sure plenty of people who had joined since would not have considered buying the game either had it stayed subscription based. When it became B2P there was certainly a large uptick of players, which seems to confirm my assumption. So I doubt the company would consider going back to a subscription based model. I would certainly not mind if they added more perks to subscribers, without hamstringing the non-subscribers, so they incentivise people to subscribe.

Stewart1874

Honestly, I'm not sure. I think if you want to have any kind of meaningful experience playing ESO you need to have ESO+ . Stuff like the craft bag (in my hoarding playstyle) are essential so its kinda necessary to use imo.

Whilst I've made my thoughts on microtransactions very clear in other threads, I'd like to add that I actually don't mind loot crates in an MMO context, particularly with how ESO have done them. That may be a bit hypocritical but I don't view it as another example of corporate greed but a genuine alternative revenue source for a game that must be expensive as *** to run. I like how you can still buy the items with crown gems meaning if you are unlucky you can still build up a substantial reserve eventually get the hat or whatever you want - obviously Apex mounts are a different kettle of fish and IMO should be halved in price.

Lets say LC were removed, would free DLC for subscription holders end? - Doubtful tbf, but nonetheless you can't not expect something to change to make up for the loss in revenue from them.

In games like Fifa, Cod and virtually every other non MMO that are stuffing LC in rather clumsily are disgusting and essentially encouraging kids to gamble. My only ethical change on LC's in ESO would be to make anything you can get in an LC attainable within the game (just really bloody rare and difficult). Fundamentally, I don't think any content within a game should be ring fenced for those with bigger wallets.

crjs1

No, it would kill the game, which is basically funded on casuals. The game isn’t ‘free to play’ we have all paid for it and Morrowind. We need to be actively encouraging new players not putting up barriers.

RebornV3x

I wouldn't play this game if it was a mandatory sub this game has way to many technical issues