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The definitive answer on ESO pricing.
Thunder
✭✭✭
Just about every review I see for ESO hammers it for costing 60 bucks and having a $15/month subscription. Most also go on to attack the Imperial Edition as a money grab that you simply can't pass up.
Let's tackle the 60 bucks up front first:
Any first rate video game you buy today is going to be 60 bucks. Any of them. Skyrim was 60 bucks. Everything is 60 bucks. GTA games are 60 bucks. Everything is 60 bucks! So 60 bucks isn't some new absurb amount of money they are trying to charge for a video game.
Furthermore, the world of Tamriel is friggin' HUGE and eye poppingly gorgeous! That took an astounding amount of work to produce, making ESO one of the best bangs for your buck on the market right now in terms of content.
If you were to only play ESO for a single month it would have been more than worth the price of admission. I've payed 60 bucks for dozens of games where after a month I was either finished with it or simply didn't care to play it anymore.
Now let's take a look at the $15/month subscription:
Right off the bat, you can reduce that to $13/month if you buy the longest subscription package. Let's face it, if you're still around after the free month, you'll most likely be around 6 months from now, so if you're not paying $13/month it's your own fault.
Even at $15/month, that boils down to 50 cents a day. A cup of coffee from a gas station is going to cost you more than that. You can't even get a candy bar for that anymore. There's no two ways about it, if you play for an hour or two every day there simply isn't any other entertainment activity that even comes close in terms of value.
BUT OTHER GAMES ARE FREE! No they are not. There's no such thing as a free lunch, or a free MMO for that matter. F2P MMO's either only allow you access to certain parts of the game, or they make the game excruciatingly painful to play unless you buy upgrades. Every F2P game I've really gotten into has cost me at least $15/month and usually even more. I saw someone in a F2P thread the other day say they don't want ESO to go F2P because, "I can't afford to play free to play games!"
Furthermore, in nearly every F2P game I've played, grouping with others was always a huge pain because not everyone in the group had access to the content others wanted to do, so often you'd end up not being able to do the content you actually paid 2 play!
A subscription to ESO grants you access to everything the game has to offer, OR DOES IT? What about Imperial Edition?
Finally let's examine just how much pressure the game puts on you to buy the Imperial Edition:
With the IE you get a horse on every character for 1 gold. Big whoop. The horses are SLOW! You can pay to speed up your horse, but it'll take you almost 2 weeks to have it up to the same speed as the horse you can buy from the stable. In 2 weeks you can easily buy the horse from the stable from gold you've made from vendoring junk alone.
I rarely bother to mount up, unless you are travelling a very long distance it just doesn't make a difference, and can even slow you down when you figure in mount and dismount time.
What about the Imperial race? Blah. Who cares? There's nothing special about the imperial race, it's got its perks just like every other race, but nothing game changing. In my opinion, the only real benefit of having the Imperial race is that you can convert found items to Imperial style, which if you craft your own gear as most people do, big whoop?
Ring of Mara XP boost. This is the lamest part of the IE. You can boost the XP earned of ONE character by %10 ONLY WHEN GROUPED WITH YOUR RING PARTNER! I haven't even used my ring yet. The thing is, you really don't even need an XP boost as the game is intended to be enjoyed as you play it, not a race to cap to get to end game content.
Bottom line:
ESO is not for everyone. It's certainly not perfect either. There are a few bugs, almost solely related to quest progression from my experience. However, to imply it's not a good value for those that enjoy it is insane. If you don't enjoy the game, it wouldn't be a good value at any price.
ESO's pricing is exactly in line with the MMORPG industry leader's pricing. The initial purchase cost is exactly in line with the video game market as a whole. The subscription price is exactly in line with most MMO subscriptions.
There's simply no way to support the contention that ESO is over priced.
Let's tackle the 60 bucks up front first:
Any first rate video game you buy today is going to be 60 bucks. Any of them. Skyrim was 60 bucks. Everything is 60 bucks. GTA games are 60 bucks. Everything is 60 bucks! So 60 bucks isn't some new absurb amount of money they are trying to charge for a video game.
Furthermore, the world of Tamriel is friggin' HUGE and eye poppingly gorgeous! That took an astounding amount of work to produce, making ESO one of the best bangs for your buck on the market right now in terms of content.
If you were to only play ESO for a single month it would have been more than worth the price of admission. I've payed 60 bucks for dozens of games where after a month I was either finished with it or simply didn't care to play it anymore.
Now let's take a look at the $15/month subscription:
Right off the bat, you can reduce that to $13/month if you buy the longest subscription package. Let's face it, if you're still around after the free month, you'll most likely be around 6 months from now, so if you're not paying $13/month it's your own fault.
Even at $15/month, that boils down to 50 cents a day. A cup of coffee from a gas station is going to cost you more than that. You can't even get a candy bar for that anymore. There's no two ways about it, if you play for an hour or two every day there simply isn't any other entertainment activity that even comes close in terms of value.
BUT OTHER GAMES ARE FREE! No they are not. There's no such thing as a free lunch, or a free MMO for that matter. F2P MMO's either only allow you access to certain parts of the game, or they make the game excruciatingly painful to play unless you buy upgrades. Every F2P game I've really gotten into has cost me at least $15/month and usually even more. I saw someone in a F2P thread the other day say they don't want ESO to go F2P because, "I can't afford to play free to play games!"
Furthermore, in nearly every F2P game I've played, grouping with others was always a huge pain because not everyone in the group had access to the content others wanted to do, so often you'd end up not being able to do the content you actually paid 2 play!
A subscription to ESO grants you access to everything the game has to offer, OR DOES IT? What about Imperial Edition?
Finally let's examine just how much pressure the game puts on you to buy the Imperial Edition:
With the IE you get a horse on every character for 1 gold. Big whoop. The horses are SLOW! You can pay to speed up your horse, but it'll take you almost 2 weeks to have it up to the same speed as the horse you can buy from the stable. In 2 weeks you can easily buy the horse from the stable from gold you've made from vendoring junk alone.
I rarely bother to mount up, unless you are travelling a very long distance it just doesn't make a difference, and can even slow you down when you figure in mount and dismount time.
What about the Imperial race? Blah. Who cares? There's nothing special about the imperial race, it's got its perks just like every other race, but nothing game changing. In my opinion, the only real benefit of having the Imperial race is that you can convert found items to Imperial style, which if you craft your own gear as most people do, big whoop?
Ring of Mara XP boost. This is the lamest part of the IE. You can boost the XP earned of ONE character by %10 ONLY WHEN GROUPED WITH YOUR RING PARTNER! I haven't even used my ring yet. The thing is, you really don't even need an XP boost as the game is intended to be enjoyed as you play it, not a race to cap to get to end game content.
Bottom line:
ESO is not for everyone. It's certainly not perfect either. There are a few bugs, almost solely related to quest progression from my experience. However, to imply it's not a good value for those that enjoy it is insane. If you don't enjoy the game, it wouldn't be a good value at any price.
ESO's pricing is exactly in line with the MMORPG industry leader's pricing. The initial purchase cost is exactly in line with the video game market as a whole. The subscription price is exactly in line with most MMO subscriptions.
There's simply no way to support the contention that ESO is over priced.
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Valco✭✭Nope ESO isn't over priced people are cheap! No but in fairness their are a few that really want to play but just don't have the funds some of us have and that's too bad but coming on here trying to get people on the F2P bandwagon isn't the best solution.2 -
rawne1980b16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭My one and only point.
ESO £49.99
Average brand sparkly new PC game £29.99 to £39.99
So it is above the average and with a sub fee on top.
I do see why some people are put off.1 -
Thunder✭✭✭rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »Average brand sparkly new PC game £29.99 to £39.99
So it is above the average and with a sub fee on top.
You're saying a new PC game is 30-40 pounds and ESO is 50 pounds. I can't speak for places that use pounds for currency, but here in the US, most new first rate titles are 60 bucks, just the same as ESO. There are new releases for less, but not with the scale of content you get in ESO. Every game with anything near the content ESO has is 60 bucks. Therefore I imagine when you say new games average between 30 and 40 pounds over there, you might be leaving out the part where AAA titles cost the same 50 pounds ESO does. Are there new release PC titles where you're from that sell for 50 pounds?1 -
rawne1980b16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭You're saying a new PC game is 30-40 pounds and ESO is 50 pounds. I can't speak for places that use pounds for currency, but here in the US, most new first rate titles are 60 bucks, just the same as ESO. There are new releases for less, but not with the scale of content you get in ESO. Every game with anything near the content ESO has is 60 bucks. Therefore I imagine when you say new games average between 30 and 40 pounds over there, you might be leaving out the part where AAA titles cost the same 50 pounds ESO does. Are there new release PC titles where you're from that sell for 50 pounds?
Nope.
The only games that cost £50 are console games.
PC games cost between £29.99 and £39.99
That's for brand new AAA games.
Batman Arkham Origins on release £29.99
Titanfall £34.99
SWTOR on release £29.99
Thief £34.99
This is the first game in a damn long time i've paid more than £40 for.
Console games tend to be around £49.99 brand new but it's very, very rare to see a PC game priced that high.Edited by rawne1980b16_ESO on April 22, 2014 6:39PM1 -
Xnemesis✭✭✭✭rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »You're saying a new PC game is 30-40 pounds and ESO is 50 pounds. I can't speak for places that use pounds for currency, but here in the US, most new first rate titles are 60 bucks, just the same as ESO. There are new releases for less, but not with the scale of content you get in ESO. Every game with anything near the content ESO has is 60 bucks. Therefore I imagine when you say new games average between 30 and 40 pounds over there, you might be leaving out the part where AAA titles cost the same 50 pounds ESO does. Are there new release PC titles where you're from that sell for 50 pounds?
Nope.
The only games that cost £50 are console games.
PC games cost between £29.99 and £39.99
That's for brand new AAA games.
Batman Arkham Origins on release £29.99
Titanfall £34.99
SWTOR on release £29.99
Thief £34.99
This is the first game in a damn long time i've paid more than £40 for.
Console games tend to be around £49.99 brand new but it's very, very rare to see a PC game priced that high.
IDK about you but from what I have played so far this is most certainly a console game lol4 -
Knovah✭✭✭@Thunder well said and spot on.
Another thing people cry over price go check out wow's new expansion and compare . I dropped 69.99 on the ce edition to get the mount and pet. For an expansion not even a full game that is not even released till later this year.
I would say it is right in the ball park . I much rather play a sub base game lol I spend WAY more in gw2 just in crap in the shops. They make it so easy and I am so weak lol.Video games ......The only legal place to kill stupid people.0 -
rawne1980b16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Believe Skyrim on PC was $60 at launch.
£34.99 on PC in UK at launch.
What you seem to misunderstand is ESO isn't $60 ..... it's $80 after conversion.
$60 is about £35 ... ESO is £49.99
No matter how you look at it, it costs more than a brand new AAA release on the PC.
Edited by rawne1980b16_ESO on April 22, 2014 8:04PM1 -
The problem with the pricing is the lack of finish in it's current state. When I paid that for Skyrim, I had absolutely 0 bugs, broken quests, and crashes. I paid my 60 to try this game, but continuing to pay for an unfinished product is just crazy.0 -
Chalybos✭✭✭I would point you to this link, and GameStop pricing.
http://www.gamestop.com/browse/pc?nav=138c
I think it's a difference in pricing of the actual titles from the US and GB. Titanfall, ESO, AC: Unity, Borderlands The Pre Sequel, Evolve, Batman Arkham Knight, Dragon Age Inquisition, The Crew, The Evil Within, Watchdogs, Wolfenstein: The New Order ... these are all priced for $59.99. What do they cost overseas? Those exact same titles?0 -
rawne1980b16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭So if this only costs $60 in America then we are being ripped off.
I know it's not tax because, as I said, no other company charges this much for their games .... not even EA.
I thought it was a bit pricey before but now i'm just pissed off.
I used to have a bit of a chuckle at Australians and their overpiced games.
Zenimax seems to follow that path.0 -
dolmen✭✭✭@BigDumbViking you must have not bought Skyrim 11/11/11 like I did. So many bugs... but hey it's an Elder Scrolls game, bugged at release was "tradition" at that point (re: Oblivion). And no I'm not excusing the bugs in ESO, but I have to say, it didn't break with "tradition".The Sidekick Order1 -
Chalybos✭✭✭Ouch. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I've a friend across the pond, and we've been shooting each other in various Battlefield games since BF2 came out. I've heard similar complaints from him, which is why I brought it up. Again, sorry to be the bearer.0
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Shimond✭✭✭✭BigDumbViking wrote: »The problem with the pricing is the lack of finish in it's current state. When I paid that for Skyrim, I had absolutely 0 bugs, broken quests, and crashes. I paid my 60 to try this game, but continuing to pay for an unfinished product is just crazy.
The hell version of Skyrim did you buy?1 -
Chalybos✭✭✭
I know, my question exactly. I mean, I loved the game, but there were some places you just didn't want to go, because you'd be sure to get stuck. Or your companion would get lost and DEAD. Or you didn't see that giant that was floating in orbit, and just dropped back to earth in time to hand out a dish of whoopass.BigDumbViking wrote: »The problem with the pricing is the lack of finish in it's current state. When I paid that for Skyrim, I had absolutely 0 bugs, broken quests, and crashes. I paid my 60 to try this game, but continuing to pay for an unfinished product is just crazy.
The hell version of Skyrim did you buy?
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rawne1980b16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Hey ... Skyrim had no bugs ... none at all.
Horses were supposed to fly and run up vertical cliffs.
Mudcrabs were supposed to report you for crimes ... although I admit, that was hilarious.
I've no idea if the giants knocking you to the moon was a bug or an intended feature but it was, again, hilarious.
But there were quite a few bugs.1 -
mcatchlovb16_ESO✭✭✭I'm glad it's not F2P, I end up buying everything on those and it costs me way more than $15 a month
2 -
jamesharv2005ub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭As far as the topic at hand I say charge more per month. Keeps the riff raff out when you charge a "cover" to get in. As far as skyrim goes... I bought the collectors edition with the statue and everything. Paid over $100 with shipping etc. The game simply wouldnt load for a week until I was able to download a patch. Even then it was buggy as all hell. Took I believe 4 patches before it would run properly.1 -
Laura✭✭✭✭✭
✭amazing post I agree 100% and think you put a lot of effort into it. I think it will be lost to the naysayers though.0 -
Kitma✭✭BigDumbViking wrote: »The problem with the pricing is the lack of finish in it's current state. When I paid that for Skyrim, I had absolutely 0 bugs, broken quests, and crashes. I paid my 60 to try this game, but continuing to pay for an unfinished product is just crazy.
Bwahahahaha!
Funniest post I've read here for a few days!
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All the elder scrolls came out with bugs, this is common since standards these days are far inferior to a decade ago and get's worse every year.
Skyrim for instance. We were given a hulk of a buggy game with few patches, it was up to the community and modders who liked the games so much the unofficial patch and modded the games themselves to something different types of the community liked, often improving things far beyond the original design.
Who gets the credit for this? Well it should be more for the modders taking the time to fix things for free and giving it to the community which is doing what the past game designers should have done on their own.
Well here we are years down the road. Bethesda got so use to coding stuff where it "kinda" work and releases more and more buggy games and expansions knowing the community modders will more that likely fix it for them, which has proven true. Their hours and cost are down, things are fixed for free by others.
Now here we are with ESO, nothing has changed other than now the modders cant fix the game themselves, but issues long reported still was not addressed at launch, level 50's 24 hours into early access exploiting with no penalty or emergency fix and rollback for the good of the community as a whole, bots are everywhere, teleporting and afk grinding in front of groups of people, but Zeni don't care.. infact they just did a mass un-bann and that many more bots are back in action. The very lest they could have done prior to launch is make sure all primary story quest worked before any other quest but that seemed to have fallen threw the cracks.
Hell now we got money duping guide's floating around google that works even now. Motifs, Resources, pretty much anything is still being duped.
Was all this worth $60 base, $80 collectors, and $15 starter mount?
Well im waiting on patches to fix these issues before I say for sure but right now I have to say NO.1 -
jamesharv2005ub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Was the CE worth $100 + shipping. Yes for sure it was. The statue alone was worth the price. I didnt buy the mount because I have the IE mount. Ive played it for hours and hours which is more than I can say for other games Ive purchased for the same price.
I think alot of people expected skyrim 2 online. Sorry but thats not this game. You buy into these games for years. Fickle people who demand perfection probably would be better off waiting for the next single player ES game.1 -
sSolutionSs✭✭✭I'd say its overpriced in its current condition, Buggy, Hundreds of Broken or bugged quests, Soloing is the best xp gainer(this is suppose to be mmo), Cyrodiil Frequent Crashes, Game Crashes, Item Dupes Wow the List Goes On..0 -
sSolutionSs wrote: »I'd say its overpriced in its current condition, Buggy, Hundreds of Broken or bugged quests, Soloing is the best xp gainer(this is suppose to be mmo), Cyrodiil Frequent Crashes, Game Crashes, Item Dupes Wow the List Goes On..
Your forced to solo at random parts of the game as is.
You and your pal can roll a toon same place at the same time, group and I promise you something will bug out on one of you leaving the other on their own until you can catch up, all thanks to the megaserver multi-phasing.
Every group I ran with, and its dozens by now someone is always bugging out and we cant help catch them up the are in a different phase.0 -
rdfarley89✭✭✭rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »You're saying a new PC game is 30-40 pounds and ESO is 50 pounds. I can't speak for places that use pounds for currency, but here in the US, most new first rate titles are 60 bucks, just the same as ESO. There are new releases for less, but not with the scale of content you get in ESO. Every game with anything near the content ESO has is 60 bucks. Therefore I imagine when you say new games average between 30 and 40 pounds over there, you might be leaving out the part where AAA titles cost the same 50 pounds ESO does. Are there new release PC titles where you're from that sell for 50 pounds?
Nope.
The only games that cost £50 are console games.
PC games cost between £29.99 and £39.99
That's for brand new AAA games.
Batman Arkham Origins on release £29.99
Titanfall £34.99
SWTOR on release £29.99
Thief £34.99
This is the first game in a damn long time i've paid more than £40 for.
Console games tend to be around £49.99 brand new but it's very, very rare to see a PC game priced that high.
Damn you guys are lucky I had to wait months before I got Arkham Origins for less than $50. SWTOR was $60 for me here. Man...should move to the UK lol.0 -
rdfarley89 wrote: »rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »You're saying a new PC game is 30-40 pounds and ESO is 50 pounds. I can't speak for places that use pounds for currency, but here in the US, most new first rate titles are 60 bucks, just the same as ESO. There are new releases for less, but not with the scale of content you get in ESO. Every game with anything near the content ESO has is 60 bucks. Therefore I imagine when you say new games average between 30 and 40 pounds over there, you might be leaving out the part where AAA titles cost the same 50 pounds ESO does. Are there new release PC titles where you're from that sell for 50 pounds?
Nope.
The only games that cost £50 are console games.
PC games cost between £29.99 and £39.99
That's for brand new AAA games.
Batman Arkham Origins on release £29.99
Titanfall £34.99
SWTOR on release £29.99
Thief £34.99
This is the first game in a damn long time i've paid more than £40 for.
Console games tend to be around £49.99 brand new but it's very, very rare to see a PC game priced that high.
Damn you guys are lucky I had to wait months before I got Arkham Origins for less than $50. SWTOR was $60 for me here. Man...should move to the UK lol.
Do a currency check. Euro is far superior than the American dollar now. Hell way its going a few more years the Mexican Peso will be more that the USD and I will have to go to Mexico to make the good money.0 -
SgtPepperUK✭✭✭I saw someone in a F2P thread the other day say they don't want ESO to go F2P because, "I can't afford to play free to play games!"
Until a few months ago I was on a fairly tight budget and subs were still better for me, I was able to budget for a sub, knowing exactly how much I needed each month to play an MMO. No nasty surprises, no getting to a paywall a week before I got paid or anything like that.
I can imagine it's easy for some people to get sucked in to paying more than they intended with microtransactions.
Now, I have more disposable income each month but I would still refuse to play a "f2p" MMO as I still believe a sub offers better value and is better for the developer.
Yes, we might have some bugs in ESO now, slowly they are getting around to fixing them but wave that bye-bye if it goes f2p as the store would become the priority over gameplay and bug fixes.
1
