Best Answers

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  Rosveen

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  That "rent" is basically your sub fee. It's likely to stay the same, so if you just stay subscribed all the time, nothing changes compared to the way it was before (at least for now. We'll see crown store powercreep eventually, but this has nothing to do with the price of subscription.) You'll be able to access all DLC as long as you're subbed.
  
  You could also use the crown stipend subscribers get every month (1500 crowns) to purchase DLC despite already having access to them through the sub. We don't know what the prices will be, so it's hard to say if it'll be enough to get everything, but it's an option. That way you'll still own them even after your subscription expires. That's the safest route for people unsure if they'll always be subbed.

  Imperial Trading Company (PC EU)

  #2

  January 2015

  Answer ✓

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  starkerealm

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  Elsterchen wrote: »

  Does anyone has any experience in this?

  
  With rents rising? Yep. Or, you meant with MMOs.
  
  Okay, so... there's more going on here than usual.
  
  Usually transitioning out of a subscription model is taken as a sign of failure. Subs are down, and the company needs to scramble to make ends meet. That can be going to free to play or buy to play. It doesn't matter, the box 'n sub model failed for them. That's Star Trek Online, The Old Republic, The Secret World, Conan, Champions Online, and nearly every other MMO launched in the last 8 years that didn't isn't WoW, EVE, or completely gone now.
  
  In those cases, the company is hemorrhaging cash, and they need to do everything they can to shore up their income. At that point, the reflexive reaction is to try squeezing as much blood out of everyone that gets within grabbing distance. Sometimes the game survives, sometimes it continues it's long slide into dying.
  
  But, that's not exactly what's happened here.
  
  Most MMOs, you'll see a declining population, subscription numbers drop. But, ESO seems to have remarkably solid retention. From conventional wisdom, taking this game Buy to Play doesn't make a lot of sense.
  
  So, look at what got announced on the same day. Half of their livestream was about the subscription being made optional... and half of it was about the console launch.
  
  So, console MMOs are kind of a non-entity. There's DCUO... and that's about it. On the other hand, most MMOs that announce console releases actually end up scrapping them. Back in October, Bethesda told us why. They'd been in negotiations with Sony and Microsoft trying to get the subscription fees for XBL and PS+ waved.
  
  Now, DCUO is playable without a PS+ subscription (I'm told), but that's also strictly in house. Microsoft was actually pushing harder, demanding that anyone subscribing to a game on their console both had an active XBL subscription and that they got a cut of the additional subscription fee. (Which starts to explain Cryptic's decision to can their 360 ports for Champions and Star Trek.)
  
  Now, Bethesda can't back out of releasing ESO on consoles. Way too much of their market share is there. They were hoping to leverage that into special treatment, but that doesn't seem to have happened.
  
  So, now they're left choosing between trying to sell an MMO that requires two subscriptions (totaling $20 a month), (while probably seeing less of that then their PC subs, from their XBone users), and dumping the subscription fee.
  
  If they only dumped the sub fee from the consoles, that would cause all kinds of dissent, regardless of their reasons, and harm the game. So, the subscription fees are being moved to optional for everyone.
  
  So... will the rent go up? Maybe, eventually. But, I don't see it happening in the near future, because this doesn't actually look like a company gasping out, and trying to find some way to save itself.

  #3

  January 2015

  Answer ✓

  7