How did WE fail as a SUB-Fee /MMO?

Funkopotamus · January 2015

Honestly I am reading post after post on these forums as well as other forums everything from hate to love over the upcoming BTP/P2W system.

What I would like to know is exactly where we failed?
I understand as a SubFee MMO that there needs to be a steady number of subscribers for the game to stay alive. "EQ/AsheronsCalls player myself" Thing is I do not understand how a game that has the following like The Elder Scrolls fails and W0W is still rolling right along after all of these years.

I admit I was a console hold out until 13 days ago when I broke down and bought the PC version. I have a friend that works at GS and he told me ESO console release had been rolled back AGAIN till sometime NEXT YEAR. He told me they had just gotten an update about it and it was on the wall right there in front of me on the shelf release date 1/1/16 so I said hell with it and finally bought the PC version for $70.00 now 10 days after that..... this announcement comes along and I feel like I was robbed lol.

I was one of the people that WANTED the game to stay sub fee based even on the XBONE.

My question is this.. How did we the fans fail? Did the people holding the purse strings come to this decision because of the number of sub's are to low? Or was this the plan all along? To just get the game running and make the fans pay for a prolonged beta test and then drop everything to open a cash shop?

I just do not understand how a game with the reputation that TES has can not stay afloat when a game like W0W can stay Sub Fee based. ESO is going to have one competitor on the console _Neverwinter_ is being released before ESO so I wonder if that pushed them into rushing this out the door?

At the end of the day ZOS has to make money we all know that, but it just makes me sad to think there are not enough fans out there to keep this game SUB FEE based. Everyone knows what is going to happen when that Cash Shop door opens. There is no going back! You can say what you want about "It will only be cosmetics" but the fact is NO IT WILL NOT only be cosmetic. If there are exp bonus given to Premium players then there will be EXP potions in the cash shop. That will basically be advertisement for going premium.

So I ask for your thought's .. Was it we the fans fault for the game going BTP/P2W? Are we to blame because there are simply not enough of us. Was this the plan from the start and the fans paid for a beta test? I wanted ESO to be the game that stayed SUBFEE based and survive on the console.. Hell I played EQ Online Adventures on my PS2 for like 9 years lol. MMO'S can survive on the console.

Sindala · January 2015

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

Kilandros · January 2015

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This is the only credited answer. Game launched before it was ready. Millions of people Beta tested ESO to see approximately 50% of all quests bugged--game launched with those same quests still bugged. People left. Developers had to spend months fixes bugs and performance that were unacceptable for a AAA title rather than delivering new content every 4-6 weeks. More people left. End-game PVP has always suffered from and continues to suffer from crippling performance issues. Many of the PVP left.

Gavner · January 2015

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This.
The game was released in an unfinished state and that hurt it... a LOT. After all, first impressions are very important, and when most reviews came out like: "this is full of bugs", "this doesn't feel like an ES game" etc. the player base suffered down the road since only the real fans remained, I guess.

wiz12268b14_ESO · January 2015

It was released as a sub to make more money up front. It was in no way a failure, if anything it went longer as a sub than most people figured. Had the console version been released (without Sony or Microsoft dropping their sub fee) then it would have changed then. Thats why they delayed. They were trying to get BOTH sides to drop the sub fee and milk their own sub fee on all platforms, when they couldnt they spun it like they were improving the game but were also able to extend the PC sub fee model. It cost them money in the long runt o be sure, but thats what happens when you are relying on other companies to be benevolent.

ANYONE who thinks this game is or will be a 'failure' is clueless. It has already made its money back just on the PC sales and subs, how much money will they be printing when it goes to console? Mow many 10s of millions will it continue to make in DLCs going forward?

I said it when I was bashing the game pre release. That it would sell million upon millions of copies make a ton of money on a trash release and just let it go on. But ZoS actually fixed and improved the game, something I wasnt sure they would do. Well lets be honest I didnt think there was any way in hell they would make it better. but they did. They even went beyond just fixing it up for console release or to sucker a few more people to buy it in a not so broken state, the game is actually better, and 1.6 is likely to improve it even more whether some people personally like the changes or not. Once it is in everyone is going to be in the same boat. So their arguments are moot.

So while I said they were continuing the trend of releasing a bad game and charging too much for it, they also might be setting a trend in that theyre actually going to try and improve the game they released. Alshough to be fair FFXIV started it but they were forced to. ESO was bad but it wasnt nearly as bad at that game at release.

Funkopotamus · January 2015

Kilandros wrote: »

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This is the only credited answer. Game launched before it was ready. Millions of people Beta tested ESO to see approximately 50% of all quests bugged--game launched with those same quests still bugged. People left. Developers had to spend months fixes bugs and performance that were unacceptable for a AAA title rather than delivering new content every 4-6 weeks. More people left. End-game PVP has always suffered from and continues to suffer from crippling performance issues. Many of the PVP left.

That is another thing I am wondering about. If the "End Game Content" is basically centered around PvP... How the hell is a cash going to help this? If anything it will destroy it..

WebBull · January 2015

Exploits, Bots, and the final knife was the original VR levels that were insane.

Kilandros · January 2015

Gavner wrote: »

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This.
The game was released in an unfinished state and that hurt it... a LOT. After all, first impressions are very important, and when most reviews came out like: "this is full of bugs", "this doesn't feel like an ES game" etc. the player base suffered down the road since only the real fans remained, I guess.

Those were the kind reviews. The more critical reviews were like, "This is just another generic, mediocre, theme park MMO that someone slapped TES title onto."

Kind of hard to expect people to fork over a monthly sub for a game that is basically just a buggier GW2.

liquid_wolf · January 2015

Kilandros wrote: »

Kind of hard to expect people to fork over a monthly sub for a game that is basically just a buggier GW2.

Having played GW2 at launch, I am forced to say ESO had almost 5 times the content at release, and updated on a more regular basis.

Buggier? Yeah... that could be said... but it seems like ESO patched faster than almost any other MMORPG in history.

LonePirate · January 2015

The sub model was never a failure for this game. Rumored current subscriber numbers are more than enough to sustain this game.

However, the allure of selling an estimated 2-4 million copies of the game for the consoles within a month or two of release was simply too much to pass up. If a business has a solid chance to make (conservatively) $150M or more almost instantly, then giving up the revenue stream of $15/month subs from around half a million players is a solid financial decision. Not only that but cash shops are cash cows, especially when game companies can trade quality and content for pricy, easy to create trinkets.

The PC players never failed ZOS. Rather, ZOS failed us.

diskiukas · January 2015

Amazing game and I would've paid $100 per month if they asked.
There are some issues, specially on PVP side, some issues they resolved over time, however ,people are self-entitled by nature and lack of communication, openness and slow reaction from ZOS towards their customers , caused many to leave.

Aett_Thorn · January 2015

I would also say that people play MMOs over single-player games because oftentimes, they want to play with friends or at least other people. The grouping mechanics when this game launched (and some of these issues persist) just made it so that people couldn't really quest and level up as a group. So you could have lost whole groups of people that just couldn't play most of the content well together.

Elsonso · January 2015

Who says we failed?

Who says WE failed?

eisberg · January 2015

Free to Play Revenue has been shooting up, Subscription revenue has been going down for the whole Market. Even though total revenue for MMOs have been rising. Subscription revenue has been in decline, and in 2 years the subscription revenue is expected to drop by 40% compared to the 2013 revenue, while Free to Play is expected to increase by 48%. by 2017. it is expected that by 2017, Subscription based MMOs will make up 13% of the revenue for MMO revenue.

Currently Subscription MMOs make up 23% of the market, at 2.8 Billion in revenue, and 2.2 Billion of that revenue is held up by the top 10 MMOs, with Rift having 1% of the market at the bottom 10. Yes, of the top 10 MMOs for subscription MMO, 7 of them are actually MMOs that have subscription and Free to Play Model. The other 600 Million of that revenue is a bunch of little games that don't even have 1% of the revenue each.

This is an AAA MMO, with expectations by the parent company and investors, if it doesn't meet those expectations, something has to change, even if it is making a profit (Firefly TV series was making a profit, and see what happened to that show).

When they made themselves a subscription based game, they put themselves in a shrinking market, trying to gain customers who are already dedicated to their MMO of choice. They didn't create a game that people who do not want to pay a subscription would all of sudden decide they want to pay a subscription for.

I guess you can say it is the fans fault. I wanted to play this game, I am a big fan of Elder Scrolls. I played the beta. When I heard the news it was subscription model, I knew it would go free to play or Buy to play with in a year, and I saw no value in paying $15 a month for it, so I waited. I saw the news for Buy to Play, saw that I could buy the game for $12, so I bought it, though I won't subscribe when my first 30 days runs out, and will just wait till March 17th to play again.

http://www.superdataresearch.com/market-data/mmo-market/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/07/19/world-of-warcraft-still-a-1b-powerhouse-even-as-subscription-mmos-decline/

MornaBaine · January 2015

If they did not intend to go B2P from the very beginning it was decided very soon after launch. My reasoning? Every single solitary cosmetic request (with the sole exception of the dye system which has not, however, gotten ANY new colors since they implemented it despite numerous requests) has either been completely ignored or we were given a bunch of double speak claiming it needed to be implemented as some "fun RP thing" rather than straight up adding it. NO pets available within the game itself. NO color choices on mounts. NO "social clothing" costumes. NO new costumes similar to the goblin and skeleton costumes we've had since launch. ALL of this has been held back from us for inclusion in the cash shop so we'd have to pay for every single bit of it. And IF they ever get around to player housing you can bet that every single bit of it is going to be cash shop purchases and they will be EXPENSIVE.

Gyudan · January 2015

The game was released in an unfinished state.

- Too many quests were bugged
- Grouping was flawed and players often got sent to different instances of the same location while grouped together.
- There weren't enough options to customize characters. Try to play your favorite character without dyes if you don't remember.
- Classes and skills were completely unbalanced. Remember stackable bat swarms?
- Character progression after level 50 was terrible.

This led to very bad reviews, which attracted few customers to the game and led to the current situation.

Muizer · January 2015

A lot of the Elder Scrolls series potential customers reside entirely outside the sphere of MMO's. In this other community I've been part of there are plenty of people interested in Elders Scrolls, but MMO's have a bad reputation and subscribing, even DLC, is considered a rip-off. No need to wonder why ESO hasn't tapped into that customer base yet. Thing is, that community may prefer B2P, but it will also utterly hate the idea of boosters being sold for cash.

Sallington · January 2015

One word: Consoles.

Jennifur_Vultee · January 2015

How did we fail to bring in enough subs?

"We" failed because people held off buying the game.

"We" failed because even people I know who claim to be hardcore TES fans said, "ESO? Nah I won't play that till its free to play." Yes, she still says that to this day even at Buy to Play/Free to Play because she's a leach who refuses to pay anything for ESO and want "we" to pay her way.

"We" failed when people unsubbed over Veteran Ranks.

"We" failed when people rushed to endgame grinding there in few days then unsubbed because "There's nothing to do!"

"We" failed for these and lot more reasons to support the Buy to Play/subscription model...but some of us had been subscribing non stop since April 4, 2014 and got crapped on because "we" failed to support ESO. They saw pretty early on how "we" were failing and started working on this Buy to Play/Free to Play model.

Khivas_Carrick · January 2015

Swtor didn't make everything cash shop purchase for player housing XD frankly I think we'll all be fine

Dave2836 · January 2015

Technically the sub option is still available and they specifically stated in their live that is the preferred option they want their playbase to use to support the game. The incentives to remain subbed are there.

The game isn't a failure until the sub option is completely eliminated and the servers close shop.

I do feel the b2p hybrid model is the future of gaming. The model came about from the far east where people didn't have the time to play regularly, and the optional sub model permits the playerbase to spend time and $$$ they think thegame is worth. More often than not the game becomes healthier and the playerbase becomes stable over time.

This only happens if the game designers want to make the game better and not about the cash grab. I have faith in them it's the former, as i am looking forward to a larger playerbase of casual players. You hardcore people are too intense for me with the min/max builds.

Sindala · January 2015

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

Swtor didn't make everything cash shop purchase for player housing XD frankly I think we'll all be fine

Yeah....this game don't even have player housing in development yet or even long term planned.......well that's 2 years of cash shop product buying wasted then.
They can't even roll out F2P and a cash shop properly...

AlexDougherty · January 2015

Gavner wrote: »

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This.
The game was released in an unfinished state and that hurt it... a LOT. After all, first impressions are very important, and when most reviews came out like: "this is full of bugs", "this doesn't feel like an ES game" etc. the player base suffered down the road since only the real fans remained, I guess.

Yes.

The game needed another couple of months before it should have been released. Firing large portions of the programming staff didn't help either.

daneyulebub17_ESO · January 2015

We didn't fail.

ZOS failed us.

spryler · January 2015

ZOS lacked the patience it requires to make money as a sub game. Had they stayed the course, they would have picked up subscribers over time and kept their loyal base.

They just didn't want to wait that long. Sad because they could have been another WoW (well maybe not that big, but a solid decades-long MMO).

RedTalon · January 2015

In this day in age people love things like games that start out free, but to get the good stuff you pay for it....so sub models are old fashion

When you also have that warcraft game has the top mmo out, people assume when you buy a subscription game it will be fully complete with a lot of stuff, forgetting it took wow a few years to get stable.

So no one failed anyone just society dammands things instantly and on the cheap now a-days.

Keep in mind people are cheap and slightly stupid.

Darklord_Tiberius · January 2015

Kilandros wrote: »

Gavner wrote: »

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This.
The game was released in an unfinished state and that hurt it... a LOT. After all, first impressions are very important, and when most reviews came out like: "this is full of bugs", "this doesn't feel like an ES game" etc. the player base suffered down the road since only the real fans remained, I guess.

Those were the kind reviews. The more critical reviews were like, "This is just another generic, mediocre, theme park MMO that someone slapped TES title onto."

Kind of hard to expect people to fork over a monthly sub for a game that is basically just a buggier GW2.

LOL I played Guild Wars for 7 years and I played GW2 in beta and through launch for at least a year. Comparing ESO to GW2 is like comparing an apple to an orange. Just because they are both round, does not mean they are the same thing. [snip]

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

XEVENEX · January 2015

What's this WE crap?

daemonios · January 2015

Kilandros wrote: »

Sindala wrote: »

The game was released before it was ready. Half a game means peeps moan about constant patches whilst they are paying rather than tweaks to the 'finished' product.

This is the only credited answer. Game launched before it was ready. Millions of people Beta tested ESO to see approximately 50% of all quests bugged--game launched with those same quests still bugged. People left. Developers had to spend months fixes bugs and performance that were unacceptable for a AAA title rather than delivering new content every 4-6 weeks. More people left. End-game PVP has always suffered from and continues to suffer from crippling performance issues. Many of the PVP left.

I think you're right. I believe many people left after the first 30 days (no sub required) due to the number of bugs and performance issues, and have been leaving because many still aren't fixed. In addition, ZOS was initially very slow to address the botters/gold farmers/exploiters/item dupers, which may have led to many people leaving.

That said, at this time I have some doubt whether ZOS didn't plan all along to go B2P or F2P after the initial hype. Guess we'll never know...

Dave2836 wrote: »

Technically the sub option is still available and they specifically stated in their live that is the preferred option they want their playbase to use to support the game. The incentives to remain subbed are there.

What incentives? 1500 crowns/month in a shop whose prices we don't even know yet? Access to content you can play with a one-off payment anyway? I'm inclined to stay subbed, but seriously, the incentives don't seem so hot...

c0rp · January 2015

The game was released too early. Even though the launch went pretty good server wise (for an mmo) the MASSIVE quest bug issues, grouping issues and bots created so much hate it was nearly impossible to recover.

But with that said...I have always suspected that this game would go b2p due to consoles. There was just too much on the table console wise (numbers of sales) to keep the sub on top of the console network fees.

Dragath · January 2015

the consumers didnt fail, the product was lackluster from the beginning.
its still basically beta.
far to few features in comparison to other mmos, not enough good content, balance is not good and lots of other things that just can hold up to the standard that people want from a new mmo.
but thats not the only reason for going b2p. they did know they will go this road for a very long time. this process is in the works for almost a year.
business models, console release and the low amount of long time subs are all part of this.