Would cancelling ESO+ or stopping play be a helpful signal against the layoffs? I don't think so.

SeaGtGruff · July 7

amiiegee wrote: »

LittleLionLeone wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Why would I keep paying into a sinking ship?

Because you enjoy playing the game? And if you don't then stop paying. Solely cancelling your sub just because some people got laid off is just performative and most likely wouldn't last.

I can enjoy the game without the sub aswell? How does telling people to quit the game help?

I don’t need to pay their bills to pay their bills, I’m a customer and not charity.
If they don’t deliver contend or updates or needed and promised changes, why would I keep my sub up?

I have still paid the the past so I have the same right as you to play the game and don’t need to be told to quit, just because I decide to cancel my subscribtion due the unsecureness about the games future.

You can play the game without a sub, but you can't play the game if there's no money to keep the servers running.

I played for years without a sub, but I was buying all of the chapters and DLCs outright (as opposed to merely "renting" them via a sub), so I was supporting the game that way.

Then I finally decided to sub, because it seemed like a good investment for something that I spend so many hours a day on. But even with a sub, I still bought the new chapters (instead of waiting a year for them to become "free"/accessible to those who "rent" the content via a sub), and even pre-purchased the collectors editions. Now I'm buying the Premium+ tomes even while keeping my subscription up.

It's a personal choice. Cancel if you wish, but if you want to keep playing the game yet aren't interested in helping keep the servers running then don't expect to keep playing the game just because you have the right to play it. Your right to play the game means nothing if the servers can't be kept running.

SaffronCitrusflower · July 7

It doesn't matter what ZOS thinks or says at this point.

It's time to hold on to our money and get refunds while we still can where applicable. It's time to stop throwing good money after bad as the saying goes.

SaffronCitrusflower · July 7

Seraphayel wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Real problem is not only ESO, but also it may indicate TES6 and Fallout5 will be cancel.

They said multiple times now that they do these cuts to solely focus on Elder Scrolls and Fallout…

They also said vengeance was just a test to learn how to improve Grey Host.

Rohamad_Ali · July 7

After 10 years still not worried.

madman65 · July 7

I`m not trying incite chaos to get anyone in trouble. The one thing that gets big companies attention is the MONEY. They are selling stuff to make the money and when the flow of money slows or even stops, you/we will get their attention.

SaffronCitrusflower · July 7

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

LittleLionLeone wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Why would I keep paying into a sinking ship?

Because you enjoy playing the game? And if you don't then stop paying. Solely cancelling your sub just because some people got laid off is just performative and most likely wouldn't last.

I can enjoy the game without the sub aswell? How does telling people to quit the game help?

I don’t need to pay their bills to pay their bills, I’m a customer and not charity.
If they don’t deliver contend or updates or needed and promised changes, why would I keep my sub up?

I have still paid the the past so I have the same right as you to play the game and don’t need to be told to quit, just because I decide to cancel my subscribtion due the unsecureness about the games future.

You can play the game without a sub, but you can't play the game if there's no money to keep the servers running.

I played for years without a sub, but I was buying all of the chapters and DLCs outright (as opposed to merely "renting" them via a sub), so I was supporting the game that way.

Then I finally decided to sub, because it seemed like a good investment for something that I spend so many hours a day on. But even with a sub, I still bought the new chapters (instead of waiting a year for them to become "free"/accessible to those who "rent" the content via a sub), and even pre-purchased the collectors editions. Now I'm buying the Premium+ tomes even while keeping my subscription up.

It's a personal choice. Cancel if you wish, but if you want to keep playing the game yet aren't interested in helping keep the servers running then don't expect to keep playing the game just because you have the right to play it. Your right to play the game means nothing if the servers can't be kept running.

The over $5,000 I've spent on ESO over the years says I get to keep playing without spending any more money for as long as ESO is online.

As a PvP main ZOS never spent the money I paid on content I play anyway, so I should have stopped spending long before I did.

CalamityCat · July 7

Kilthor69 wrote: »

They have already stated that IP's such as TES6 and Fallout are top priority.

That doesn't mean that all four games are safe though. Elder Scrolls is both ESO and TES6 and Fallout has both Fallout 76 and Fallout 5.

I think it's fair to question which games specifically are being supported when MS have landed both teams with harmful cutbacks. Microslop can "prioritize" Elder Scrolls and Fallout IP while cutting a game or two to reduce the team size and focus on a single game from each. I hope I'm wrong, but the ESO cuts are worrying. If this is how MS "prioritize" Elder Scrolls games, I'd hate to see what the cuts would be like if they weren't a priority...

I certainly wouldn't recommend the annual subscriptions right now. I can fully understand players who cancel subs simply because there's a risk that they won't be able to play for a full year. A short sub is one thing, but a lot could change in a year.

Franchise408 · July 7

I don't think cancelling will be helpful in this regard, no. In fact, cancelling will just signal to MS that they were right for the layoffs, and probably lead to more.

That being said, it is not the player's responsibility to continue paying just to avoid ZOS layoffs. If a player wants to cancel their sub, that's their choice to do so.

AzuraFan · July 7

CalamityCat wrote: »

I think it's fair to question which games specifically are being supported when MS have landed both teams with harmful cutbacks. Microslop can "prioritize" Elder Scrolls and Fallout IP while cutting a game or two to reduce the team size and focus on a single game from each. I hope I'm wrong, but the ESO cuts are worrying. If this is how MS "prioritize" Elder Scrolls games, I'd hate to see what the cuts would be like if they weren't a priority...

It's been made clear that they're supporting the following franchises: Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Quake, Doom, and Wolfenstein. They will not be cutting any single-player Elder Scrolls games. In fact, they want to the gap between games in those franchises to be shorter. This is all out there in numerous articles - not speculation.

tomofhyrule · July 7

Kevin has posted in another thread with a response that addresses this question:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for reaching out and the kind words here. Right now, all we can ask is you continue to support ESO in whatever way you feel comfortable. We are working on adjusted timelines for you as well, so that you can make the most informed decision. Your time and money is important, so we are not in a position to dictate how to spend it. But we'll update everyone as we know more.

In short, it is up to you as a player. ZOS will try to get us the new timelines as soon as they can so we can be informed, but you may support the game however you see fit.

rafaelcsmaia · July 7

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

LittleLionLeone wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Why would I keep paying into a sinking ship?

Because you enjoy playing the game? And if you don't then stop paying. Solely cancelling your sub just because some people got laid off is just performative and most likely wouldn't last.

I can enjoy the game without the sub aswell? How does telling people to quit the game help?

I don’t need to pay their bills to pay their bills, I’m a customer and not charity.
If they don’t deliver contend or updates or needed and promised changes, why would I keep my sub up?

I have still paid the the past so I have the same right as you to play the game and don’t need to be told to quit, just because I decide to cancel my subscribtion due the unsecureness about the games future.

You can play the game without a sub, but you can't play the game if there's no money to keep the servers running.

Just keeping the server alive is hardly the issue. Got an estimation using AI:

"To simply keep the network infrastructure spinning, each active player only needs to contribute roughly $0.15 to $0.45 a month."

That is considering a 30k concurrent player server, and the same 30k contribution, we all know concurrent vs actual is skewed to actual so its even less. Number of players estimated matter little as it calculated the cost based on number of concurrent players.

So yes, it is dirty cheap to keep lights on, 1 ESO plus subscription pays for a max of 100 players that dont.

Recent · July 7

Im upset over this

MasterSpatula · July 7

Cancel my subscription? I'm working on cancelling my Office 365 subscription and switching over to open-source alternatives, and I'm looking at alternatives for my OS, assuming I can get my legacy games to run on them. I'm not sure what other way I can stop contributing to their bottom line, but I'm looking into it.

CalamityCat · July 7

AzuraFan wrote: »

It's been made clear that they're supporting the following franchises: Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Quake, Doom, and Wolfenstein. They will not be cutting any single-player Elder Scrolls games. In fact, they want to the gap between games in those franchises to be shorter. This is all out there in numerous articles - not speculation.

And again I'll say that supporting a franchise doesn't guarantee every single game in that franchise is safe in the medium to longer term. I'd love to be wrong, I love both franchises and hate the thought of losing games from either.

I read the full statement several times and it was full of sensible sounding reasons to placate shareholders and customers. But as we've seen with certain AI companies, a business can make extravagant claims of future investment and or support, then withdraw it later because a contract was never actually signed. The PR sounds AI generated but very plausible, like they intend to support ZOS/Bethesda. I want to believe every promise. But it is just a statement, therefore it's just talk. It's okay to see a company make thousands of job cuts and be skeptical of their press releases afterwards.

AzuraFan · July 7

CalamityCat wrote: »

And again I'll say that supporting a franchise doesn't guarantee every single game in that franchise is safe in the medium to longer term. I'd love to be wrong, I love both franchises and hate the thought of losing games from either.

If there isn't an online component, how would you lose a game in the franchise? Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind are all available DRM-free from GOG. Oblivion is still around and even has a remastered version. Skyrim isn't going anywhere. Same deal for the Fallout games. We're talking about the single-player game franchises that don't have an online component.

In the future, it's possible that future games in a franchise might not happen if the franchise isn't doing well, but you can't lose something you never had.

ETA: The online games aren't safe. It's been generally understood that when they say they'll focus on Fallout and Elder Scrolls, they're talking single-player.

Muizer · July 7

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

Hasty speculation isn't helpful to the poor Devs who have to make the most out of this unfortunate situation. If anything, they need support.

I've been in a similar position myself once. Based on that I'd say when your employer is reorganizing with no credible plan other than to cut cost, even if you're allowed to stay on for now, it's time to start planing an exit on your own terms.

We can't do a thing specifically for ZOS employees or the game. We can only, in general, as citizens attempt to resist the general trends that drives decisions like these.

wolfie1.0. · July 7

In the end, there are no bad decisions and no good decisions.

Do what you feel best at doing personally. Its really all that you can do.

If you enjoy playing the game then make the most of it while you have it.

As for me, I will support the game with what I feel i comfortable doing for as long as I feel comfortable doing it and will play right up until the servers go offline.

CalamityCat · July 7

AzuraFan wrote: »

If there isn't an online component, how would you lose a game in the franchise? Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind are all available DRM-free from GOG. Oblivion is still around and even has a remastered version. Skyrim isn't going anywhere. Same deal for the Fallout games. We're talking about the single-player game franchises that don't have an online component.

In the future, it's possible that future games in a franchise might not happen if the franchise isn't doing well, but you can't lose something you never had.

ETA: The online games aren't safe. It's been generally understood that when they say they'll focus on Fallout and Elder Scrolls, they're talking single-player.

How you lose an offline game is when it is cancelled before it is actually completed and released. It's easy to say "well you never had it in the first place so you can't miss it" but it is still a loss.

Obviously we can continue to play offline games if we still have a copy they can access, I'm old enough to have some games on cassette, so I have decades of practice stashing games. But you can't backup a game while it's still in development, and MS did cancel an unreleased game in the previous cutbacks. Which is why I don't believe the offline games are safe until they're released.

When I'm thinking of targets MS are most likely to nuke, it's obviously the online games that are most at risk when we rely on MS keeping the lights on. We've also just seen cuts to the ESO team that don't match with MS's benevolent claims of supporting the Elder Scrolls franchise, so it's fair to be worried. I know the Fallout series has apparently motivated MS to support that series, but I wouldn't expect Fallout 76 to be safe either. We all know MMOs are never guaranteed to last forever, I'm just glad I've been mostly lucky with the ones I've played.

AzuraFan · July 7

CalamityCat wrote: »

How you lose an offline game is when it is cancelled before it is actually completed and released. It's easy to say "well you never had it in the first place so you can't miss it" but it is still a loss.

There's zero chance of TES6 being cancelled, and that's all that's been announced so far, so you don't have anything to worry about.

We've also just seen cuts to the ESO team that don't match with MS's benevolent claims of supporting the Elder Scrolls franchise, so it's fair to be worried.

People generally agree that they were talking about the single-player ES franchise. Same goes for Fallout - they weren't talking about Fallout 76.

I've been really disappointed when a sequel to a game I've liked is cancelled or never gets off the ground, so I know what you're saying. But the danger of a game being cancelled has always existed. What happened yesterday hasn't changed that. So there's no need to be more concerned than you were a couple of days ago, especially about TES6.

Lagzee · July 7

im just surprised people are having such an over reaction about this considering how things went for the game when this happened last year. But i guess the main differences here are gina being let go and the original post from katherine, i believe her name was, on bluesky. That post deff made the dooming much worse.

But no i dont think that helps at all. Especially if things are going to continue as normal. I think the better eso does the less likely these things are to happen from microsoft. And we still dont have enough information.

Fata1moose · July 7

Asha said she wanted to invest in TES and then turned around and laid off a significant portion of ZOS who has kept the IP relevant inbetween mainline games. Look for sound reasoning and you will find none. She is a terminally online LinkedIn ghoul that thinks AI will help birth rates.

Mathius_Mordred · July 7

I will continue to sub and play the game as if nothing had happened. I will stop paying when I no longer feel the benefit of it for myself personally, just as I did when I stopped paying for Star Trek Online after having paid in about £15K over 13 years. In the meantime, if a better alternative MMO appears that I can migrate my guilds to, I will investigate and test it out.

What has happened is a real shame, but the writing has been on the wall for some time now. MMOs just don't seem to make as much money as they used to; Microsoft would not have done this if the company was raking in tons of cash; they would have just left it alone. All they care about is the bottom line, so they identified a loss-maker and targeted it for adjustment.

It's very sad, but it is what it is. Cancelling your subscription or changing your spending habits will not make one iota of difference to MS, so my advice is to carry on as always until you personally have had enough.

Dax_Draconis · July 8

Seraphayel wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Real problem is not only ESO, but also it may indicate TES6 and Fallout5 will be cancel.

They said multiple times now that they do these cuts to solely focus on Elder Scrolls and Fallout…

Which isn't bad news if it helps get the next single player TES game completed a bit quicker.

LittleLionLeone · July 8

amiiegee wrote: »

LittleLionLeone wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Why would I keep paying into a sinking ship?

Because you enjoy playing the game? And if you don't then stop paying. Solely cancelling your sub just because some people got laid off is just performative and most likely wouldn't last.

I can enjoy the game without the sub aswell? How does telling people to quit the game help?

I don’t need to pay their bills to pay their bills, I’m a customer and not charity.
If they don’t deliver contend or updates or needed and promised changes, why would I keep my sub up?

I have still paid the the past so I have the same right as you to play the game and don’t need to be told to quit, just because I decide to cancel my subscribtion due the unsecureness about the games future.

That's your prerogative. I never said stop playing, I said stop paying if you're no longer enjoying the game.

I'm also not telling people to keep subscribing just because layoffs happened. My point is simple, if you enjoy the game and think the sub is worth it, subscribe. If you don't, don't.

Canceling your sub solely because of yesterday's news feels more like a symbolic protest than something that's likely to change anything, and I suspect a lot of people will end up resubscribing later anyway.

I also agree you're not a charity. Companies should earn subscriptions by providing a game you think is worth paying for. If you're canceling because you no longer think the game is worth the money or because you're concerned about its long term future, that's a valid customer decision. I just don't think there's enough information right now to conclude the game's future based solely on yesterday's layoffs.

JustLovely · July 10

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

LittleLionLeone wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Why would I keep paying into a sinking ship?

Because you enjoy playing the game? And if you don't then stop paying. Solely cancelling your sub just because some people got laid off is just performative and most likely wouldn't last.

I can enjoy the game without the sub aswell? How does telling people to quit the game help?

I don’t need to pay their bills to pay their bills, I’m a customer and not charity.
If they don’t deliver contend or updates or needed and promised changes, why would I keep my sub up?

I have still paid the the past so I have the same right as you to play the game and don’t need to be told to quit, just because I decide to cancel my subscribtion due the unsecureness about the games future.

You can play the game without a sub, but you can't play the game if there's no money to keep the servers running.

I played for years without a sub, but I was buying all of the chapters and DLCs outright (as opposed to merely "renting" them via a sub), so I was supporting the game that way.

Then I finally decided to sub, because it seemed like a good investment for something that I spend so many hours a day on. But even with a sub, I still bought the new chapters (instead of waiting a year for them to become "free"/accessible to those who "rent" the content via a sub), and even pre-purchased the collectors editions. Now I'm buying the Premium+ tomes even while keeping my subscription up.

It's a personal choice. Cancel if you wish, but if you want to keep playing the game yet aren't interested in helping keep the servers running then don't expect to keep playing the game just because you have the right to play it. Your right to play the game means nothing if the servers can't be kept running.

The over $5,000 I've spent on ESO over the years says I get to keep playing without spending any more money for as long as ESO is online.

As a PvP main ZOS never spent the money I paid on content I play anyway, so I should have stopped spending long before I did.

Agreed. We've been paying in all these years only to get vengeance. I'm sympathetic and will buy new content if it looks decent to me, but I'm pretty bitter about vengeance still. Vengeance is not worthy of my financial support.

So for me it's just business as usual. If ZOS creates content I like I'll pay in more. If they don't, I won't. I couldn't imagine ZOS sending me a check just to help me out without expecting something in return.

Warhawke_80 · July 10

The layoffs suck, but I'm not going to doomcast. If the game is gone in the next year, that's okay. Nothing lasts forever, and I've gotten years of enjoyment out of it.

As for TES VI, I gave up waiting a long time ago. If it releases, awesome—but personally, I don't think it's much further along than pre-production, if that.

At the end of the day, this is an MMO. They all have a finite shelf life. I knew that when I rolled my first character. /shrug

defcon.dealer1b14_ESO · July 10

As a day 1 player on pc na that switched to ps when ESO came to consoles, I would rather the 'powers to be' to consider allowing the porting of our console data to PC and just shut down the console servers, RATHER than a blanket shut down of ESO.

This would not be ideal to some, including myself, as I would have to buy another pc or upgrade the hell out of my older gaming laptop, but it would/should make it 'less of a financial burden' ( and simplify upkeep ) in a lot of ways for the company/employees.

I also wouldn't mind there being a monthly charge to play, the price of eso+ that would give not only game access, but the crafting bag and ability to play any content if they moved ESO to PC only.

Again, this would not be ideal for some, but imo, it would be better than eso being shut down entirely.

Until whatever is decided, I'm just going to keep rolling. It does have me keeping a closer hold on my wallet atm. Still have over 300 days left on my ESO+ that recently renewed. I can't say I will not buy crown crates, but I'll definitely be prioritizing.