You want to protest the layoffs? Support ESO and ESO+ (plus other ZOS games)!

brylars · July 11

I have seen people calling for "protesting with their wallet." Basically, attempting to enact change by withhold money as a punishment. ESO is an old game. A lot of the new people in the industry look only at numbers, the age of a product, and think that 10+ years of a game is way too old and something new has to replace it.

We need to show there is still more that ESO and other ZOS games have to give. That is what is so amazing about the Elder Scrolls franchise in particular. It has so many stories left to tell. We need to show it by the numbers. Subscriptions, hours online daily and weekly, etc. all will help keep this game and the franchise going. New people in the industry just want to focus on the younger generation thinking the rest of us will relent and buy their new products over the older (but higher quality ones). Generational fandom is a real thing and we can show it. Let's make it a difficult decision to move away from ESO rather than an easier one.

Yes. Protest with your wallet. Put more into ESO, not less.

Frayton · July 11

I'll spend more time and money when there's something I want to spend more time and money on.

I get that individuals are impacted, but these calls to throw more money at a multi-trillion dollar mega corporate conglomerate as if they're some small indie studio or charity are cringe.

LalMirchi · July 11

No, I'm slowly walking away.

I have about a year left on my sub. If I do not see improvements, who knows what will happen when the sub ends.

DoofusMax · July 11

Frayton wrote: »

I get that individuals are impacted, but these calls to throw more money at a multi-trillion dollar mega corporate conglomerate as if they're some small indie studio or charity are cringe.

Basic rule: profits are what is left over after expenses are deducted from income. "Expenses" is the "individuals are impacted" part because expenses includes salaries and benefits. ZOS is not a "mega corporate conglomerate;" it's a development studio owned by one. But as a development studio, it operates within whatever limits its income allows. Oh, yeah, and "income" is that money that you're refusing to spend because you somehow think this seriously impacts Microsoft's bottom line before it impacts ZOS' bottom line. Got the cart before the horse on that one.

Warhawke_80 · July 11

DoofusMax wrote: »

Frayton wrote: »

I get that individuals are impacted, but these calls to throw more money at a multi-trillion dollar mega corporate conglomerate as if they're some small indie studio or charity are cringe.

Basic rule: profits are what is left over after expenses are deducted from income. "Expenses" is the "individuals are impacted" part because expenses includes salaries and benefits. ZOS is not a "mega corporate conglomerate;" it's a development studio owned by one. But as a development studio, it operates within whatever limits its income allows. Oh, yeah, and "income" is that money that you're refusing to spend because you somehow think this seriously impacts Microsoft's bottom line before it impacts ZOS' bottom line. Got the cart before the horse on that one.

You're treating ZOS as though it's an independent business whose survival depends solely on ESO revenue. It isn't. It's a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Microsoft allocates budgets, approves projects, absorbs losses, and decides whether to invest more or less in ZOS. Revenue absolutely matters, but the idea that my purchase somehow "hurts ZOS before Microsoft" ignores how corporate ownership works.

If enough customers stop spending, the signal goes to Microsoft because Microsoft owns the asset. They'll decide whether to increase investment, change leadership, alter monetization, or shift strategy. That's exactly why parent companies track engagement and revenue across all their studios.

More importantly, as a consumer, I'm not responsible for protecting a studio's balance sheet. My only economic leverage is deciding whether a product is worth my money. If I believe the direction of the game isn't worth supporting, withholding my purchase is the rational market response. Companies constantly tell us to "vote with our wallets." That's exactly what I'm doing.

Vonnegut2506 · July 11

Thank goodness this wasn't added to the many other threads saying the same thing.

DoofusMax · July 11

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

More importantly, as a consumer, I'm not responsible for protecting a studio's balance sheet. My only economic leverage is deciding whether a product is worth my money. If I believe the direction of the game isn't worth supporting, withholding my purchase is the rational market response. Companies constantly tell us to "vote with our wallets." That's exactly what I'm doing.

That is a completely different argument. Purchasing a product or service is always a value-to-cost proposition. If you don't think you're getting your money's worth from a product, then refusing to purchase that produce or service is a completely rational position. I was merely pointing out that income feeds ZOS' bottom line BEFORE it feeds Microsoft's and your initial statement had that backward.

Frayton · July 11

DoofusMax wrote: »

Frayton wrote: »

I get that individuals are impacted, but these calls to throw more money at a multi-trillion dollar mega corporate conglomerate as if they're some small indie studio or charity are cringe.

Basic rule: profits are what is left over after expenses are deducted from income. "Expenses" is the "individuals are impacted" part because expenses includes salaries and benefits. ZOS is not a "mega corporate conglomerate;" it's a development studio owned by one. But as a development studio, it operates within whatever limits its income allows. Oh, yeah, and "income" is that money that you're refusing to spend because you somehow think this seriously impacts Microsoft's bottom line before it impacts ZOS' bottom line. Got the cart before the horse on that one.

I don't think about MS or ZOS when I'm spending money on ESO. I'm thinking about the product they're trying to sell me and whether it's worth my time and money to pay what they're asking for. You might not understand the significance of MS owning ZOS or their connection, but the poster after me explains why this matters, so I won't get into that.

MS and ZOS aren't my friends or my family. They don't care about me on a personal level, and I don't expect them to. I owe them nothing, and they owe me nothing beyond the product and service I paid for. It's that simple. It's business not personal.

I hope ESO stays up because of my own selfish reasons, but if it goes down, I'm not going to blame other paying customers. It's so weird to see customers blaming other customers for a product's issues. I don't see that anywhere else except here.

Soarora · July 11

I agree with the sentiment but I don't think people are going to change their minds over this thread. The roadmap will probably be a more deciding factor. ZOS also doesn't have other games.

DoofusMax · July 12

Soarora wrote: »

I agree with the sentiment but I don't think people are going to change their minds over this thread. The roadmap will probably be a more deciding factor. ZOS also doesn't have other games.

Most likely. Having been around ESO for several years, the regular players are probably going to continue to keep on with business as usual. The gripers gonna gripe and the complainers gonna complain, which is also business as usual. Neither side is highly likely to move into the other's camp. Both will keep playing, though. Go figure.

Faltasë · July 12

Yeah I don't really agree. Like other posters have said, people vote with their wallet. If they don't want to pay, then that's their right.

Money IS leverage, and that needs some kind of worth to be associated with it for it to matter at all. I don't think people withholding their wallets in protest is the reason ZoS will go under. That will be the owners of the companies fault, not the consumer base, because that is how economies work.

If it is a bad product, people will not buy it. This is something ZoS and Microsoft will have to understand in their pity-party brains.

I do think people should be patient in seeing what comes next, but if people don't agree with the product they are buying, they shouldn't be belittled or insulted for withholding their money at something that is clearly an uncertain future. That also includes whether or not they want to spend their time on the product as well.

And while I am very sympathetic to the developers of losing a certain amount of income, it's the curse of capitalism IMHO that makes me unsympathetic for the reasoning being "not enough sales." But that's a whole other conversation for a whole other day.

DoofusMax · July 12

I'm going to have to disagree strongly with part of that. I have not heard anyone from ZOS or Microsoft throwing pity-parties. I heard (saw) Sharma basically say "XBox is losing money, so here's what I'm going to do to start fixing that," but that's hardly a pity-party. All the hand-wringing and wailing is coming from players.

Horace-Wimp · July 12

brylars wrote: »

...Yes. Protest with your wallet. Put more into ESO, not less.

This is not how this business works. Money spent on ESO does not go to ESO per se. It foes into the Microsoft's general revenue which is then distributed to whatever the purse string holder decide to put it toward, usually the stockholders get their money first after employees and expenses are paid.

Some of your money spent will go toward ESO but only a TINY fraction. Even if every ESO customer spent $100 each month this would not change. Microsoft would simply see the added revenue and put it toward other projects they want to experiment on.

I'm not discouraging anyone from spending their money how they want. But it is important for folks to understand how this business works. Divorce ZOS from Microsoft and let it be it's own company again and then you might be on to something.

Faltasë · July 12

DoofusMax wrote: »

I'm going to have to disagree strongly with part of that. I have not heard anyone from ZOS or Microsoft throwing pity-parties. I heard (saw) Sharma basically say "XBox is losing money, so here's what I'm going to do to start fixing that," but that's hardly a pity-party. All the hand-wringing and wailing is coming from players.

I guess sure, it is mostly the people trying to stop the cancellation of subscriptions on the forum that are mostly throwing pity-parties, so i guess you are right on that part.

On the other thing, I wouldn't trust the words of someone who was previously a-part of Microsoft's main AI team.

Faltasë · July 12

Horace-Wimp wrote: »

brylars wrote: »

...Yes. Protest with your wallet. Put more into ESO, not less.

This is not how this business works. Money spent on ESO does not go to ESO per se. It foes into the Microsoft's general revenue which is then distributed to whatever the purse string holder decide to put it toward, usually the stockholders get their money first after employees and expenses are paid.

Some of your money spent will go toward ESO but only a TINY fraction. Even if every ESO customer spent $100 each month this would not change. Microsoft would simply see the added revenue and put it toward other projects they want to experiment on.

I'm not discouraging anyone from spending their money how they want. But it is important for folks to understand how this business works. Divorce ZOS from Microsoft and let it be it's own company again and then you might be on to something.

Another thing is that the consumers shouldnt be the ones responsible for saving a company from its downfall. That is not the customers job to save a failing business. It is either A) the business should become a better business or

suffer the consequences of not improving.

If they were doing a good job(which i think they were these past few months) and bringing in relatively decent profit, then they still get fired I don't see how them making MORE money will save them as well? Like they already did make more money, and they still got laid off, and yet, these folks on the forum expect the consumer to be able to bail them out if they go under.

Maybe if microsoft wouldn't spend money on AI or 14 middle managers the devs could actually make MORE money, even, on the game they deliver. It is a catch 22 system, if we do support them, they struggle, and if we don't, they struggle

duagloth · July 12

Nah im good

Nemesis7884 · July 12

Honestly I think a statement of commitment from Xbox that the focus on elder scrolls will also include ESO would go a loooooong way for player confidence

Sephyr · July 12

I'm just going to wait for the roadmap and not make any decisions either way. That's a few weeks out, I've got things to occupy my time. Having gone through the maintenance modes of The Secret World and Secret World Legends—I trust ZoS more than Funcom. If you know what happened there, then you KNOW.

HatchetHaro · July 12

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

If enough customers stop spending, the signal goes to Microsoft because Microsoft owns the asset. They'll decide whether to increase investment, change leadership, alter monetization, or shift strategy. That's exactly why parent companies track engagement and revenue across all their studios.

You're giving MS too much credit. What's more likely to happen would be that MS sees that ZOS is no longer earning enough of a profit, and then decides to cut it entirely because that would be a decision that boosts shareholder value the most in the short-term by saving costs on those salaries, and then MS profits even more from that because that shareholder value is worth more than the long-term losses from losing an entire studio that ultimately is a drop in the ocean of their earnings.

Vote with your wallets, for sure, and use your money to support any product you like, and if ESO's content is worth your money, then spend it on ESO. Just know that any decision made in an attempt solely to "send a message to MS" is an uninformed one at best.

If you truly want to send a message to MS (and other megacorps), you can hurt their bottom-line elsewhere. My suggestion would be to make the move to open-source and source-available software, such as replacing Office365 with Libreoffice, Teams to Matrix, straight up refuse to use Copilot, and perhaps even consider a switch from Windows to Linux.

Ardriel · July 12

Players who no longer want to spend money on ESO but still want to keep playing should keep in mind that the other players who continue to pay are funding the game, so that everyone can keep playing.
That’s why, after a lot of back-and-forth, I decided to renew my ESO+ subscription. I no longer want to play at the community’s expense—that is, to keep playing while others foot the bill.
If I no longer want to pay, I’ll quit the game.
But what other players do and how they feel about it is up to them to decide, and I personally won't judge anyone for it.

Warhawke_80 · July 12

Ardriel wrote: »

Players who no longer want to spend money on ESO but still want to keep playing should keep in mind that the other players who continue to pay are funding the game, so that everyone can keep playing.
That’s why, after a lot of back-and-forth, I decided to renew my ESO+ subscription. I no longer want to play at the community’s expense—that is, to keep playing while others foot the bill.
If I no longer want to pay, I’ll quit the game.
But what other players do and how they feel about it is up to them to decide, and I personally won't judge anyone for it.

That's your decision, and I respect it. But I've been playing since Beta 1 and have been paying ever since my free month ended. I've invested a lot in ESO, and until they show me they're committed to keeping the game alive, they're not getting another cent from me.

I've purchased every expansion, including the Collector's Editions when they were available, and I've maintained an active subscription since 2014. I feel like I've done my part. Now it's their turn to show me their intentions.

Simple.

AgaTheGreat · July 12

I don't want to protest them.

Pixiepumpkin · July 12

Ardriel wrote: »

Players who no longer want to spend money on ESO but still want to keep playing should keep in mind that the other players who continue to pay are funding the game, so that everyone can keep playing.

Why should they? The design of the game allows for players to play it on the box copy alone and DLC purchases. Why should those folks have any consideration whatsoever into the financials of Zenimax, or have any interest in other players who choose to sub to ESO+?

The answer is none. No one owes anyone anything.

Ardriel wrote: »

That’s why, after a lot of back-and-forth, I decided to renew my ESO+ subscription. I no longer want to play at the community’s expense—that is, to keep playing while others foot the bill.
If I no longer want to pay, I’ll quit the game.
But what other players do and how they feel about it is up to them to decide, and I personally won't judge anyone for it.

That is your choice, but you did judge them. Its in the phrase "while others foot the bill". Your dismissal of players who choose not to play monthly is against the forum rules. You are placing these people into a category.

FlameDark · July 12

Although I understand the sentiment, this unfortunately will not do anything for ESO.

Because of Microsoft's acquisition, their failures and choices will directly effect zenimax and TESO. Which is what we saw here. A few studios were seperated from Microsoft, some were sold. Why wasn't zenimax? Because it has a couple of extremely valuable IPs. TES, Doom and Fallout are far too valuable to let go of or more importantly to allow another company to get their hands on those IPs.

Unfortunately Microsoft is deeply participating in the AI arms race. Which has cost them billions already. Because they see the profits are in AI and less in gaming, they are adjusting because of it. Gaming just isn't their top priority anymore. They don't care if TESO is horriblely understaffed. Because they know the IP alone will cause people to keep playing it. I mean look at the amount of people whose instant reaction was to put even more money into the game. They laid off devs in these studios so they can bleed as much profit out of those studios as possible to fuel the great AI engine they're building. Because that is where the real money is for them. Microsoft probably sees a full team of devs as an entirely waste of money when they can just get AI to do a lot of those jobs (yes this is horrible. But this is a corporation we're talking about where end of the day profit is significantly greater then heart and passion for their work).

So unfortunately pouring as much money as you can into TESO is a good gesture, but is not going switch Microsoft's priorities or change their decision.

KrazyKaren874 · July 12

brylars wrote: »

I have seen people calling for "protesting with their wallet." Basically, attempting to enact change by withhold money as a punishment. ESO is an old game. A lot of the new people in the industry look only at numbers, the age of a product, and think that 10+ years of a game is way too old and something new has to replace it.

We need to show there is still more that ESO and other ZOS games have to give. That is what is so amazing about the Elder Scrolls franchise in particular. It has so many stories left to tell. We need to show it by the numbers. Subscriptions, hours online daily and weekly, etc. all will help keep this game and the franchise going. New people in the industry just want to focus on the younger generation thinking the rest of us will relent and buy their new products over the older (but higher quality ones). Generational fandom is a real thing and we can show it. Let's make it a difficult decision to move away from ESO rather than an easier one.

Yes. Protest with your wallet. Put more into ESO, not less.

This is not how supply and demand works.

Plus, it doesn't make any sense to give money to a company that has horrible customer relations. If there is ever a problem there is no way to resolve it when customer service is lacking.

LalMirchi · July 12

Unfortunately our game is just an innocent bystander in the current war of behemoths. MS lost the console wars recently to Sony so the aftereffects rain doubly hard on MS subsidiaries.

ZOS is but a minor minion in this "great" game between the titans. Game Studios are yesterdays news to them. The new frontier is AI. Albiet in this race there are new behemoths in play.

KrazyKaren874 · July 12

LalMirchi wrote: »

Unfortunately our game is just an innocent bystander in the current war of behemoths. MS lost the console wars recently to Sony so the aftereffects rain doubly hard on MS subsidiaries.

ZOS is but a minor minion in this "great" game between the titans. Game Studios are yesterdays news to them. The new frontier is AI. Albiet in this race there are new behemoths in play.

Innocent? Hardly.