How long will we have to pay the subscription fee?

I don't think in a year, maybe 2 years at the most we'll see the sub fee going. But you never know, they could keep this fee going for the whole time the game is out. This could be both good and bad, one you're still going to be paying, two the game will be constantly updated for a long time, so that's always good.

 

It really depends on how popular the game lasts. If it's popularity wains in a year, I bet we'll see a free subscription to the game instead of a pay one. Now that's if activity slows down a bit. I can see a game like this lasting for years and so I expect to see the sub fee around for quite a while.

 

I would like to say in maybe a year or 2 it depends on how much people support the game if it does well then it will continue to be P2P

 

I really hope they change their mind. Paying for a subscription fee is asking too much for long term users. I don't mind paying for a game, especially one that I enjoy as much as ES but to ask users to continuously pay to play the game is unfair in my opinion. Lets say you play the game for 2 years paying $15 a month to play. You're talking $360 just to play the game. That's CRAZY in my opinion.

 

It's unlikely that Elder Scrolls online will change their subscriptions from monthly to free-to-play. I mean, we see TERA having done that, but again it's not always going to happen. Maybe a year or two after release, when they see that not enough players have subscribed to make money, they might change it to P2W but F2P nonetheless, which would still make this game worthless. Wait for private servers is what I would say.

 

It really depends. For me, it's not necessarily a good signal that an MMO go free-to-play only after a year of a subscription model because it just means that they didn't reach a critical mass of player base to keep it going. Simply put, if even the hard core ESO fans are not really buying it, there must be something wrong with the game. This is not a tried and true evaluation, of course, but it would really make me pause and think if one of the most massively-supported RPG franchises didn't gather enough support. Going free-to-play only after a year also makes me doubt the longevity of the MMO given that it 'jump-shipped' too quick to an 'easier' money-making scheme. Why would I believe that the MMO could last?

To answer your question, I think I'd be more comfortable if ESO would go free-to-play after three years or so, but this is just me talking -- someone who has never played the game yet. Let's see what happens when it launches.

 

Yes as others have mentioned, it's all based on the player base and their profit margin. If they feel like the revenue generated from a limited paying playerbase is larger than the revenue generated from a huge f2p playerbase then they will keep the current subscription. But the only way to succeed in this type of market is cater to every one, not just finding the most profitable way to make money. A company like Bethesda can afford to keep their subscription plan but I doubt it'll work in the long term. Games like this will continue to come out and will push ESO out of the market if they don't compete with other similar games.

 

Always looked at subscription MMOs going free to play model as a last resort or as a failing/aging game... seriously if a game is popular enough it doesn't need to go cash shop. Besides it can combine both approaches at some point, such as membeship fee + cash shop for extra fluff.

 

If the game does good it won't go free to play for some time. To be honest, as cheap as I can be some time, and how nice Free to play games are it is way better to have a game with a subscription model as long as the devs are actually providing the content for the game like they're supposed too. In the old mmo days, free to play games were too driven by paid content, a big problem in today's MMO world as it gets focused on more for earning cash than the actual game itself.

 

I give it between one year to two. most MMOs I know manage to keep them for an average of about nine months before they start to lose that initial subscription base.

 

It all depends on how fun Elder Scrolls Online is. They may eventually change their mind, but I honestly hope that they don't for a few years.


I think the subscription fee is a good thing. The developers need money in order to keep the game running. Without any sort of payment, the company usually resorts to either advertisements, or micro-transactions (or a combination of both). There may be other options I suppose, but I honestly would rather pay for a game knowing that I'll get more content, then play a game for free with little to no new future content. Future content is what makes the game worth investing in. People lose interest fast if the game doesn't work well, and if there is no real "catch" to it. Besides, I disagree with micro-transactions (most of the time, but depends on the game), and I hate advertisements.

tldr: Subscriptions are good, and are usually worth it if the game is fun. They may get rid of the subscriptions, but I hope it doesn't ruin the game.

 

Very few games (I can think of two,) can be successful with a pay-to-play model these days. Subscriptions used to be a standard and expected thing for an MMO, but since the free-to-play revolution, the amount of games that still use a subscription model is waning.
The companies that dare to try a PtP model these days quickly find that they don't get the playerbase they were expecting, and the players that do sign up jump ship once they've capped their character (though this is more to do with the theme-park structure of the games, rather than the payent model). This is when they panic and drop the subscription and try to re-launch as FtP. Take Tera Online for example. It launched, was only moderately successful, but soon the playerbase dropped off, leading to the server mergers to down to just two servers. Three months after Tera launched, it went Free-to-Play, as I recall.

As for ESO, I'm not sure. Zenimax may just stick with their guns and remain pay-to-play, or they may revert to free-to-play once they notice subscriber numbers dropping off after the honeymoon period, only time will till.

 

This is the pattern with "throwaway" MMOs. I can't say TESO is a throwaway MMO, but I have played the closed beta and I can say I certainly wasn't impressed with the production value. It felt like a bad chinese ripoff of the Elder Scrolls games.

Regardless, countless MMOs have subscriptions at launch because they know they can garner more money that way through hype. Once that hype dies and people start noticing how much the game doesn't actually meet their expectations, the game starts losing its subscribers and therefore its revenue. Then they switch to F2P which opens the game up to a new surge of players and the game becomes a cash shop money farm.

Trust me, this is definitely going F2P after a while. Just look at the countless games that have done it in the past three years. For comparison, a game like WoW that actually delivers the quality it promises (for the most part) can maintain having a subscription because the players consider it worth the cost.

 

As others have said, it really depends on how popular the game is. I am personally looking forward to it as I have had a chance to partake in the beta. In my opinion, the advances this mmo is attempting to make are phenomenal; from the mega server to the chance to actively have control over the world and political standings around you (ie: Being the EMPEROR of all of Tamriel). That said, they have a long way to go before they're ready to officially release it and I'm confident that they'll make good use of that time.

If ESO meets my expectations, I have no issue with paying a subscription fee for as long as they're updating it. They hold up their end of the bargain and I uphold mine.

 

I think that the sheer popularity of the Elder Scrolls franchise will keep the subscription model running for many years to come. A product of this will be regular updates, frequently added content, excellent customer support and a player base different to that of other "Free" player communities.

 

I've heard a lot of bad things about the ESO beta, but I can't see why no one sees past the fact that it was a beta. Of course it's going to suck. Do you really think they would release something so shoddy?
As for the sub fee, I can see it possibly being pretty high at first, but then later on they'll probably implement something like a returning members discount. Honestly I'd hoped they would give people that played the beta a discount of some sort, or maybe give them the game for free, but I doubt that will happen.
Personally I really don't want to pay a monthly fee for a game I had to pay x amount of dollars for, which is what turned me away from WOW.

 

If it is very successful, 2-3 years minimum. If it is not successful, much shorter than that.

 

I don't. Sure, it will have TONS of initial popularity because of the brand name alone, but TES players are seriously critical of the large to minute flaws of each game. They will apply the same criticism to this game and as soon as they realize how much it does not not meet their expectations they will cancel their subscriptions immediately. Just my prediction.

The Old Republic was wildly popular on launch due to all the Biodrones treating it like KOTOR 3, but it went F2P pretty quickly because it just didn't live up to be the "WoW Killer" it was promised to be.

These are not beta issues though. Beta and alpha issues are things like the game crashing, audio not working, quests not registering, clipping through the map etc. Those are not intended to be in the game. What is wrong with the game is the core gameplay is incredibly boring and cheap feeling. That is working as was designed and will likely be the same way at launch.

 

There is alot of problems with the BETA. Most of it had nothing to do with bugs and such. It had everything to do with the fact that the game is turning in to a pile of crap. Clearly Quality Control has been on vacation the last year or so otherwise I don't know how this game made it so far into development.