How long will we have to pay the subscription fee?

I give it a year at the most, maybe as little as six months.
It has nothing to do with the game's quality, it's just the way the MMO market is nowadays.

 

I say as long as it takes to get to the first expansion pack, then they might go free.

 

The game will only go free if the community is not big enough to see profits, but as long as the community is booming you can forget the game going F2P, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

 

I think it will go free to play in a year or two. This game wasn't exactly too successful to begin with so it probably won't be too long before the subscription model becomes unsustainable. There's just too many MMOs out there these days and in my opinion, ESO didn't take advantage of the source material enough to make it really distinguishing.

 

I do agree with Rocketman, I feel like they could have taken a bigger risk by adding some more unconventional features. They might pay for playing-it-safe in the end, who knows.

 

If it is awesome enough, probably as long as WoW has been subscription-based. If they can make money - they will. ESO is always one of the most expensive MMO projects in gaming history. They will want to make as much of that back as possible. Once the game has been around a while? Well, none of us really know.

 

True, but WoW has a ton of private servers as well I am sure ESO will be the same it won't happen right away, but give it a year or so and I am sure you will be seeing quite a few of course it won't be as good as the actual server, but how can you complain they are free.

 

I don't doubt that the game will have a huge initial subscriber base, all they need is the tagline "Online Skyrim" and it will sell millions upon millions of copies, my doubt is what percentage of these people will still be paying and playing 3-4 or even 6 months into the game, I think the subscriber base will plummet once people finish the main storyline and then the developers will look at other alternatives.


Going F2P has been a great way for game to go, SWTOR reported double the amount of profits once they changed and RIFT I think tripled the player base and even increased their subscriber base, it's efinitely not a "failure" to go F2P after having a subscription.

 

I understand the idea of going free not being a "Failure", but I've just noticed that sub model games tend to be more enjoyable (To me)

 

I totally understand that, I imagine that is because in F2P games certain options are behind a pay-wall where in sub model games you have every option available to you from the get-go.
Besides, if you are like me I actively avoid spending any money in F2P games, I'll just grind out for 20 more minutes instead of buying that +25%exp potion

 

At least 1 year if not 2. They have a lot of money to recover here, as it was an expensive game to make. I'm looking forward to seeing when they go Freemium mode.​

 

That's a good point I forgot about how much money the game would cost to make lol it's going to be at least 2 years any sooner then they would be taking a loss for awhile unless their cash shop is going to be awesome or something.

 

I would agree with many of the people here saying in 1-2 years we will see the subscription fee vanish. I was in the closed beta and what I saw in terms of story, game-play mechanics, and general direction of the game, it made me decide to not purchase it at launch. I would be interested to see their retention numbers after the free month runs out.

 

Most games that go F2P after P2P (RIFT, SWTOR) report that their profits increased as well as subs with the introduction of the cash shops, so I don't think keeping the subscription in order to make up for the investment is a wise course.

 

I don't really seeing it taking off at all. It doesn't really have the things that make Elder Scrolls interesting (at least to me). I got my beta invite today, I don't even think I'm going to try it. It just doesn't seem competitive at all right now.

 

I'm definitely giving it a try when they send me a Beta key...

 

I think it'll be like WoW, and will always be P2P, unless they really aren't getting enough attention from the game.

 

Given the nature of console games, I don't think that it will stay P2P. Were it soley for PC, I would agree with you, but I think console gamers would lose interest and thus force Zenimax into making it free to play.

 

My prediction is that this game will be F2P in 6 to 12 months. There's just no way it's going to be very successful as long as there's a subscription fee. I'm a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls games and the lore but I won't be playing ESO until it goes F2P.

 

As far as I know you will have to pay $15 every month for your subscription to Elder Scrolls Online. If for some weird reason Bethesda decides to make Elder Scrolls Online a free-to-play MMORPG it wont be for a very, very long time. Maybe not for a couple of years or so if we are lucky.