'The Elder Scrolls Online' Will Have a Subscription Fee

[octoberasian]

It depends how long you want the game servers to be available.
For the single fee model to work, there will need to be continuous sales at a high enough level to pay for the network, server upkeep, game patching and admin/support etc. staff levels.
To keep the servers alive a large enough trickle of money is needed otherwise there is little incentive or it may not be feasible.

There was a leaked image of Nexon's expenses on keeping their game servers on. If you include the servers, their maintenance, the people that maintain them, and the utilities and costs for the building, it came to around $1 million US per month. That is to maintain the game servers hosting Mabinogi, Dragons Nest, Vindictus and so on. That was a few years ago but it may have gone up now.

However, I'd like to think that would be a good approximation of maintaining a large MMO per month. Blizzard is probably higher with the number of servers they maintain, and EVE Online might be up there too.

If they get maybe half a million players to play Elder Scrolls Online, they pretty much got the server maintenance costs covered and then some extra for software development (patches, updates, new content, etc.), marketing and other things. In a year, they'd have nearly $100 million.

FFXI, for example, which averages currently 400 to 600 players on weekdays and 600 to 1000 players on weekends during peak hours for NA, EU and JP players, is still pretty much alive. If we consider players plus mules and alts, I'm sure FFXI still has enough players keeping the servers on even if it doesn't match the 7 million World of Warcraft players still paying each month.

If the development costs are not too high compared to let's say SWToR and the Elder Scrolls Online servers cost between $1 to $2 million a month to maintain, ESO should remain active even with a small playerbase paying $15 a month for the game. And, if they were to follow it with microtransactions in a cash shop, they can pretty much maintain the game without breaking 1 or 2 million players playing consistently per month.

Like FFXI, it'll probably have a niche following. Those tired of WoW and its game mechanics, and the drastic changes it's endured since Lich King may give it a try. Diehard fans of the Elder Scrolls series will most likely play it. Those curious about it and looking for something different outside the WoW mold will give it a try for the first 6 months after release. Some of those will stay for a year and others will not. Others will play on and off because of real life obligations but will keep it on if they get bored.

In the end, there will be someone willing to pay for it and play it beyond a year.

The TWO biggest issues I see with MMOs these days maintaining a large playerbase is World of Warcraft and content. Stray too far into familiar WoW territory-- game mechanics like questing, controls, and others-- and the game becomes no different than any other WoW clone out there. That will drive players away. Try to beat WoW or match it is just asking for failures because the game is trying too hard. Don't hold expectations too high that you'll beat or match WoW, or be as popular as WoW, and cater to the people that'll play your game and you'll be successful.

Content on the other hand is another issue. Make the game too easy and the items too easy to acquire, and you'll have players burning through content pretty quickly within a month and getting bored 3 months later. Biggest offender I know from personal experience with that is FFXI post-Abyssea expansion. Square-Enix failed on those two fronts-- making the game as easy as WoW and catering too much to casual players; and making content too easy to complete and items too easy to obtain post-Seekers of Adoulin. The game's population in my observation saw a steep drop of players when FFXIV ARR was released. I saw as much as 50% to 60% of my server population drop, and it's been dropping slowly but gradually since FFXIV ARR v2.0's re-release.

So many of my friends in FFXI moved on to FFXIV ARR, while others quit MMOs entirely. So, unable to make compelling and challenging content to maintain players playing, and unable to release new content consistently to keep players in the game, is just asking for the game to fail slowly but gradually.

Those two biggest issues are going to be the biggest challenges for ESO when it's released. The high monthly fee, higher than EVE Online and WoW, is going to partly play into it. If you're going to charge a fee per month for people to play your game, you have to be pretty damned sure you have enough content in there to keep people playing and keep them interested in playing the game. If not, do not be surprised you turn out like TERA Online, SWToR, or FFXI (post-Seekers of Adoulin).

 

[Nenu]

I would prefer they do a time played based billing system with a max fee of $15 a month for say 45hrs+, so $5 per 15hrs below that.
Then those who play more casually can pay less and not feel scammed.
The game would get a much larger following and be more popular.
I wont play it at $15/month.

 

[westrock2000]

I would prefer they do a time played based billing system with a max fee of $15 a month for say 45hrs+, so $5 per 15hrs below that.
Then those who play more casually can pay less and not feel scammed.
The game would get a much larger following and be more popular.
I wont play it at $15/month.

Interesting, I was just thinking the same idea.

 

[Eiolon]

I would prefer they do a time played based billing system with a max fee of $15 a month for say 45hrs+, so $5 per 15hrs below that.
Then those who play more casually can pay less and not feel scammed.
The game would get a much larger following and be more popular.
I wont play it at $15/month.

I don't think that would happen. They need to be paid up front so you can't dine and dash. A smaller upfront plan like you suggested would work though. Then just add more time as needed.

 

[GearChoices]

So let me get this straight. They are doing exactly what SWTOR did:
Create a cookie-cutter MMORPG with nothing innovative, only a few gimmicks that they are calling "innovative." Nothing about the game is truly MMO (like, to a limited extent: EVE, Pre-CU SWG, Shadowbane, or Original Ultima Online). But they have the "brand name," so they are going to pour money into it and expect a relatively large amount of people to pay a subscription fee just because it has the Elder Scrolls brand.

I was among the group that "called it" on SWTOR long before it was released, as soon as I first heard the direction (aka, non-MMO) they were going with it. I am calling it again. This will be another failure. They might make some money on it in the end (as they may have done with SWTOR), but nowhere near the level to even call it "successful." Profitable? Maybe. Successful? No. WoW Competitor?" Certainly not. "WoW-Killer?" When pigs fly.

 

[SGA76]

Man you guys act like a bunch of diva's on here. 15 bucks a month is too much waaaaaaah.

I bet that is a fraction of what most of you pay for your monthly Starbucks fix.

Don't drink Starbucks myself.
I do however regularly pay to have REAL Tim Horton's brought down from Canada. That stuff they call Tim Horton's here in the states is a joke and tastes nothing like the stuff from up North. We get their junk beans south of the Canadian border and you can't mail order the real stuff. If you like black coffee, it puts Starbucks to shame.
Oh, and REAL Molson. That stuff is awesome. The copycat crap we make here in the states is NOTHING like real the stuff up North.

 

[Godmachine]

I have yet to play a F2P MMO and come away impressed. When they can develop a F2P MMO with the polish of some of the better MMO's out there then I'll hop on board.

But as it stands right now TES Online is in a very rough form. Hopefully they will launch a massive update to address the general vapid state of the game and its very not like Elder Scrolls feel it has and make it something worth while.

I recommend highly that anyone considering this game wait until 6 months after release for early adopters to work out the bugs and frustration before jumping on board.

 

[Neslepax]

I wonder if anyone remembers the initial state that World of Warcraft was in at launch? No raids? Only pointless world PvP? No battlegrounds? Massive class imbalance? And those are just to name a few. Over time, WoW improved dramatically (although I would argue that MoP was a major step backward). My only point is that clearly Blizzard continued to use the monthly subscription to continually add content to the game. Sometimes it was a huge success, other times it fell flat.

I do not mind paying a reasonable monthly subscription for a game if it is continually updated and I generally like the updates to keep playing. If TES has a reasonable fee and they continue to update the game with those funds, I will probably bite. I have read some comments stating that you could buy multiple games for what a yearly subscription would cost. That might be true. But how quickly do you finish that other game and then need to buy something new to play? I would argue that if you like the subscription game, and you are spending hundreds of hours a year playing it, then it works out in the end.

 

[Kardonxt]

I wonder if anyone remembers the initial state that World of Warcraft was in at launch? No raids? Only pointless world PvP? No battlegrounds? Massive class imbalance? And those are just to name a few. Over time, WoW improved dramatically (although I would argue that MoP was a major step backward). My only point is that clearly Blizzard continued to use the monthly subscription to continually add content to the game. Sometimes it was a huge success, other times it fell flat.

When WoW was launched not every one and their mother had a free to play MMO out. They had a lot of time to get their problems under control. Users pretty much only had the option to move to other meh subscription based mmos.

Now if an mmo launch is buggy or boring users have no reason to pic it up when they can play a 1/2 dozen decent, well populated f2p mmos.

I like the idea of subscription based mmos way more than f2p but you really have to launch a killer product now to pull it off.

 

[Neslepax]

I like the idea of subscription based mmos way more than f2p but you really have to launch a killer product now to pull it off.

I would definitely agree with this. Many of the errors that Blizzard made with WoW's launch are rather unforgiveable now since developers should know better (Final Fantasy 14, for example). No game is ever going to have a flawless launch. However, if you feel that the game is enticing enough to pay the subscription fee at launch, then go for it. I only hope that TES is not a massive flop of the epic variety that FF14 was.