Agreed!

I'm sorry but I don't get the reference, what's Obama got to do with everything being for free?

Some people are in for a rude awakening..

If you can't afford it, play something else. There's plenty of "free" games out there. $15 is cheap considering the amount of entertainment you get.

Servers cost, employees working on the game cost, marketing cost. And most importantly... the game needs to be profitable.

You said it yourself, "I hate to quote WOW but..." But is the only game you could think of that have successfully mastered this model... This is when a stock price in the market suddenly goes up by more than 15% in one day - Yeah it happens but once every long long time, and most importantly do you know how many millions of other stock companies are trading at the same time? What i mean by this is, this model has been proved to be extreamly scuccessful in the past, but only with one game of one company within the Gamming Industry.

Now, what in my opinion will occur is that out of all the people who eventually purchase the game, there will be at least 60% subscripton lost within the first 3 months. The real question remains, will the remainning 40% user base be big enough in order to sustain the game and make enough profits for the managers to be satisfied? Depending on the answer of this is what will cause the game to either: A. Keep their subscriptoin model or B. Change their princing model (which by then would be already too late for our friends from Bethesda).

Eve has NEVER been F2P and their customer count has been consistently rising ever since the game started in 2003.

So ... Your saying from all the sales ( 100% ) there will be 60% loss in gamer base in first 3 months? Oh dear.... good that I have nothing to do with the company that will die because of it... oh dears this is the end the doom and end of days is near us.. aaand I will call this BS and we will see in 3-4 months how that 60% will be or how close to the truth your crystal ball will come to.

wow is not the only game that was a success with a monthly sub

If it's too high don't buy it.

Personally I've already preordered. The games looking like it has amazing potential.

I only HOPE they keep improving it and adding to it.

Weirdly, the top thing on my wish list is something I've just fleshed out on http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1488570-eso-and-social/ page 1.

I HOPE they take that sort of approach, as it'll add a real feeling of immersion for me, rather than the traditional boring MMO auction approach.

Pre 2006 most successful MMOs used the monthly sub format and the quality of those games often outshines that following the micro transaction model.

Hey Twistedmind, I love your sarcasm

I worked as anolyst in a diverse number of companies. Judging your reaction, you would be surprised of how easaly do users get bored of a game within the first 3 months. Many of them have the exciment to try it, but very few of them build a strong sence of "belonging" which makes them keep playing the game (specially when there is a subscription fee). So yes, 60% Drop, or better said, 60% of the buyers will play the game to satisfy their need to try/experience the game, after a top of 3 months time they will drop it and play something else.

Indeed, you are correct. And here we go back to my original post where I was mentionning Quality of customer vs Quantity of customres (Pay to play vs. Fremmium model). This being said, look at the numbers: By the end of 2013 EVE achieved 500,000 Users as opposed to WOW which has 8.3 Million by now (and the figure is rapidly drooping). Even though their customer base is rather small, it′s sufficinet for them. Now, EVE made two things extreamly well, first is their in-game build economy and second is that any characther becomes whatever they want to become (the same freedom that Skyrim offers in their stand alone game).

It will probably happen and its pretty standard for a MMO.

FFXIV sold 1,500,000 copies and its sitting at 600k players now, and it is considered a success (and it is for Square Enix).

Its not something that kills a MMO, theres always a very high percentual of players that just jumps from MMO to MMO, developers are well aware of this.

And you're comparing essential utilities (i.e. electricity) and a thing no one can serioualy live without (TV) to a game which is leisure and there are many many others to compete with. Not many Elder Scroll fans are hardcoe to throw money away when they see it's eating into their finances or seeing they are not getting valur for money (i.e. in summer when they play less and are out more).

I saw many people like you in the SWTOR forums and you know what? You were the minority and yes you were wrong.

They need to woo customers and give us a reason to keep paying subs..a good one otherwise the vast majority will leave...and then reality hits you. Like the ones in SWTOR who were saying the exact same things as you.

Pricing is perfect as is.

I'm glad for Square Enix really I've always been supporters of their company because they made some of the games that made my childhood well squaresoft did. But I'd like to point out that they had to completely rehaul the entire game to get this success, I don't know how much they lost in revenue because of this, But those 600k players will hopefully mean a good amount of revenue back for the company.

Love you too and see you online if your EU area.

I think they already got the money back it was mostly a matter of pride the first release really did hurt SE reputation.

The new release is the most boring MMO i have ever tried but its perfectly polished and does a very good job at keeping enough players paying.

Not me

Pretty happy with the pricing too, I have no problem with supporting a quality product, good support, regular updates, new content, etc...

lol swtor was a bad game that only got worse with f2p. you say i am wrong but all i have to do it point at swtor to prove i am right. stop being cheap and pay the devs for the hard work they put in. in return we will get a much better game for it

also cable tv is in no way essential. i never watch tv so i dont have cable, why would i? internet and netflix covers everything for me. truth be told i only have netflix for the kids. tv is not worth the price for me, not even close. i do understand though that for others its well worth it as they watch it all the time

So true, played swtor, good sp-storyline, crappy endgame (recycled instances), after it went f2p, non-sub-players had to pay for EVERYTHING extra - charslots, skillslots, ah, etc.,etc. ... Never regreted canceling sub...

That was a good read. Here is the link for anyone else interested:

http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1vsez2/why_im_happy_eso_is_not_f2p_by_someone_who_works/

Well if they want to play at work they should get employed by NCA, imagine manage to convince the boss that you should play wow at work for national security reasons

Computers used for gaming require an decent graphic chip, you can not use an budget laptop for gaming.

On the other hand then we talk abut stealing, some people downloaded Oblivion and Skyrim for free and is angry that this don't work for ESO.

Perhap an demo version of the game where you can only join the thief guild

I coudent have said it better myself, but really i coudent, my english isent good enough for that

If you think the assertion is baseless then you didn't follow my advice to read the reddit article. It does not matter how innocuous the GW2 cash shop is. As long as the game has monthly running costs, but no guaranteed monthly income, significant portion of developer time will be spent not on how to make the game better, but on how to squeeze more money out of the players. That is a simple law of business. And that is also the example of badness you asked for.

I didn't consider it too high until the release of the CE with exclusive access to the Imperial race. I assumed that for the subscription fee I would get access to the entire game, including all races. As someone else put it, a race is now locked behind a paywall. This is what I would expect of a 'f2p' game, not a sub game. It's a form of cash shop - pay extra to get extra.

In my opinion, then, any monthly sub is too high for a game for which you still have to pay extra for extra content. Otherwise I'm fully behind a monthly sub as long as I feel I'm getting my money's worth.

Pricing model is fine for me, standard charge for the MMO realm. Things cost money in the real world. If you don't find the value, don't pay for it.