I am a big fan of The Elder Scrolls. With The Elder Scrolls Online just around the corner I realized just how great of a game it seems like it will be, however I feel that what is being asked of us as the players (especially console gamers) outweighs the positive. I know that the matter of monthly payment has already been addressed and it has been said that the monthly $15.00(US) will end up being cheaper than having to pay for numerous downloadable content packages. We all know that this is false since the two downloadable content packs for Skyrim which were around a $15.00 value were very vast updates that added many hours of game play and took months to develop and perfect. That being said, I see no way that as a consumer I will be seeing added content of the same $15.00 caliber being added monthly. What I and many other TES fans see is a major money grab. We are asked to pay $180 a year to play one game. Any gamer with a new generation console is already paying $50 or $60 a year. I have no problem with paying a fee to play this game, as it seems to be great, but I have a problem with paying 3 times as much as I pay to play ALL of my other games.

I would like to suggest that they consider something like this: Keep a $15.00 a month charge, but offer other payment plans such as $50.00 for a full year.

I think that this is very reasonable and that the price already set is much too high. What do the rest of you think?

pricing is just right. i am positive there will be bulk pricing plans, but a year will be more than 50, more like 120. also what people pay for xbox live or ps plus has nothing to do with ESO. thats like saying your cable bill should cost less because you already have an electricity bill

Absolutely

That's not the point. The point is that we will not be seeing $15.00 worth of content every month.

After playing the beta, I'd say the price is too low. It's worth much more.

the 15 a month does not simply cover content. there are costs to running an mmo plus the devs will want to make money which it seems many people are against for some reason

And also that I can play every other game online as much as I want for a combined price of $50.00 a year. ESO is worth by no means over 3x as much as every other game combined

Nope

There should definitely be some bulk payment options for the subscription fee, and I'm almost certain there will be.

Yah, I think this price is too high... I am trying to convince some friends to play with me, but for a $15 dollars a month I am not having success.

Most people don't realize that with the massive amounts of people that will be playing this game, even if they make one dollar off of each of us, it is hundreds of thousands a year for them.

They would probably lose money if they charged $50/year. A lot of people do not seem to grasp all the overhead that goes into a MMO. There are bandwidth and server maintenance expenses that goes way beyond the cost of maintaining a regular multiplayer game. There are salaries for the employees who develop content(art dept, writers, voice actors, programmers, etc...) that are released via patches(in between expansions), support staff, both GM and telephone/email support.

The list goes on and on. You can't expect that just because Skyrim was $60, ESO should be as well. The only scummy deal was with Xbox One. WHile Playstation plus is not required to play on PS4, Xbox live IS required to play on the Xbox One. I could be wrong, but pretty sure I read somewhere that Zenimax petitioned MS to allow it to bypass XBL, but MS said no, so people can blame MS fo that one.

EDIT - I have no doubt as others have said, there will be bulk packages, but most likely not near $50

we have been down this road before. lets take GW2. lots of people want ESO to follow that game and be b2p only. that game was fun for a month, actually a little less. so i spend 60 bucks for 1 month of play. if eso turns out like other top notch mmo games i will be playing it for several years. at 15 a month i will SAVE a hell of a lot of money from playing this game. having a good mmo has saved me thousands of dollars over my life time. very few games last me more than 1 month. when i am not playing a good mmo i am going through game after game as the excitement wears off very fast. the price set for this game is amazing imo and is on par with the other great mmo games i have played

Let's hope so

they are not making this game for hundreds of thousands of dollars. they need to be making millions and millions, thats what they are going for. they probably have a goal set for a billion. i bet they have a chart in some office right now that shows 1 billion at the top

This is why it's expensive to play. This megaserver of theirs is MASSIVE.
http://www.esohut.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DataCenter.jpg
it's like a warehouse full of server don't spill the coffee

Pricing is fine and very standard for pay to play MMO's.

You aren't paying for Dawnguard and Dragonborn after Dawnguard and Dragonborn. You are paying for a game many times that size and the ability to play with your friends in a completely different game and game world which constantly changes with new content being patched in. You are also paying for the huge megaservers that allow access to that(they aren't free y'know).

From what I have seen the majority of the complaints are coming from the console market. It's new to you but I'm afraid it's all standard for what's basically a PC game.

I will also add that you can pay and play for 4 months and then cancel your subscription and come back several months later and start your subscription again with your old account and have immediate access to the new content.

I agree that they need to make money, most people over exagerate the prices of MMO servers. Many MMOs are free because they get enough money just from a few ads and the such. With hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of consumers, there is a lot pf money to be made with only a small price for every individual

Another post complaing about 49 cents, complaining about skipping a pizza for 1 day out of 31.... like is this serious.

How much did that megaserver cost anyway zenimax like 20 million?

I am sure they will have the standard 3 month 6 month and 12 month discounts most sub based mmo's have, of course these discounts most of the time are not all that much, but I guess something is better than nothing.

For me overall the the price of ESO is what I am used to paying, so I have no issues with the cost..

I don't know the 15$ a month charge is from back in early 2000s I think that EQ went from 9.99 a month to 12.99 a month and topped off at 14.99 a month in 2002 if I remember correctly. Then in 2004 WOW launched with its 14.99 a month price tag and is still going strong on that. Now if we were to add inflation into this whole thing then the price should actually have risen since the cost of living has risen exponentially since 2004?

It's about what you'd pay for the game and how much entertainment is worth to you, If I play this game and I get even just 10 hours worth of enjoyment out of this game then I'd consider that worth my money, But you know that bar is either higher or lower for some people, I could see myself playing this game for 100's of hours, A standard work day is 6-8 hours and you're earning 20 dollars an hour. So for 5 hours of work you can get 100's of hours of entertainment.

I hate the movie theatre anology but I suppose in a way it's valid, You go the cinema and you're paying 30 bucks just for a 2-3 hour movie and there isn't even a guarantee you'll enjoy the movie, But times are tough right now on cinema especially with all the pirates so I can't really blame them for charging as much as they do, The cinema near my place can only afford to employ 4 people.

Wow, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?! They should have no problem running a massive triple A MMO on that.

I'll just say again in a shorter reply. Your subscription isn't just about getting ￡8.99($15.00) a month of content. An MMO has MANY other costs and the servers are one of those huge costs.