The point still stands in gaming.

How do I know? I've seen it happen.

The longest MMO I've ever played, is Runescape.I was there from 2001 to 2010.

I was there to see this entire process happen in that game. First off, it had a nice even $5 monthly sub fee, which was fine. Because it was a sub game, I knew that I could expect alll the content in the game. However in...2007? Or so, this game had a festival. An RL festival, for which you got an in-game item. Purely aesthetic, of course, but I railed my little heart off telling people that this is the beginning of a slippery slope. Come just two years later- full blown microtransactions. A "lottery wheel" which potentially gave loot, money, exp, rare items - you name it. And the tickets were purchasable for real life cash.

The irony? The more micro-transactions they had, the higher their profits for that year were, but the less people played. starting from that one little aesthetic item.

the same for WoW. When did WoW hit its peak, and start slowly bleeding subscriptions? Right AFTER the first micro-transaction mount was introduced, and it only got worse from there and to this day the game is still bleeding, down a heft 5 to 6 million subscribers from that peak.

Games must pick a side. Either they have a sub fee or they have micro-transactions. Do not merge the two. You will see higher profits int he short term, but you don't see any when nobody is left to play.

Bad news: the store was crashing pretty much all day after the pre-order was announced. Somehow, I think people have already voted with their wallets, but not the way you were hoping.

From Matt Firor, GM of ZOS

"The Elder Scrolls games are all about allowing the player to go where they want, be who they want, and do what they want. We feel that putting pay gates between the player and content at any point in game ruins that feeling of freedom, and just having one small monthly fee for 100% access to the game fits the IP and the game much better than a system where you have to pay for features and access as you play."

"Plus, players will appreciate not having to worry about being 'monetized' in the middle of playing the game, which is definitely a problem that is cropping up more and more in online gaming these days," he added. "The fact that the word "monetized" exists points to the heart of the issue for us: We don't want the player to worry about which parts of the game to pay for - with our system, they get it all."

Because people totally haven't gotten much smaller things to change- like the textures of one single NPC in the game. Or the "impact" of hitting something.

Riiiight.

That works. And it works well. Because the vast majority of consumers are only slightly more intelligent than sheeps. They whine but they buy.

I cant wait for a game that looks for a small niche of players willing to pay for long, without trying to be the next "wow killer". Still nothing on the horizon besides vaporware.

Same was happening with FFXIV:ARR. Think that was enough purchasers and subs to make back a $200m budget as rumored with TES:O? I doubt it.

All we've got is anecdotal evidence right now, and a LOT of that is showing long-term fans begrudgingly supporting the game, now with a chip on their shoulder, and others outright abandoning ship.

LOTRO does have a sub and there are plenty of store exculsive real game advantages that are only available if you pay. Also some festival quests that didn't used to be are now gated behind timers that can only be unlocked with cash.

I can understand why people are upset. We were told something wasn't in the game for months and months then told we can get it if we pay. It doesn't make a difference to my game though as I never would have played as an imperial. It's a bad move and has created a mass of bad feeling but it's not yet the bottom of the long spiky pit and the game itself should still be great even if you don't play as an Imperial.

I think he forgot to add the part where if you want to be an Imperial, you have to fork over an extra $20 so you really can't be who you want to be.

Imperials are nothing more then a reskin, a permanent costume which is perfectly fine to sell as "fun" item, no content is actually barred.

Until proven otherwise there is really no need to cry bloody murder or blow things way out of proportion

Because races totally don't make the game for many TES fans.

We do not know that yet. It says race (race has skill lines), it does not say a reskin of a race.

Still hoping for an announcement from them that the imperial race can also be unlocked somehow ingame.

Exactly. Now this is what you see on the ESO website: Order the Digital Imperial Edition today and be the first to play with five days of early game access and receive an exclusive collection of digital content.

For the life of me, I can't understand how this can be defended. When its all right there in black and white.

Yeah no kidding. My feeling is that Matt, and most of the developers behind the game really truly believed that and wanted it. Shoddycast and other youtubers who have gotten to meet with the devs have the same feeling.

In the end, marketing wanted a fast cash grab that can only hurt the games longevity and hardcoe support.

point is though we do not know that this is not the case either...

so until there is some actual information there is no need to feel betrayed ^^

I'm not sure what's worse, holding one of the TES races hostage as premium content on day 1, or turning one of the core TES races into a crappy reskin and STILL holding it hostage on day 1.

So Imperials can be unlocked in the game later. Not that I would ever want to play as one. They've always been the most pathetic race in the game. And people who are paying for early access, what you're really paying for is the privilege of being the ones who experience server problems, hangups and crashes. Have fun being locked out of the game and rolled back for hours at a time while they scramble to fix this, lulz. By the time everyone else gets into the game, those problems will probably be solved, but you paid to experience that. Have fun.

To me this is obvious.

The fault is not on who CRAFTED the game.

By that merit, you could call any of the races "just a reskin".

They are not selling a costume, they are selling a race.

Think as a warning to Zenimax Media Inc. One could debate that a reskin is content also, thus fall under the sub fee. The only item does not fall under the sub fee is a service, like extra char slots or respec

Greed has its obvious limits, they face the serious risk of loosing out lots of $180 year subscriptions, is where the real money is.

You know why tourist places has an bad reputation? Because they can rip off their customers hard, its unlikely they get the same tourist back.

If you want to do long term business you don't as the customers goes somewhere else.

I understand why some companies does this, they are short of money and need money now or go broke. gamesas has lots of money.

Their handling of the TES series show that they understand how to handle an franchise, they could pumped out an new TES game every second year Battlefield style, they whold make far more money and could probably kept it running for many years.

If they would start in the exact same area , have the exact same abilities or pool of abilities to choose from then yes a race is just a reskin and not content.

Yeah, I agree with that based on my research. Same thing happened with Neverwinter. The guys at Cryptic were mortified when PWE took over and turned it into one of the biggest cash grabs in MMO history. Thing is though... by now developers should be well aware of the growing trend in marketing companies. So if they are going to make statements in regards to how the game is going to be marketed, there should be a legal agreement/contract binding the marketing company to certain terms. Otherwise the developing company is just asking for trouble and can in no way make any kind of comments about how the game is going to be marketed.

Easy there cowboy - those that pre-ordered don't all get the Imperial race. It's only available in the CE pre-order currently. So pre-order and being an Imperial aren't even connected. And considering you don't even have an issue with the race being in the CE anyway, what's the deal with insulting those that pre-order?

This is the problem: its not just "some" companies, its "most" companies.

And having "lots of money" will only make them even more greed.

I wish i could be proven wrong soon or later.

Meanwhile, I will never expect anything "fair" or "honest" from a BIG publisher like Beth (that already messed up the Fallout franchise, that i loved more than ES).