In what may become the new standard, Gamesbrief analyst Nicholas Lovell has stated that the upcoming Zenimax developedElder Scrolls Onlinewill launch with a subscription fee, but then transition into the common Free to Play model somewhere down the line. The context of this statement is that the transition won’t be necessarily due to “failure”; it’ll just be a natural move due to the direction the market is going.
As an old-school MMO player since the days ofUltima Online, I’m pretty torn on subscription fees. On one hand, it’s a good method to provide constant funding for patching, fixes, content updates, and expanded PVP/endgame (World of Warcraft). On the other, if your game doesn’t actuallyprovidepeople with content and simply charges a subscription fee just because they can, you’re going to have a lot of people quitting your game when you could haveotherwisemade a ton of cash off micro-transactions (The Old Republic).
Elder Scrolls Online will be subscription-based before going free-to-play[CVG]
