The wait is almost over, The Elder Scrolls Online launches this week with only three more days to go until we reach its official release date. With undue anticipation, as well as some initial hesitation from the gaming community; Bethesda chose to comment on their decision to construct the MMO through a monthly subscription model. Undermining the audience’s consecutive disappointment that The Elder Scrolls Online wouldn’t be free-to-play, like some of Bethesda’s distinct competitors. Despite the MMORPG niche being rather confined due to the sheer collection of developers, Bethesda and Zenimax Online presented themselves with a great deal of confidence. Reassuring that The Elder Scrolls Online is worth the price tag, and maintained the capability to preserve their potential subscribers whilst immersing them in the astounding lands of Tamriel.
Bethesda’s Global VP of Marketing and PR, Pete Hines, was able to speak with games.on.net earlier this morning on the subject of the game’s subscription fee. “It would be fair to say it was a mutual decision,” said Hines. “It wasn’t like they decided it, and we didn’t mandate it. There was a lot of conversation around it.” Upon weighing various options, the choice that’d made the most logical sense to Bethesda’s creation of The Elder Scrolls Online was to embrace the idea of offering a subscription model.
“What’s going to determine whether or not [the subscription model] succeeds or fails is not really tied to what anyone else has done,” commented the advocate from Bethesda Game Studios in reference to the grandiose amount of inevitable competition. “If we’re providing the kind of content people want to see where they’re like: ‘This is awesome, I’m having a blast, this new stuff is totally worth it and I’m having fun’, then the subscription totally works. ”
“It’s about ‘are you giving me my money’s worth for what you’re asking me to pay?'” Said Peter Hines, upon reviewing Bethesda’s subscription model to games.on.net. Future subscribers will have to answer that question for themselves.
Still, dishing out the initial $60 (or $80 if you’re going for the Imperial Edition) is a steep price to pay in order to experience The Elder Scrolls Online for the first month. Bethesda responded that, “if you don’t like the game, of course you’re not subscribing to it,” however, you’ll still be caught in the original investment. Hines was able to elaborate in defense of the vast concern, “You get the game, you get your first month without having to pay for a subscription to see ‘is this thing a thing I like’? If your approach that you want to take is that, for example, you love Skyrim, you played it for 125 hours, but after three or four weeks you were done, then you can do the exact same thing in Elder Scrolls Online.”
At least it won’t be too foreboding of a commitment that’ll ultimately tie the player down. In conclusion, Bethesda disclosed their priorities following the development of the latest installment of the Elder Scrolls series, “there are literally a billion different possibilities to be managed and figured out. Right now our focus is on one thing, which is make the best game possible.” The request for an eventual trial of The Elder Scrolls Online was described as being dependent on the game’s statistics. Unless the MMORPG plunges drastically in sales, Bethesda has no immediate plans to distribute a trial.
The team at Zenimax were described as being “pretty agile” if things need to change, addressing the game’s ability to adapt if the publishers at Bethesda Softworks were to insinuate an eventual shift in their funding. Whether or not it’ll be worth the hype it got during Beta will be tested soon as The Elder Scrolls Online hits the digital market (and retail stores) on April 4.