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The Elder Scrolls Online will be subscription-based [Updated]
WildStar isn't the only upcoming MMO that's dipping back into the subscription well, as The Elder Scrolls Online has announced that it will be subscription-only when it launches. ZeniMax General Manager Matt Firor confirmed TESO's subscription model in an interview with GameStar. "Charging a flat monthly (or subscription) fee means that we will offer players the game we set out to make, and the one that fans want to play," Firor said. "Going with any other model meant that we would have to make sacrifices and changes we weren't willing to make." Firor was adamant that this was the right move for the game. "The Elder Scrolls Online was designed and developed to be a premium experience: hundreds of hours of gameplay, tons of depth and features, professional customer support -- and a commitment to have ongoing content at regular intervals after launch. This type of experience is best paired with a one-time fee per month, as opposed to many smaller payments that would probably add up to more than $14.99/month any way." TESO will offer 30 days of play with the purchase of the client. The subscription price will be $14.99/€12.99/£8.99 a month, and Firor said that the studio will announce pricing discounts in the future. [Update: Fixed quotation.]
Rise and Shiny revisit: Dark Age of Camelot
About once a year I like to take a look back at Dark Age of Camelot, the classic PvP MMO by Mythic Entertainment, just to reassure myself that older MMOs are still some of the best around. Dark Age of Camelot comes from that older crop of titles like Asheron's Call and EverQuest, games that still shine despite their age. Of course the next logical question is, "If these games are still so good, why aren't more of us still playing them?" There's an easy answer, really. First of all, we don't spend time sitting around listening to our favorite albums or watching our favorite movies constantly, but we still appreciate them, possibly more than we did when we first found them. Next, all games are finite for us as individuals. There is no MMO that offers endless content if we take away the endless player-made content that comes from roleplay or exploration. No matter how good a game like Dark Age of Camelot was and still is, many of us have already experienced it quite a bit. It's only human to become slightly bored with something we've played with time and again. But once again, I've spent a week in a game that shows it's always a good thing to check back on our favorites. They just might surprise you all over again.
Research firm: SWTOR has 350,000 peak concurrent users
How successful is Star Wars: The Old Republic? That's hard to say definitively, but according to Baird Equity Research, BioWare's maiden massively multiplayer voyage is doing just fine. "We view the early success of Star Wars as an indication of a healthy MMO market," said Baird spokesman Colin Sebastian. The firm estimates that TOR has approximately 350,000 peak concurrent users spread across 215 servers (124 in America and 91 in Europe). That's a far cry from the 491 servers currently in use by World of Warcraft players, and though some analysts and fans expected TOR to compete with Blizzard's subscription king, Cowen and Company says the new title has had "minimal apparent impact" on the market leader.
Blizzard's Morhaime: F2P not right for WoW
Before you burn Blizzard at the stake, free-to-play fans, it's worth noting that head honcho Mike Morhaime isn't dismissing the model forever. In a new interview at Eurogamer, though, he does say that it makes little sense for an insanely profitable enterprise like today's World of Warcraft. "I think that there's an underlying, a fundamental assumption right now, that the less you charge, the more money you make. Which isn't true. And it doesn't necessarily make for a better game. I mean, everybody likes free... I think that definitely, players have seen a lot of really great quality free-to-play experiences, but I'm not sure it's the best model for us right now," Morhaime explains. The interview also touches on the controversy surrounding the new Mists of Pandaria expansion as well as the business logic behind Blizz's decision to give away Diablo III to long-term WoW subscribers. Head to Eurogamer for the full report.
CCP talks flying in space, says EVE is a healthy subscriber-based game
GameSpot has a new interview with EVE Online lead designer Kristoffer Touborg, and though it's a bit dated (it was conducted at last week's GDC, and obviously prior to yesterday's layoff announcement), it still features some interest nuggets relating to EVE and its immediate future. In terms of CCP's bread-and-butter spaceship gameplay, Touborg confirms what all the company dev blogs have been saying lately, which is that EVE's flying-in-space elements are once again the top priority. "The number of people working on things related to flying in space has probably tripled, so we are ready to start delivering a load of content," he says. The interview also touches on EVE's payment model, and specifically, why CCP has resisted the urge to jump on the free-to-play bandwagon. "We are a really healthy, subscriber-based game," Touborg says. "Does that mean we will be a subscriber-based game in five or 10 years? Maybe not, but as it currently stands, we have 400,000 subscribers, and there's really no reason to turn that bucket upside-down."
DCUO's Fight for the Light content pack free for subscribers
DC Universe Online is about to get a bit bigger, and it's also bucking the double-dipping trend that's gripped the MMO industry of late. The good news for subscribers is two-fold: First, there's a lot of new content on the way. Second, it's included in the subscription fee. The Fight for the Light pack, which integrates the legend of the Green Lantern (as well as the rest of the Lantern and Sinestro Corps) into Sony Online Entertainment's massively multiplayer beat-'em-up, debuts on September 6th. What exactly is in store for loyal denizens of Metropolis and Gotham City? For starters, there's the game's seventh power set (light, of course), followed by new instances like S.T.A.R. Labs, Coast City, and Sciencells Prison. In addition, players will interact with Green Lantern-based friends and foes as they battle to save earth from the clutches of Brainiac. %Gallery-128108%
The Soapbox: Subs and cash shops - Two great tastes that taste awful together
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Hoo boy, The Secret World. On the one hand, I was really looking forward to it. On the other hand, it's now joined the likes of EVE Online, pretty much every Sony Online Entertainment title ever made, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, and Funcom's own Age of Conan in my personal double-dipping doghouse. Yeah, The Secret World is going to have a subscription model (hooray) and a cash shop (boo, hiss, and zomgwtf). This should surprise no one, really, since game industry devs have been going all Gordon Gekko on us for a while now, but it was nonetheless a disappointing reveal on several levels. Equally disappointing are the folks who defend the subscription-plus-cash-shop model and erroneously refer to it as an example of consumer-friendly choice.
Order & Chaos Online available in Canadian App Store [Updated]
We took a brief look at Order & Chaos Online last month courtesy of a trailer on the game's Facebook page. Now, it looks as if the mobile World of Warcraft knockoff could be coming to an iOS device near you in the very near future. Touch Arcade is reporting that Gameloft has released the pocket MMORPG to the Canadian App Store, a move the publication says is "standard operating procedure for a wide-scale beta of sorts." Apparently other mobile dev outfits have used the Canadian market as a barometer both for how their games will be received and as a testbed for necessary tweaks. Gameloft has set Order & Chaos' price point at $6.99, which includes three months' worth of subscription time. You read that right: It's a sub-based mobile game, with single-month rates of $.99 while three-month and six-month packages go for $1.99 and $2.99 respectively. Head to Touch Arcade for more details. [Update: The game is now available in the U.S. market as well!]
Georgeson: EQII won't be going free-to-play
With all the chatter regarding Turbine's recent decision to convert Lord of the Rings Online to a free-to-play business model, many gamers have no doubt wondered whether their favorite subscription-based MMORPGs may be following suit. Sony Online Entertainment's Dave Georgeson, senior producer on Everquest II, is here to tell you about one game that won't be making the switch. Georgeson, who goes by the handle of SmokeJumper on the official EQII boards, had this to say in a post about possible changes to the long-running fantasy title's traditional subscription plan. "We will not be changing your subscription model," Georgeson writes. "We've heard you folks loud and clear that you do not want items with stats introduced, you don't want players buying their way to power, etc. Your world will stay the way it has been and we will continue to support it with new content, items, etc."
How do MMOs make money?
The Simple Lifeforms blog went through a recent DFC Intelligence report on the most commercially successful MMOs and pulled out some interesting points. World of Warcraft took home the most revenue for a single game in 2008 with an estimated $500M+ and all MMOs combined (worldwide) earned an estimated $1,875M.The top 10 earners list for 2008 included only one game that launched in the 1990s and that MMO was Lineage I. The majority of the top 10 list also featured MMOs of the fantasy genre, which probably won't come as a surprise.Simple Lifeforms classified four primary ways that make MMOs money: retail, subscription, virtual goods sales (aka RMT), and hybrid models. While the retail/subscription model is generally considered the tried and true way to run your MMO business by most of the big publishers, you might find it interesting that only half of the top 10 list is comprised of these types of MMOs.An unfortunate drawback of the DFC Intelligence report is that the revenue figures for the nine titles other than WoW have very large spreads. We see they made more than $150M and less than $500M but aren't given anything more specific than that.
"Free-To-Play" model pulls in a dollar per user in the west
One dollar per user per month may not sound like a huge revenue for any game, but when you start thinking in the terms of the user base of games like Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and RuneScape you start to realize how much a dollar is really worth.Lightspeed, a venture capital firm, recently did a few calculations to come up with the figures of how much revenue is generated by a single user in today's most successful free-to-play, microtransaction supported MMOs. What they came up with is a pretty interesting look at how much a "successful" MMO will make. For example, Habbo Hotel pulls in around $1.30 on average for each of their active users per month, while RuneScape pulls in 84 cents per active user per month.The one figure that stood out from the pack was Second Life, which pulled in 9 dollars per user per month thanks to things like land ownership and the premium subscription that land owners have to buy to be able to own property. Even with Second Life in the mix, it's interesting to see that these types of MMOs don't make much per user, yet still can pull in great amounts of revenue by entertaining huge player bases.[Via Kotaku]
Zonbu launches subscription-based PC, service plans
Alright folks, those of you scrambling to get your palms around the totally green, subscription based Zonbu PC can put away your patience card, as the firm has officially launched the machine and the corresponding service plans to the masses. 'Course, you already know how the court of public opinion feels about it, so it's finally time to pull the trigger (or not) on the variably priced, modestly-spec'd PC. Check it out -- you can snag your very own Linux-based mini PC for just $99 if you're cool with a very awkward two-year agreement.[Via Electronista]
