Has Zenimax confirmed how they plan to make money off of this game yet? Will it be free-to-play, monthly subscription, etc? Or is this all still speculation at this point?

Unknown.

Odd. This would be something important for us to know. Do they hope they can hype us up enough that they can slip this in later without anyone caring?

Maybe they don't know yet

Maybe not. But, then again, it's important to know these things. On their end, they'd need to be planning around it. If free-to-play, then they will make weapons, armor, etc for purchase. If they go with monthly subscriptions, then everything can be offered to all players. Which are they building the game around, I wonder...

subscription.

they'd be dumb to go ftp with a big title such as this.

7 years of hard work doesn't go ftp, unless its a wow clone that no one wants like swtor.

60 bucks for the game + free month, then subscription.

I doubt it will be free to play straight at release. Would be a terrible decision.

This X100000000

I wouldn't expect anything else.

It costs your soul, obviously.

But they repeatedly said they consider ESO a premium service, so it's likely anything but F2P. There are several alternative payment models to a fixed monthly subscription (paying for specific game time à la 30 hours, pay what you want, etc.). We'll know when we know.

it might be what alot of games do...ftp but there is a subscription service with benefits (imvu is GREAT example)

General business model is designed during pre production. Its how they gauge how much they can reasonably spend on the project. While there can be generally small changes the plan itself rarely deviates much as there are far too many things that need to be determined fairly early as they are expensive to change later. Usually when a company says "we are still discussing it" its because they are just not ready to detail it to the public and their competition yet. That said, expect box and cash shop, likely starting as a sub and having the option to transition into ftp/btp model, meaning much of what they can and will release later as "patches" will likely also be priced out as DLC.

Expect cash shop lol, you don't know this at all. Seems to me you are hoping it has a FTP option but i don't think they need to have a FTP option. Plenty of people would gladly pay a sub if the game is good. We have had numerous polls on here and around the net and they are all in favor of a sub.

Yes, cause the newly minted Bethesda store is not a step in that direction, nor the rather abundance of it in every popular title in the last decade.

Aside from talking about it on their FB page and visiting PAX how exactly are they hyping us? These forums aren't even that really well known and aren't even the official game forums because they don't have them yet. The people that are here are here because what we had heard of the game had piqued our interest to the point of search for more information.

I doubt it'll be free to play. The only game that launched with the purchase the game but no sub model was guild wars right? Everything else started sub and went f2p after the launch period numbers waned. At least all the major titles that had advertisemant backing that is.

They've put years into this and these people, the development team. And the investor's/publisher who's put the backing into their goal and development cycle need to see a return. Free to play doesn't ensure that at launch.

If the game is as good as I believe it is, it'll most likely cost me my marriage...

Speculation. If I was pushed for a guess, with a product as well polished as this appears to be so far, and as popular..

Subscription.


* Companies only usually switch to F2P models with products that are "clones" or inferior with limited mass market appeal. Most consumers will only pay for one active MMO subscription at a time - and the cutoff is usually around the $10 monthly mark before interest dips off. In terms of prices, the product price usually drops for subscription games ie from $60 to $40 or so. The reason for this I believe is party to increase interest and pick up initial sales. They may even decide to go as low as $30 to pack the world out fast - there's then more chance of double copies selling and communities filling out faster. Communities working well on a polished game tend to lead to greater retention.

Again you don't know that it will have a cash shop, link me a quote from a dev saying "expect a cashshop" ill wait here while you find the link.

Seems to me that reading your posts you seem to think everyone else is wrong and you are right, find me the quote please.

LOL. Seriously? So because they have not said it yet means you should not expect even though it would be one of the stupidest business decisions they can do if they do not? About the only thing stupider would be to give away the game completely free of charge. Its effectively free money that they would be turning away.

I have to agree with Sheek-Ki. Cash shops work for F2P models. Subscription models on the other hand would make cash shops a VERY poor business call and potentially damage the consumer market very heavily.

If they have a product with sufficient interest and quality to pull it off, it would take an idiot not to move to a subscription model, akin to WoW.

Dude, Cash shops are pretty much the only thing MMO's can get away with these days without putting off an entire community.

No way they'll pass that [censored] up.

The only way you make F2P profitable is to do micro-transactions. I doubt they plan on selling premium items for a couple of dollars each, so plan on paying a subscription. Unless, you know, everyone chips in a couple of bucks for horse armor.

Really? Cause Eq2, Coh and Lotro all had one before they went f2p, Wow, Eve and Rift all have one and still have a sub model. Traditionally you would be incorrect. Also, f2p/b2p traditionally brings in more cash than sub models do. I say traditionally because it depends much on how the game systems are built, and how they try an monetize. I honestly do not care what the payment model is as long as its fair and the game is good.

I beg to differ.

Cash shops DO put off player communities... rather a lot.

Why would you pay subscription fees to play a game only to be disadvantaged because a handful of the other players around you have unlimited gold. It's like paying to play a game where a handful of the players cheat. Why do you think WoW didn't go with one at the outset? For the vast majority of players it's a game spolier and damages appeal. They usually prefer to feel that they can get to the top with effort and working at it - seeing other people pay cash and skip the work svcks to say the least.

I believe it says it all the fact that those titles went F2P. Cash shops work with F2P, but they damage player numbers. Fact.
They went F2P because they simply didn't have sufficient appeal as subscription. Fact.

Again link your source don't speculate on a decision the devs might make, still waiting.

"Many times a Know-It-All will mask fact with fiction in order to make their opinions seem reasonable. Asking for references will give you a strong foothold on the validity of their claims"

Source please.