This is simple. I wanted to gauge what the community thinks the right way forward is for ESO. This Poll was deigned to be simplistic in options,and for you to flesh out why you have that specific opinion below. Please let Zenimax know why your method is superior, and why it will increase revenue and player base. Thank you.

Its been beat to death

Try using search. Really don't need another one of these.

Wow thanks for bringing this up. I'm surprised no one has made a thread about this before.

No need to beat the dead horse. This thread and poll is absolutely unnecessary.

You forgot the most important one B2P with sub option, micro transitions and DLC.

I think the posters ahead of me pretty much summed up what this thread is.

Oh, oh, use mine: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1467431-cash-shops-and-payment-model-polldiscussion/

edit: not that we need 2 payment threads on the first page. D:

No, lets not use yours. Payment discussions go nowhere good. (Sorry for bumping this up.)

Holy cow!! We agree on something!!!

Well, here's the facts:

In 2007, http://www.zenimax.com/news_pressrelease10.25.07.htm (the parent company) secured $300 million dollars to set up ZOS and begin development by selling preferred stock to Providence Equity Partners. This was followed by an additional investment of another http://www.zenimax.com/news_pressrelease10.06.10.htm in 2010.

This places ESO's development cost at anywhere from $150 million to upwards of $450 million. As the game hasn't been released yet, most people assume the initial $300 million investment as ESO's cost to create (This is not wholly accurate, but still fairly acceptable--The studio needs offices, hardware, and there are bills to pay. Until ZOS has more than one game in development, all of their costs can be attributed directly to ESO). This is relevant because to break even from box sales, they need to sell enough copies to make back their investment.

According to http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/ps3-xbox360-costs-tech-cx_rr_game06_1219expensivegames.html, only about 45% of the retail "box" cost of a game goes back to developers. At the usual $60 a box, that's only $27 going back to the studio. Assuming that $300 million that was used to start the studio, ESO will have to sell over 11 million copies. By http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/29/world-of-warcraft-retail-sales-reach-8-6-million-units/, WoW hadn't sold that many copies in the first four years it was available. Star Wars: The Old Republic (developed for http://www.gamespot.com/news/star-wars-the-old-republic-cost-200-million-to-develop-6348959) sold http://www.vgchartz.com/game/31584/star-wars-the-old-republic/ units (and was well on its way to setting records before fizzling out and going free to play), and Guild Wars 2 sold around http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars_2 copies (people assume GW2 cost around $50 million to make, but I can't find a source to back this up).

A subscription based pay model would scare quite a lot of the console fan base.

One problem with that math. Not all of that $300 million is tied up with TESO. IE once the game launches, they will still have all the office furniture and pcs etc. Also we don't know that they will have spent all of that money.

Also they will make some off the CS, and this all assumes no subs (which I am 99.9% certain there will be).

1. Most of those aren't facts, only presumptions.

2. Cash shop will reap in a lot of money.

3. TESO is one of the first MMOs to be on consoles. A lot of people don't play on PCs, meaning much higher or faster sales than WoW or other MMOs.

4. They can easily sell 11 million copies if they had to, but they will not. $300 million is not an accurate number, plus there is the cash shop. Subscription will turn a lot of players away from this game. B2P alone will get them millions of buyers, simply because it is B2P.

1. The $300 million number is a real number, it's out there in a lot of places.

2. I agree.

3. Good point, I missed that in the above post.

4. It is accurate as to the investment, but agreed they don't have to get that back as stated in the previous post. However, I can virtually guarantee there will be a sub. But we shall see