Will FFXIV and ESO Survive the Subscription Model?

[Valeron]

It will be interesting to see the retention rate of FFXIV once the subscription kicks in.

I would have probably gotten it if it didn't have a sub.

[Arkenaw]

It maxed out its server capability's twice in one week, that's abnormally high for the new mmo "phase"

Maybe he was just being sarcastic cause the title didn't say FFXIV:ARR. Iunno

[Pejo]

It will be interesting to see the retention rate of FFXIV once the subscription kicks in.

I would have probably gotten it if it didn't have a sub.

I agree - it should be interesting. I think it will do fine but it all depends on their content additions. They are doing well in the word of mouth sector so far. As for their servers reaching cap twice - this is true. Their cap of 260K then 420K does need to be noted though. It is much lower than other MMOs but this does allow them to keep a niche group.

[RoninaThorstone]

It will be interesting to see the retention rate of FFXIV once the subscription kicks in.

I would have probably gotten it if it didn't have a sub.

KV had a really good idea. If you buy the box (and thus get a month to play) you will probably get a titles or mount or a bunch of perks when it goes F2P. Not bad for 30 bucks.

[Sj]

KV had a really good idea. If you buy the box (and thus get a month to play) you will probably get a titles or mount or a bunch of perks when it goes F2P. Not bad for 30 bucks.

Yeah this sort of thing is pretty standard when a game drops its sub. I wouldn't be surprised if in the hypothetical situation that FFXIV goes F2P that they keep an optional sub and go the "premium" route where you get small monthly rewards and perks.

[RoninaThorstone]

I am thinking that sometime around the holidays, if I can convince my wife, I might grab us a pair of ff14 boxes and level up some characters in it. Might be a decent distraction from our families :P

[Spaceshaman]

PVP arena things like in the ES games

Name one (1) Elder Scrolls game that has "PVP arena" as in player versus player arena.

Anyway, they needed some kind of PVP (which they have never done before) and here they are w/ the results.

[RoninaThorstone]

Name one (1) Elder Scrolls game that has "PVP arena" as in player versus player arena.

Anyway, they needed some kind of PVP (which they have never done before) and here they are w/ the results.

I suspect he means a pve arena like in kotor on taris, or neverwinter, or NWO that could be used as lore grounds for a pvp one.

[Pejo]

Well, fuck, I thought FF14 was $60 - I'll def try it for that. Now I just need to find one...

[Achaman]

The MMO market is saturated. Too many players just won't play two subscription MMOs at once. But many players WILL play multiple non-subscription MMOs at once, which means going a sub route really just makes it that much harder to retain players.

yes but you can only get so much money from exp boosters and things to change your appearance


btw what about pso2?

[xerus]

FFXIV will survive as a sub based game. Square Enix is a large company with a fairly diverse portfolio and over 1 billion in annual net profits without taking into account FFXIV. They are also a Japanese company. Comparing the Japanese gaming culture to western gaming culture is like apples to oranges. They also have experience with running a sub based mmo (FFXI, which is sitll sub based and still live) and even though FFXIV 1.0 failed, it was an incredibly valuable learning experience for FFXIV ARR. I think even if the western market turns against FFXIV the Japanese market will be enough to keep it going without forcing SE to go F2P.

On the other hand I think ESO will either fail or go F2P in a reasonably short amount of time. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled and went F2P before it even came out (or at least B2P). ESO is being created by a company with not only no MMO experience but who have never created a game. Sure, Bethesda has some oversite on the game, but they aren't the ones making it. Additionally, anyone I know personally who hasn't gotten completely bored of Elder Scrolls is only still playing because the are into creating mods or play with a zillion mods active in the game.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see ESO succeed as a P2P (or at worst a B2P) game because I think F2P is just a terrible environment for MMO's in general. I just don't see it happening from what I know about the game. Other than it being 'Elder Scrolls' its really not that special.

[Bigbazz]

No idea if it will survive a sub model, but so far I've found that you can't buy the game right now, and even if you have it you can't play it, and if you can get online you can't make a character. Seems like a bit of a Diablo 3 launch to me, would be interested in giving it a try though, if only for the sake of trying it out until I get bored and move on after a week or so.

[zito]

No idea if it will survive a sub model, but so far I've found that you can't buy the game right now, and even if you have it you can't play it, and if you can get online you can't make a character. Seems like a bit of a Diablo 3 launch to me, would be interested in giving it a try though, if only for the sake of trying it out until I get bored and move on after a week or so.

Those issues were fixed like 4 days ago or something. You still can't buy it online though since they are waiting for the initial MMO hype to die before adding more servers.

[Edge-]

yes but you can only get so much money from exp boosters and things to change your appearance

And that's a lot of money for these companies so far. More money than they earned through subscriptions alone (for every post-WoW major MMO that's been released).

FFXIV will survive as a sub based game. Square Enix is a large company with a fairly diverse portfolio and over 1 billion in annual net profits without taking into account FFXIV.

>.> They've been in the red for some time now due to "underperforming" games like Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider and Hitman (all of which sold millions but "failed to meet expectations" set by Squeenix) and financial bombs like FF:ATB.

I agree with your comments about Squeenix being firmly rooted in the Eastern gaming culture. That's not a good thing though, because Easter developers are notoriously stubborn to the point of stupidity.

ESO is being created by a company with not only no MMO experience but who have never created a game.

Not true. All the senior team members have upwards of a decade of experience working on MMO's, and I'd be willing to be the lower end staff have all worked on at least one MMO as well. They've never created a game together as a team, but it's not like these guys are fresh design school grads.

[Deleted]

yes but you can only get so much money from exp boosters and things to change your appearance


btw what about pso2?

Never gonna come here.

Shame. I'm playing on the Jap servers.
But i can only understand so much of their jibberjabber.

And it isnt really an MMO.
More like a lobby based multiplayer game.

Sort of like Monster hunter in space.

- - - Updated - - -

Those issues were fixed like 4 days ago or something. You still can't buy it online though since they are waiting for the initial MMO hype to die before adding more servers.

Bullshit. People still cant log in regularly. And there is still no autokick for afkers.

[Needonboots]

Bullshit. People still cant log in regularly. And there is still no autokick for afkers.

The lack of autokick is indeed annoying, but on Moogle EU at least, even though we're unable to creat new characters STILL, since the maintenance overhaul I've never had a queue of more than 11, never any issues getting in, and the same with all my friends on the server.

I think Gilgamesh may be the only one with massive problems because almost every online community rolled on it.