Citing bad sales, will ESO survive with console sales?

Kinado · April 2014

This has nothing to do with sub fees becoming out of fashion. People will always pay for a monthly fee if the game is worth the monthly fee. PERIOD.

The problem is that most developers think just because they do a game and entitled it a MMO, it gives them the right to charge a monthly fee. They release it with no endgame, they release with no sandbox features to keep players entertained between themselves since PVE content is missing, they release unfinished MMO's. That's why people whine so much about it. There's not enough bang for the buck.

Same happened with TESO. I bought the game, it has a huge amount of bugs and polish that needs to be done, the content is plenty if you like questing but besides that its lacking badly.

TESO as it was released does not deserve the 15$ sub fee, its a great game but it doesn't live up to the sub fee model requirements . If this changes with upcoming content who knows, but you can't expect to keep people playing the game and paying the sub based on promises. It's either there or it isn't.

In my opinion TESO should be a buy to play game. Pay for the game and pay for future DLC like craiglorn. These DLC releases would be the same as paying a monthly subscription in the end but at least they are optional for you to play the game.

Considering that most PVPers will want those extra veteran levels, most likely people will want to buy that DLC even if they don t want the Craiglorn pve content. If they are just altoholics loremongers with no interest in DLC, then they paid for the game they are playing and can quest until their eyes pop out.

Zenimax either releases a miracle patch fixing the game and introduces enough content to justify the sub fee or the game will have to change its business model sooner or later in order to survive.

I can't see console players which are a younger audience paying for the PS4 online sub fee + TESO + TESO sub fee just so they can access the game.

In my opinion Zenimax is very aware of this, they aren't stupid. They are just trying to squeeze every penny they can before making a change. Games are expensive to make, they need to make up the production cost first and foremost. They don t even have to worry about server merges which is bad publicity, they have the megaserver.

OR they have that miraculous patch up their sleeve fixing all the bugs/problems and Craiglorn patch will be AMAZING and boost the game's quality as a MMO justifying the sub fee. I seriously doubt that but would love for it to happen.

I m just waiting for them to make combat responsive as PVP is awful at the moment, can t even swap weapons properly.

DeniZg · April 2014

Originally posted by MamasGun
I will say, I agree with you. If you, and anyone else, is enjoying a game (any game), the sales figures really shouldn't matter. I mean, that's why we play games, right? For the fun, not the popularity?

This could be said for single player games, but for MMO's? Not really.

Due to it's multi-player component, quality of experience in MMO depends on having active players around. You might say that you are playing your MMO completely as solo experience, but then you are missing on a huge part of the game.

Also, MMO quality depends on constant updates and bug fixes. MMO with low sales or dying population will most likely be run by skeleton crew, which will not deliver such updates in a timely manner, if they deliver at all (see: Warhammer Online).

SysFail · April 2014

Consoles won't be the saving grace if PC sales have been poor, simply because most console gamers already have a monthly fee with microsoft or sony and remember that console games can be almost double that of PC titles.

Kyleran · April 2014

I'll wait to see the official numbers, VGCharts is more guesses and conjecture than actual facts.

Karteli · April 2014

Originally posted by Kyleran
I'll wait to see the official numbers, VGCharts is more guesses and conjecture than actual facts.

Zenimax will not release dismal numbers, so be prepared to wait a couple months until console versions come out.

Asariasha · April 2014

Such predictions become more and more hillarious. For us as gamers, the quality of a game should be of major interest. With the gaming industry becoming mature, more and more analysts dish out their predictions. The thing is who cares? Most predictions lack the fact that MMOs are longterm projects that will create revenue over time.

Wile TESO does not cater to everyones very own likes, it caters to a certain player base that actually loves to finally being able to play a MMO again, that has in depth storylines, freedom of character development and a game that deserves to be called a RPG. The game managed to attract over 2,000,000 players in beta without Zenimax having started marketing campaigns.

While the first beta impressions and previews were mediocre to bad, the currently released reviews become better and better, stating that Zenimax quickly reacts to solving the hand full of serious bugs and rating the game somwhere around 90%. I guess that more and more players will become interested in TESO. It simply will take some time.

Siug · April 2014

Well, I can only hope that enough people continue subbing to keep ESO profitable. It's a good game, not great, but just good. Maybe a bit too much quest driven for my taste but I like this phasing thing while questing - sometimes it's quite fun if you ask me.

So I hope that ESO will be doing well enough so that constant updates keep coming etc.

Karteli · April 2014

Originally posted by Asariasha
Such predictions become more and more hillarious. For us as gamers, the quality of a game should be of major interest. With the gaming industry becoming mature, more and more analysts dish out their predictions. The thing is who cares? Most predictions lack the fact that MMOs are longterm projects that will create revenue over time.

Wile TESO does not cater to everyones very own likes, it caters to a certain player base that actually loves to finally being able to play a MMO again, that has in depth storylines, freedom of character development and a game that deserves to be called a RPG. The game managed to attract over 2,000,000 players in beta without Zenimax having started marketing campaigns.

While the first beta impressions and previews were mediocre to bad, the currently released reviews become better and better, stating that Zenimax quickly reacts to solving the hand full of serious bugs and rating the game somwhere around 90%. I guess that more and more players will become interested in TESO. It simply will take some time.

no they didn't.

But by all means, continue explaining the hilarity of the situation. Quality of the game was a driving force in low sales.

Why does your post sound like an advertisement, since you made sure to include 2 million beta apps. Hint: put some sources in there when you speak of numbers, otherwise it's not credible.

Or just acknowledge that predictions are just that. Predictions. The very nature of the post you participated in.

amber-r · April 2014

These are numbers for one single day of sales.

Elder Scrolls Online Release date(s) Microsoft Windows & OS X
April 4, 2014

VGCHARTZ

Global Total as of 05th Apr 2014 (units): 0.25m

The figures on VGChartz are not very reliable at the best of times but when you knowingly post figures that are misleading it simply says more about the point you're trying to make above anything else, if you want to announce how bad the game is doing then you need to appear to at least offer information that is credible. Offering up 1 days sales is far from that.

Stating figures from some other game like Mario is irrelevent because VGchartz plainly states that these are global figures as of the 5th which is one single day after and just because some other game may or may not be upto date has no relevence on this game, we don't even know if they actually are inclusive of pre-orders. If you want to use VGChartz as a gauge when comparing it to other titles you need to appear to be fair with it, and you aren't doing that.

Once the next date shows sales figures we can at least state these figures are as fair as any other game when compared.

Azarten · April 2014

Is this another thread with undertones of crying that ESO isn't F2P? Let me take a wild stab in the dark and say that you think it should be F2P right. Or are you just a dedicated ESO hater.

All I know is that I'm having more fun/immersion in ESO than I've had in any other game in a long, long time. So for me I'll quite happily continue to sub for as long as it remains a subscription based game.

Wizardry · April 2014

I am quite sure TESO is doing quite well but i do not for one second believe that was a 200 million dollar budget.I think the most obvious reason is they were over the last few years funded by a ton of investment money like about a total of 300 million.

Keyword investment.No way are you going to figure in a 200 mil budget and think you can pay back investors and make a large profit, that would be real dumb management.IMO they actually rehashed a lot of old stuff from their already done portfolio and used many of the same concepts/coding from their prior games.I would be extremely shocked if this game cost even 100 million but maybe somehow they will work the books to make it appear like that to manipulate stocks and further investment.

Bottom line is i feel the game will do fine but not great as you can't turn huge profits with investors money and imo incentive is a bit lazier knowing it is not all your money going into the project.

As to console sales, that can be a huge problem because the added cost of development might not see the turn over with NEW sales as by now i believe most anyone interested would have already bought the game on PC.Trends have shown in the past that games do not gain huge influxes after launch,only FFXIV did it because it did a huge costly make over on the game.

TheLizardbones · April 2014

The Forbes guy (a blogger, actually), was talking about F2P and nothing else.

VGChartz lags behind reality, and doesn't have a complete picture of a game's sales outside of in-store sales. Even the in-store sales come with a margin of error.

The Forbes guy being "right" is a stretch. Even if they were right, it would take a lot longer to confirm it.

Karteli · April 2014

Originally posted by Wizardry
I am quite sure TESO is doing quite well but i do not for one second believe that was a 200 million dollar budget.I think the most obvious reason is they were over the last few years funded by a ton of investment money like about a total of 300 million.

Keyword investment.No way are you going to figure in a 200 mil budget and think you can pay back investors and make a large profit, that would be real dumb management.IMO they actually rehashed a lot of old stuff from their already done portfolio and used many of the same concepts/coding from their prior games.I would be extremely shocked if this game cost even 100 million but maybe somehow they will work the books to make it appear like that to manipulate stocks and further investment.

Bottom line is i feel the game will do fine but not great as you can't turn huge profits with investors money and imo incentive is a bit lazier knowing it is not all your money going into the project.

As to console sales, that can be a huge problem because the added cost of development might not see the turn over with NEW sales as by now i believe most anyone interested would have already bought the game on PC.Trends have shown in the past that games do not gain huge influxes after launch,only FFXIV did it because it did a huge costly make over on the game.

Console sales won't be WoW levels, but I am leaning towards them being better than PC sales. Specifically, this game was designed around a console environment, so some potential customers are holding out for that.

Also console sales are generally high for everything, even for crappy games, let alone an ES game. Retention is a serious issue, which is where Zenimax will start kissing up to PC users again in a few months, once their short term monetary boosters are exhausted.

edit - ps - thanks for commenting.

Mpfive · April 2014

Why do you care so much op? Move on if you don't like the game

kaiser3282 · April 2014

People actually still rely on VGChartz and Xfire numbers as proof of anything? Kids these days.

BTW OP - Why even bother with an article from January from a guy who clearly is taking issue with the subscription model itself and at the time of writing the article knew absolutely nothing about the game aside from stuff he read on forums with no hands on experience himself? The whole article can pretty much be summed up as "I know very little about the game except that it has a $15 subscription. It's going to fail because it has a sub."

movros99 · April 2014

I take issue with a number of points on this article that I feel are baseless and incorrect. I will address some quotes.

"But even Star Wars wasn’t enough to convince The Old Republic players that the game was worth a monthly fee."

The reason SWTOR failed to attract subscribers rests with EA. The game had very little content for players to absorb and even less end game content. There was no reason for players to subscribe - they were finished with the game. ESO has a truck-load of content coupled with an engaging PvP system that will keep player's subscriptions active.

"an MMO version of the game isn’t something that deserves anywhere remotely near a $200M budget"

Excuse me? Really? This is one of the most beloved fantasy IP's in gaming and it doesn't deserve a AAA MMO intrepretation? I completely disagree. Previous titles have a following of ravenous fans. An MMO in with this IP is more than justified.

"I’m not normally a big PC MMO guy"

Then you have no business writing this article. Go back to your corner and keep plugging away at Call of Duty and Halo.

"Console players, and hell, most PC players these days that aren’t die hard WoW or EVE Online devotees,"

Now I know this author is out of his f****** mind. Developers have been chasing WoW for years and EVE defies logic and manages to keep growing its player base in spite of the age of its title.

"[players] have no patience for the increasingly outdated monthly subscription model"

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Players have no patience for lousy developers who are subjected to the whims of investors that are only concerned with making a profit. How many titles have been pushed out the door too early and failed because of such terrible business models. A number of players are revolting against this process via Kickstarter. Star Citizen alone has just passed $42 Million in crowd funding. People are more than willing to plunk down hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the mere promise of a decent title that won't be marred by ruthless investors and their poorly managed studios.

"I thought SWTOR was the final object lesson any other studio would need to scale back whatever future plans they had for their own expensive MMO attempts, but it appears that lesson didn’t sink in for TESO, and they may end up paying the price for it."

And Wildstar too I suppose? Rubbish. Again people want good games and SWTOR was/is trash. A weak attempt at a Star Wars/WoW clone...pun intended.

"Who ever even asked for an Elder Scrolls MMO?"

In short. Everybody who stood in Skyrim and got lonely. Multi-player mods for Skyrim were very popular. Should we also conclude that Final Fantasy is a bad IP for an MMO? Hell even Warcraft was a single player IP at one point.

"In short, Bethesda and Zenimax spend an ungodly amount of money developing a game for an audience that may not even exist."

The mega server, plagued as it is with bugs and other issues, is jam-packed with players thank you very much.

"In short, it’s not a game that’s worth $15 a month."

It's not the game people pay a monthly sub for, it's the service. The content updates and interaction with developers and GM's. On this point Zenimax has yet to prove itself. It is early though. They deserve a few weeks to get their s*** together.

This is a terrible article. Paul Tassi needs to forget about a career in journalism and stick with his science fiction writing. Fiction is most definitely his strong suit.

Mo

TheLizardbones · April 2014

Wow, look at that. ESO is #1 on GameStop's PC Downloads page. And #2.

http://www.impulsedriven.com/

Zeddakis · April 2014

Originally posted by grapevine
Originally posted by paparios
Originally posted by grapevine
The problem is you are trying too hard to have a negative view and its obvious. You are clearly on the hunt to find anything. Seriously why bother? XFire is hardly used and the stats are based on vastly incomplete data.

The game may have sold badly and it may not have. However please don't try to come across as one way or another being fact, as you (and everyone else) doesn't know.

Raptr tracks maybe more than 30m ppls playing hours.

Anyway those programs may not show anyhting about total numbers or subs in a game, but the trend of those who already play it and use these programs. The numbers shows a radical decline of their interest in every days playing hours. About total numbers & subs we can only be sure if ZEN announce them, but the trend of the ppl can be shown from these programs.

Quite amazing as I've yet to come across anyone who actually uses them kind of tools, in 18 years of online gaming. I installed XFire once, to check it out. Doesn't mean I use it. Like most, I'm not interested in being "tracked". From what I can tell they attract a certain mind set, so there tends to be a common trend no matter the game.

Since I use Raptr please tell me what that "certain mind set" is please?

Apraxis · April 2014

Originally posted by Karteli
ESO had some bad vibes from Forbes, even before launch, with a whopping $200 million budget:

Predicting the Biggest Video Game Disaster of 2014: The Elder Scrolls Online

January 02, 2014

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/

excerpt:

I’m not sure if it’s arrogance, the idea that people love the Elder Scrolls so much they’ll pay $60 for a box copy and $180 a year to play TESO, but it’s bad business sense at the very least. It’s not only subscription fees that are becoming out of fashion, but the very concept of huge budget, AAA MMOs in general. I thought SWTOR was the final object lesson any other studio would need to scale back whatever future plans they had for their own expensive MMO attempts, but it appears that lesson didn’t sink in for TESO, and they may end up paying the price for it.

OK, ESO didn't do so well with PC sales, so Forbes is right.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Elder+scrolls+online

(numbers in millions)

Pos Game Platform Year Genre Publisher
North America

Europe

Japan

Rest of World

Global

1 The Elder Scrolls Online PC 2014 Action Bethesda Softworks
0.14

0.09

0.00

0.03

0.25

2 The Elder Scrolls Online OSX 2014 Action Bethesda Softworks
0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

3 The Elder Scrolls Online XOne 2014 Action Bethesda Softworks
0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

4 The Elder Scrolls Online PS4 2014 Action Bethesda Softworks
0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

Total
0.14

0.09

0.00

0.03

0.25

What about console pre-orders? (http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders/)

Pos Game Weeks to Launch Weekly Change Total

13

The Elder Scrolls Online (XOne)
Bethesda Softworks, Action

12 3,139 70,117

14

The Elder Scrolls Online (PS4)
Bethesda Softworks, Action

12 2,668 60,936

As VGChartz has shown, and from their by-kaws, preorders do only include North American sales, but their numbers also reflect digitial sales now. So double those preorder numbers and you get a round-about number for global sales. (EU sales are roughly equvalent to USA.)

Call them estimates, but they seem to be pretty much spot on. (ex 270k sales or 280k sales .. who cares, it's not 4 million).

ESO must survive with console sales, from here forward, IMO. Will they?

Your numbers are bugged.. and your assumptions, too.

First of all those numbers are only until the 5th of April.. with other words only 1 day. Not counting digital sales, and is still the top spot on the week.. with other words wait until we have more accurate numbers before crying doom.

On the other side initial sales don't tell us a lot about success, otherwise SWTOR would be great.. but it isn't. You have to wait at least 6 month, better 1 year to say anything about player retention rate which is much more important as initial sales.

And just for your info.. i don't even have it bought now.. but i consider it... not because i have doubts or anything(and i do.. i don't like themeparks that much), but much more because time constraints.

But at least one point is accurate.. if ESO and/or Wildstar will not be successful with the P2P model, i would assume the subscription model will become rather niche and not be a factor for future major releases.. and that will impact the MMO genre extremely. Like no bugdets above 200 million, all games streamlined for cashshops and cashshop items and the like.

Edit: And all that is not really important for survical.. even SWTOR survived up to now... so basicly any other game will too.. at least for a few years... it is much more important in what state it will survive.. as a barebone skeleton F2P title like SWTOR or a major titel with regular updates, expansions with P2P like WoW?

Kinado · April 2014

Originally posted by movros99
I take issue with a number of points on this article that I feel are baseless and incorrect. I will address some quotes.

"But even Star Wars wasn’t enough to convince The Old Republic players that the game was worth a monthly fee."

The reason SWTOR failed to attract subscribers rests with EA. The game had very little content for players to absorb and even less end game content. There was no reason for players to subscribe - they were finished with the game. ESO has a truck-load of content coupled with an engaging PvP system that will keep player's subscriptions active.

Let me correct that there. ESO has a truck-load of quests to do, not content or end-game content, just quests coupled with a PvP system that needs a lot of work and fine tuning. It runs smoothly, but it doesn't play smoothly, its unresponsive most of the times not to mention the bugs. As dungeons go they are far too easy to be done more than once and public dungeons are just a joke with people camping the bosses.

ESO excels at questing, the stories are cool, the voice acting is good, there are many many bugs sure but even so it has a lot of lore to absorb. This alone unfortunately, doesn't make a sub fee MMO sustainable. Endgame content or sandbox features do. The game is lacking features.

I'm not a fan of crafting but it seems really well done aswell and as far as I know/experienced , its the only aspect of the game that didn't show any bugs.

As customer support goes, its awful. I got stuck in a wall in PVP and there was no way for me to fix it, no /stuck /unstuck /reloadui , teleport whatever could fix it. Only switching campaigns and waiting a 24h cooldown to return or wait for the other faction to conquer the keep in which I was stuck in and kill me. I waited to get killed. I see people getting stuck every day that I play the game complaining about it.

I m still waiting for official forum access that I requested by e-mail 2 weeks ago. I had to be rude for them to stop replying me with automated responses as they did the first 3 times. I've been exchanging e-mails with them since then talking to a proper person that seems unable to give me forum access.

Good thing about ESO its that it has a lot of fans that will keep subbing and giving Zenimax a chance to get their act together. The game as it is right now, its not worth the MMO business model Zenimax is asking for.

Apraxis · April 2014

Originally posted by Karteli
Originally posted by amber-r
The VGchartz numbers are based on 1 single days sales.

ESO came out on the 4th and those sales are listed on the 5th.

They are to date.

Unless, of course, you think all these Super Mario Bros games sold just today also?

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=super+mario

Dang Super Mario Bros 3 sold 17 million copies today?

ps - yeah you can type stuff in the search bar to find old sales.

Leant to read. Global total sales as of 5th April 2014. It may differ for a title officially released 4th April and another franchise with a lot of released title over the years started somewhere in the '80

paparios · April 2014

Who Cares! I dont like ESO and i m not going to play it, but who really cares about sales? If i liked it i would play it no matter number sales. Same goes to WildStar that i ll be playing. I dont care about anything else besides if i find a game fun! No reviews, no trolls, no haters, no lovers, no payment models, not anything. I ll play as long as i have fun. Thats all.

Horusra · April 2014

Make sure you put in the vgchartz standard 20 - 40% error margin.

Tsumoro · April 2014

ESO is a bit of an odd game with a divided community. When I speak to people that play it they either love it or they hate it. So, it leads me to believe that it has a bit of an identity crisis. Is it a good MMO or is it just a good Elder Scrolls game? Is it good at one of these things, or does it succeed with both?

Personally, with sales numbers its more the quarterly figures ill be interested in because that shows its staying power. Everyone is always excited and ready to play something new, its whether if it holds you in that's they key.

But I will say this, I have seen this type of community divide once before and the mentioning of poor sales and that was with TSW. Which I really enjoyed, but... look how that did.

I am not knocking the game, I honestly don't care who plays it. If anything I am happy that fellow nomads are able to find their MMO home.

kaiser3282 · April 2014

Originally posted by paparios
Who Cares! I dont like ESO and i m not going to play it, but who really cares about sales? If i liked it i would play it no matter number sales. Same goes to WildStar that i ll be playing. I dont care about anything else besides if i find a game fun! No reviews, no trolls, no haters, no lovers, no payment models, not anything. I ll play as long as i have fun. Thats all.

Please stop using common sense on these forums. You might cause a catastrophe. Everyone knows that if someone says (or "predicts") that sales are / will be bad, or that Xfire numbers are bad, or that random forum trolls think it is bad that nobody is allowed to like something EVER! I mean come on man. Diablo 3. Amazing sales and a bunch of 9-10/10 reviews. BEST freaking game ever right? Everyone who touched the game was awed by it and hasnt played anything else since because it was so amazing.

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Citing bad sales, will ESO survive with console sales?

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Pos	Game	Platform	Year	Genre	Publisher	North America	Europe	Rest of World	Global
1	The Elder Scrolls Online	PC	2014	Action	Bethesda Softworks	0.14	0.09	0.03	0.25
2	The Elder Scrolls Online	OSX	2014	Action	Bethesda Softworks	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
3	The Elder Scrolls Online	XOne	2014	Action	Bethesda Softworks	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
4	The Elder Scrolls Online	PS4	2014	Action	Bethesda Softworks	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Total						0.14	0.09	0.03	0.25

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Citing bad sales, will ESO survive with console sales?

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV