‘Elder Scrolls Online’ Going Free-To-Play? Six-Month Subscription Removed

Could ZeniMax Online be starting the transition of moving The Elder Scrolls Online from a subscription-based MMORPG to a free-to-play one? That’s what PC players of the game have begun to suspect following a move to eliminate the longest subscription option.

The disappearance of the six-month subscription options was first noticed on the game’s official French forums (via Joystiq). The only subscription options available now are for 30 days and 90 days.

The official response from Zenimax is simply that players have shown that they prefer the two shorter billing options. However, it has not escaped players’ attention that they no longer get as much of a discount with the two shorter options as they did with the six-month option. It also could be an indicator of the developer’s future plans for The Elder Scrolls Online.

In the past, MMORPGs that move from subscription-based to free-to-play typically begin by cutting out their longest subscription option, like the six month option. While this was a sign of Warhammer Online’s cancellation (via Joystiq), that’s likely not the case with The Elder Scrolls Online. Warhammer was cancelled in part due to the game’s licensing agreement coming to the end.

Would The Elder Scrolls Online benefit from a move to free-to-play? ZeniMax Online has not shared their subscriber numbers, so it’s hard to tell. A SuperData Research report (via VentureBeat) from October suggests the active current subscriber base is around 1.2 million. Estimates from mid-2014 have the game at around 772,000 active subscribers (via VG247).

So, Elder Scrolls Online subscriber base is not at the level of World of WarCraft or even Final Fantasy XIV(which has the benefit of being on PC plus two PlayStation consoles), but still pretty strong. That base is expected to grow with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases that were delayed to 2015 due to the massive amount of changes coming to Update 6 that introduces the Champion System and Justice System.

If The Elder Scrolls Online is moving to free-to-play, we will likely find out as we get closer to the console release of the game. ZeniMax Online still has plenty of work to do on that front and it sounds like the PS4 and Xbox One could receive the game as early as the spring, possibly as late as the summer. That would be the time to turn over to free-to-play on all three platforms, if that were to happen.

What do you think? Should The Elder Scrolls Online move to free-to-play like so many other MMORPGs? Sound off in the comments below.

[Images via Elder Scrolls Online]