The idea of a subscription and why it's completely unnecessary

Verenti

V
OKay. So, in the brief time I've been here, I've seen a lot of people floating the idea of a subscription.

This is unnecessary because Elite Dangerous already has a de facto subscription.

I will come back to this in a moment. However, the idea of moving to a traditional one is laughable in an era where the model of subscription gaming is proven consistently to be the domain of only a few hold-outs from a bygone era (WoW, FFXIV). It would be laughable for a company to try and transition in the other way. Even games which have optional subscriptions are usually games that once had subscriptions but went free to play. The obvious exception is Guild Wars 2, however, I do not feel this represents a large enough trend to discredit the rule I've laid out.

However, Elite Dangerous already is a subscription based game in effect. It's not a mistake that Horizons cost the same as Elite Dangerous did on launch. The idea quite clearly is that ever year, you have to pay the full price again to keep your content absolutely up-to-date. Fortunately, the people at FDev are decent enough people to keep patching your content, even if you don't own the latest expansion and let you keep playing the content you previous paid for. However, make no mistake, this system is a subscription system in all but name. You pay for it one year at a time rather than in monthly increments.

I hold no illusions that people will keep making threads suggesting subscriptions; however, I hope this post has given a logical argument why they shouldn't and a logical argument you can use in the case that they do.

Thank you for reading.
 

ShimEnki

ShimEnki
Verenti said:
OKay. So, in the brief time I've been here, I've seen a lot of people floating the idea of a subscription.

This is unnecessary because Elite Dangerous already has a de facto subscription.

I will come back to this in a moment. However, the idea of moving to a traditional one is laughable in an era where the model of subscription gaming is proven consistently to be the domain of only a few hold-outs from a bygone era (WoW, FFXIV). It would be laughable for a company to try and transition in the other way. Even games which have optional subscriptions are usually games that once had subscriptions but went free to play. The obvious exception is Guild Wars 2, however, I do not feel this represents a large enough trend to discredit the rule I've laid out.

However, Elite Dangerous already is a subscription based game in effect. It's not a mistake that Horizons cost the same as Elite Dangerous did on launch. The idea quite clearly is that ever year, you have to pay the full price again to keep your content absolutely up-to-date. Fortunately, the people at FDev are decent enough people to keep patching your content, even if you don't own the latest expansion and let you keep playing the content you previous paid for. However, make no mistake, this system is a subscription system in all but name. You pay for it one year at a time rather than in monthly increments.

I hold no illusions that people will keep making threads suggesting subscriptions; however, I hope this post has given a logical argument why they shouldn't and a logical argument you can use in the case that they do.

Thank you for reading.
Click to expand...

Without getting too messily into this, what FD has now isn't a subc, that's held for guymes already well rounded and fairly complete albeit with new addons that connect with a robust complete (mostly) guyme.

What FD is, is a multi year backer setup. Pay now for promised addons that are advertised to sound amazing with the usual hype. That's not a subsc.

With ESO for example, my vote will count re new updates by continuing with my monthly subsc or yanking it and any QoL and pizzaz store purchases I do or don't buy

This....here, is a multi year backer situation pure and simple.
 
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Ambroza

Ambroza
Horizons has lasted well over a year now. They've said that they'll be revisiting the "season" system after 2.4.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
The fundamental problem is that people who've already bought the game have done so on the basis of the existing business model.

You can't just sell somebody a car outright and then say "Y'know what, we'd rather rent it to you so we're gonna insist you pay us monthly as well".
Not if you want people to carry on buying or renting the product you sell.

Maybe I'm giving them too much credit but I doubt the people at FDev are completely clueless about finances.
It can't be that hard to work out whether the annual expenses of running the servers allow them to turn a profit on what they sell.

On the other hand, you've gotta feel for the people who'd been paying a monthly subscription for The Elder Scrolls Online, only for Bethesda to change their minds and sell the "Tamriel Unlimited" edition instead.
Which now relies on the same business model ED uses.
 

Demascus

Demascus
I would say the volume of players floating the "subscription" idea is due to way that FD has handled Horizons. FD's focus for their first season post year 1 has to been to push out more content. More "new" features, more paid cosmetic items, etc.
This seems to be in an effort to make the game more appealing to prospective buyers or to reach the next season for their cash injection. Which given the two major delays for this season, it would make sense.
Meanwhile long standing bugs, base game content and previous Updates have gone largely untouched or neglected. I am personally worried that the foundation that FD has built their game on is unstable to say the least.

I would surmise that many players believe a switch to subscription/monthly base model would relieve some of the pressure for new content and allow for FD to focus on fixing or improving what they currently have. I do not agree or disagree with the idea of a subscription based ED, I don't see it ever becoming a thing without tearing apart the community more than it already is.



Stealthie said:
On the other hand, you've gotta feel for the people who'd been paying a monthly subscription for The Elder Scrolls Online, only for Bethesda to change their minds and sell the "Tamriel Unlimited" edition instead.
Which now relies on the same business model ED uses.
Click to expand...

Ah ESO, I had such high hopes for you..... ESO was handled horribly at all levels from day 1 of launch. I am amazed it is even still around to be honest.
 

Soopyyy

S
I would pay a montly fee, if I could get access to all of the cosmetics, beta's and future updates. But no more than $20.
 

IamMe

IamMe
Those ppl who suggest subscription model make me laugh. They just love elite too much, it's like when fall in love, it makes you stupid!
Luckly FD is not stupid to implement subscription, i don't know for others but no subscription game will ever get single buck from me.
If they do so, then i want offline version of the game i already payed for.
 

SpeakerToAliens

SpeakerToAliens
If there was a monthly subscription and I could chose ED or ED:Horizons I would only pay for ED. I regret buying the Horizons upgrade. It turns out there is no added content that I want to play.

I don't land on planets unless forced to.
Driving around on planets is boring.
RNGineers was a stupid idea from the start - these are starships, not PCs getting a processor cooler upgrade that might let you overclock it by 5% or might let you overclock it by 10%, all depending on the luck of random variations in the processor's manufacturing process.
It's particularly annoying when something important in-game is only available on planets. Doing that's just rude.

And now we're getting legs! If I wanted to walk around somewhere (and interact with/shoot at things) I'd play Halo or Crysis.

What would make me want to play Horizons would be if the enhanced modules could simply be bought. If each level of enhancement doubled/tripled/quadrupled the price that would be fine and it would certainly be better than all the immersion-breaking rubbish RNGineers introduced.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
You'll need to buy the base game for real subscription based games as well.

In other words: You don't really have a point.
 
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Siranui

S
Verenti said:
This is unnecessary because Elite Dangerous already has a de facto subscription..
Click to expand...


Nonsense.

A subscription is a charge that one HAS to pay to access a game. It is not optional.

An expansion pack is not a subscription. Expansion packs are entirely optional. As a customer you choose if you want to buy it... or not. Just like any other expansion packs.

qv:
WoW brings out expansions, and you have to pay for those AND has a subscription. By your argument that's a double-subscription.
Fallout brings out expansion packs. By your argument those are subscription charges, too.
 

LeoBartlet

LeoBartlet
Verenti said:
I hold no illusions that people will keep making threads suggesting subscriptions; however, I hope this post has given a logical argument why they shouldn't and a logical argument you can use in the case that they do.
Click to expand...

No point at all using logic on these forums.
 

Verenti

V
babelfisch said:
You'll need to buy the base game for real subscription based games as well.

In other words: You don't really have a point.
Click to expand...

There isn't a universal case, but there are enough examples of "real subscription based games" that let you get the client (and a week or so) for free and then only require you to pay for the subscription for access. Besides this, many, I think all of the games you are talking about come with a month of game time included in the "box" price.

Anyhow, I think this is more squabbling over semantics than a refutation of my ... theory? After all, the system you bring up is coherent with what I suggested: you buy the core game and you got the first unit of your "subscription" included. That is exactly the model you are listing as an example to refute my theory proposal.

Siranui said:
Nonsense.

A subscription is a charge that one HAS to pay to access a game. It is not optional.

An expansion pack is not a subscription. Expansion packs are entirely optional. As a customer you choose if you want to buy it... or not. Just like any other expansion packs.

qv:
WoW brings out expansions, and you have to pay for those AND has a subscription. By your argument that's a double-subscription.
Fallout brings out expansion packs. By your argument those are subscription charges, too.
Click to expand...

Well, if you conceptualise it to only exist in terms that you have already experienced, then yeah.

However, if we broaden our understanding of what a subscription is -- arguably to a more traditional model of subscription: print -- then we might have a more useful framework to conceptualise this relationship.

In print, we do not subscribe for continued access to that which we have already paid for; if you buy an issue of the economist, you'll have access to that issue until it physically degrades over the course of decades. What you pay them for is a constant stream of updates.

Likewise, you pay F:Dev not for continued access to Elite, but rather for another year (give or take a few months for delivery) of upgrades.

The difference between this model and the model seen in other MMO's with expansions is that MMO expansions aren't regularly delivered. Therefore, in WoW the expansions do not have much in common with a subscription. Furthermore, expansions for those games usually don't come at a $40-50 range. WoW is a bit exceptional because they overcharge, but most of these games, if they charge for expansions at all, only require around $20 additional for the new content.

Besides that, Horizons isn't billed as an expansion either, but rather as a season pass. This makes Horizon more akin to several DLC packages than one cohesive expansion. This differs from other single player games because the season passes for games like Fallout are not reoccuring charges.
 
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