'Elder Scrolls Online' Free to Play March 17
"Elder Scrolls Online," a subscription-only online multi-player role playing game recently announced that it will become free to play by March 17. This means that newcomers who wish to play the game no longer need to pay regular subscription fees, but will still be required to make a one-time purchase of the game's software. Old subscribers to the online game, however, will no longer need to spend anything more beyond March 17.
As reported in Forbes, there will still be a "premium membership service" as well as "selling of downloadable content and customization" features for those players who want to avail of it.
The report also says that this recent news was "not surprising," because the subscription-only formula that the game's creator originally launched in April 2014 was said to be difficult to sustain. As it is, gamers need to shell out between $60 (for the "Standard Edition") to $100 (for the "Imperial Edition") for the software, plus a monthly subscription fee of $14.99, which the report said was too high a price for a game.
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"Elder Scrolls Online" was originally developed for PC play when it came out in 2014. Versions of the game for Playstation 4 and Xbox One were supposed to be released the same year, but it has been announced that these versions will be released by June 2015. Zenimax Studios developed the game with Bethesda Softworks as the publisher.
The game is part of the series of the "Elder Scrolls" video game franchise. It is set in a fictional continent of Tamriel and allows the user to create his or her character and choose a class (Dragon Knight, Templar, Sorcerer and Nightblade). Players can also choose to play from numerous races such as Nords, elves, Redguards, Orcs, among others.
As of October 2014, Zenimax said that they had generated around $111 million revenue from subscriptions, from about 1.2 million subscribers.
