- Elder Scrolls Online
- Is Elder Scrolls Online Free To Play On Pc
- How Long Is Elder Scrolls Online Free To Play
(* Edit: As several readers point out in the comments, ESO won't be 100% free-to-play: New players will still have to make a one-time purchase of the software up front. But if you're already playing, you won't have to spend another dime starting on March 17 --regular updates and new gameplay will be offered to all players free of charge. The game will be supported by a premium membership service as well as selling stuff like DLC and 'convenience and customization items' à la carte.)
We totally saw this coming.
Aug 27, 2019 If you're an Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member, there are two solid games you can play for free for the next week. The Elder Scrolls Online and Rainbow Six Siege will be free. The Elder Scrolls Online Free Play Event begins now for PC/Mac and PlayStation®4 and March 22 for Xbox One. It concludes for all platforms on March 27. Announcements Free Play all.Event. More Announcements News Introducing the New Moon Crown Crate!
Before Elder Scrolls Online went live on April 4th of last year, I got into a email discussion with several of my Forbes Games colleagues about how the game was in trouble from day one. The problem, as we saw it, is that there was no way the company could sustain a subscription-only service; gamers would just not be willing to pay.
5 Reasons Now is the Perfect Time to Jump into The Elder Scrolls Online. With the Free Play Event now live and no subscription required to play, there’s never been a better.
![Elder scrolls online free to play worth it Elder scrolls online free to play worth it](/uploads/1/2/4/9/124951295/253732940.jpg)
First, they had to buy the software. The Elder Scrolls Online 'Standard Edition' cost $59.99, but it didn't give access to everything in the game; if users wanted to play as an Imperial, they had to buy the 'Imperial Version' for $99.99. Then they had to pay a subscription --each version came with 30 days of game time included, but after that, players were on the hook for a fee of $14.99 a month.
That's $224.88 to play the standard version of the game for twelve months, and $264.88 for the Imperial Version. There's not many gamers willing to shell that kind of money out --and the few who would are probably already deeply committed to another MMO, like Activision Blizzard'> World of Warcraft.
The consensus among my Forbes Games colleagues was that developer ZeniMax Online Studios and publisher Bethesda Softworks were going to drop the paywall as soon as they'd wrung as much cash from hardcore Elder Scrolls fans as they could.
So I asked them all to answer a question: On what date will Elder Scrolls Online announce it's giving up on its subscription model and going free to pay?
Collectively, they nailed it. On average, the six members of the Forbes Games team who contributed to the pool thought that Elder Scrolls Online would throw in the towel after just 284 days, or a little over 9 months from launch. That means our group predicted the announcement would come on Tuesday, January 13. We missed it by only a week.
Individually, we were all very close, too. Here are our guesses:
- November 11th, 2014 Jason Evangelho
- December 1st, 2014 Paul Tassi
- January 4th, 2015 David Thier
- January 5th, 2015 David Ewalt
- March 1st, 2015 Erik Kain
- April 1st, 2015 Alex Knapp
Yeah, I know it's a little suspicious that I won my own contest, but I think what's really telling about this is how close we all were: Even the biggest 'misses' were only off by 10 weeks in either direction.
Alternately, if you measure our predictions to the date the game actually goes free to play (March 17 for PC, with Xbox and PlayStation to follow in June), not the date the move was announced, then Alex Knapp edges out Erik Kain by a single day --and our collective guess was still only off by 9 weeks, or 63 days.
The bottom line, though, isn't how smart my colleagues are. It's how obvious it was that ESO was never going to stay pay-to-play, and how video game consumers should think twice before paying big bucks to get into a new game at launch. I wonder how many of the folks who've paid nearly $300 for ESO now wish they'd waited a year --just like all the people who have pre-ordered console games that turned out to suck.
![Play Play](/uploads/1/2/4/9/124951295/707157630.jpeg)
Bethesda Softworks announced this morning that the Elder Scrolls Online, the company's first foray into the world of massively multiplayer online gaming, is dropping its subscription fee and going free-to-play*.
(* Edit: As several readers point out in the comments, ESO won't be 100% free-to-play: New players will still have to make a one-time purchase of the software up front. But if you're already playing, you won't have to spend another dime starting on March 17 --regular updates and new gameplay will be offered to all players free of charge. The game will be supported by a premium membership service as well as selling stuff like DLC and 'convenience and customization items' à la carte.)
We totally saw this coming.
Before Elder Scrolls Online went live on April 4th of last year, I got into a email discussion with several of my Forbes Games colleagues about how the game was in trouble from day one. The problem, as we saw it, is that there was no way the company could sustain a subscription-only service; gamers would just not be willing to pay.
First, they had to buy the software. The Elder Scrolls Online 'Standard Edition' cost $59.99, but it didn't give access to everything in the game; if users wanted to play as an Imperial, they had to buy the 'Imperial Version' for $99.99. Then they had to pay a subscription --each version came with 30 days of game time included, but after that, players were on the hook for a fee of $14.99 a month.
That's $224.88 to play the standard version of the game for twelve months, and $264.88 for the Imperial Version. There's not many gamers willing to shell that kind of money out --and the few who would are probably already deeply committed to another MMO, like Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft.
Elder Scrolls Online
The consensus among my Forbes Games colleagues was that developer ZeniMax Online Studios and publisher Bethesda Softworks were going to drop the paywall as soon as they'd wrung as much cash from hardcore Elder Scrolls fans as they could.
So I asked them all to answer a question: On what date will Elder Scrolls Online announce it's giving up on its subscription model and going free to pay?
Collectively, they nailed it. On average, the six members of the Forbes Games team who contributed to the pool thought that Elder Scrolls Online would throw in the towel after just 284 days, or a little over 9 months from launch. That means our group predicted the announcement would come on Tuesday, January 13. We missed it by only a week.
Individually, we were all very close, too. Here are our guesses:
- November 11th, 2014 Jason Evangelho
- December 1st, 2014 Paul Tassi
- January 4th, 2015 David Thier
- January 5th, 2015 David Ewalt
- March 1st, 2015 Erik Kain
- April 1st, 2015 Alex Knapp
Yeah, I know it's a little suspicious that I won my own contest, but I think what's really telling about this is how close we all were: Even the biggest 'misses' were only off by 10 weeks in either direction.
Is Elder Scrolls Online Free To Play On Pc
Alternately, if you measure our predictions to the date the game actually goes free to play (March 17 for PC, with Xbox and PlayStation to follow in June), not the date the move was announced, then Alex Knapp edges out Erik Kain by a single day --and our collective guess was still only off by 9 weeks, or 63 days.
How Long Is Elder Scrolls Online Free To Play
The bottom line, though, isn't how smart my colleagues are. It's how obvious it was that ESO was never going to stay pay-to-play, and how video game consumers should think twice before paying big bucks to get into a new game at launch. I wonder how many of the folks who've paid nearly $300 for ESO now wish they'd waited a year --just like all the people who have pre-ordered console games that turned out to suck. How to teach drivers education.