Elder Scrolls Online - 30 Days Free Subscription

Thanks to froum member Domein we have news that ZeniMaxOnline won't honor the free 30 Days Free Subscription unless you pay for 30 more days in advance.

Why am I being asked to pay for a subscription? I thought I got 30 days free.


All players are required to set up and choose a subscription plan starting on Sunday, April 6th.

The 30 days of free game time are granted to all players who fill out their billing information and select a subscription plan.

For credit cards, debit cards, and PayPal, there is no charge made until after the included 30 days of game time has expired. For these payment methods, there is an authorization check performed to ensure the payment method is valid. Players may see a temporary account authorization hold put on funds in their account while the verification completes. Usually, this authorization hold lasts a short period of time before being removed. The duration of this hold can vary from bank to bank.

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Apparently some gamers are not happy, and made their feelings clear on the forum. I don't play many MMO's so what do guys think about this?

More information.

This is just the kind of petty behavior I'd have expected out of ZeniMax.

Of course, I was bored by the concept (of ESO) from the beginning, and that yawn-fest of a trailer last week just drove it home for me.

That's kinda par-for-the-course when it comes to a lot of online type stuff (not mmos that Ive noticed tho). People are looking at it incorrectly, like a "free 30 day trial". That's not what it's about, it isnt a 30 day trial.

They dont care if you like it or not, they are flipping you a free month if you sign on.

Well, you get 30 days of play time included in the box or with preorder, but you can't just use them and decide in a month if you want to play more or not. You have to either swipe your credit card with authorization fee for subscription plan, or pay full amount for another 30 days with paypall. That is just wrong and unfair, many people may have no credit card or free money at the moment - so they can't use 30 days that they already paid for.

How is this plain wrong?
Players have been pushing for digital delivery. How many people pay for digital delivery in other ways than debit credit cards paypal and the likes?

I also wouldn't be happy if I read 30 days free and find out it's actually: 60 days for a price of 30 days.

Unless players punish false advertising here and now by ignoring the game completely, the fraud of sticking "free" onto something that is not free will continue in other games.

I don't understand the issue. All subscription-bases MMOs I've played to date require(d) setting up subscription plan (or using game card) before playing, as some kind of verification, I suppose. You weren't charged before your complimentary month from buying the game run out, and you could cancel this subscription as soon as your account was created (unless you used the game card, obviously). So this is completely normal.

Would they be charging you as soon as the account was created that would be highly unusual and unethical, as it would include hidden fees to already expensive game, but do they? You've written

Thanks to froum member Domein we have news that ZeniMaxOnline won't honor the free 30 Days Free Subscription unless you pay for 30 more days in advance.

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so it does sound suspicious, but the actual information from Zenimax is

The 30 days of free game time are granted to all players who fill out their billing information and select a subscription plan.

For credit cards, debit cards, and PayPal, there is no charge made until after the included 30 days of game time has expired

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which, again is completely normal. And OK, as you are not charged, you just need to verify having means to pay in future.

Seems like people are creating shitstorm out of nothing. OF course, should they actually bill for next month in advance, torches and pitchforks are expected

fungus said:

which, again is completely normal. And OK, as you are not charged, you just need to verify having means to pay in future.

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It is not normal and such business with aiming to steal credit card data is common only on scam sites.

joxer said:

It is not normal and such business with aiming to steal credit card data is common only on scam sites.

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It's normal for any subscription-based MMO. Whether you like it or not, that is the de facto standard there. I guess you'll argue next that all subscription-based MMOs are scam, am I right?

fungus said:

It's normal for any subscription-based MMO. Whether you like it or not, that is the de facto standard there. I guess you'll argue next that all subscription-based MMOs are scam, am I right?

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It might be "normal" but that doesn't make it right. Like Joxer said:

"I also wouldn't be happy if I read 30 days free and find out it's actually: 60 days for a price of 30 days."

fungus said:

I guess you'll argue next that all subscription-based MMOs are scam, am I right?

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You're wrong.
It's a dying business model, but not scam.
The scam part here is not the subscription but false advertising.

It's stupid that you have to set up a subscription plan, but it's still 30 days free. A smaller issue turned into a big one - which is pretty much par for the course when something new and big comes out that's fun to bash.

They're just counting on as many players as possible forgetting about cancelling their subscription before their first 30 days run out. That way, sub numbers won't directly drop to 10% or so in May already.

Indeed, my Paypal account was charged right away. But it seems you are reimbursed if you cancel before the end of the free period.
Which I did right away, but I didn't check my Paypal account since, so consider this only hearsay.

My opinion is neutral. I'm sure that I'm going to play ESO more than 1 month, so it does not really matter for me.

Lemonhead said:

It might be "normal" but that doesn't make it right. Like Joxer said:

"I also wouldn't be happy if I read 30 days free and find out it's actually: 60 days for a price of 30 days."

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Good thing is that should be happening (as per their own explanation). Weird part is people reporting having been charged or having the cost of next subscription frozen in account. Which is not standard. But seeing the amount of disinformation in the linked thread, it's hard to say what is true.

Anyway, I'm here just to debunk the idea that other MMOs do not require you to input valid data to setup subscription. They do, if they are subscription only (which I admit, is rather rare now).

IIRC, EQ2 and WoW (both sub games at release) did not ask my credit card details 30 days after release.

DArtagnan said:

It's stupid that you have to set up a subscription plan, but it's still 30 days free. A smaller issue turned into a big one - which is pretty much par for the course when something new and big comes out that's fun to bash.

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This is indeed a small issue on its own however I feel that companies in general have taken lot of consumer rights away by doing such small things over the last 10 years. People are beginning to notice this so now are starting to protests. So in the grand scheme of things I think this is a valid protest. We as consumers should not give up even small inch of our rights without VERY good reason and in this case I don't see any reason why we should give them our credit card details before the 30 days are up...

I don't remember specifics, but I do remember it was always like this with subscription based games.

It was always a stupid practice, but it's also a minor issue. Personally, I think it has more to do with making the process easier and faster, as you will end up not being able to log in without a valid subscription, and they'd receive a ton of bitching if setting one up isn't instant and 100% functional - which it rarely is around launch. Better to have that taken care of beforehand, both for the customer and the company. Only, customers won't see it like that.

You can set up your subscription and then cancel it immediately. That's not exactly a hard thing to do.

It's the same thing for pretty much everything else in the world you subscribe to.

As for the subscription itself - it depends on whether or not you think significant and frequent updates should be free. I don't - because the obligation to continue doing it will not be very powerful for the developers. This is especially evident in a game like Guild Wars 2 which likes to claim that it delivers free content, except that you can buy power directly in their store and use real money to purchase in-game currency.

This is just another way of milking the audience - if content delivery is milking.

Primary difference being that the content delivered in GW2 tends to be a complete joke, and we've yet to see what ESO will deliver. I have no expectations here, and I'll simply stop subscribing at such time when I no longer think the content is worth my money.

What I WILL say, is that ESO is more or less the MOST impressive MMO I've played in terms of content at release.

I have played several subscription based mmorpgs and none of them required you to sign-up with payment information to get your free 30 days. This includes Ultima Online, all SOE games, Rift, Aion, and LOTRO. (This was before they went F2P) ESO is the first game I have heard of that has this policy.

PS. I have actually never given billing information to any mmorpg but have bought a couple game time cards before.

EDIT: Forgot to ask what games have required (besides ESO) billing information to get your free month?

guenthar said:

I have played several subscription based mmorpgs and none of them required you to sign-up with payment information to get your free 30 days. This includes Ultima Online, all SOE games, Rift, Aion, and LOTRO. (This was before they went F2P) ESO is the first game I have heard of that has this policy.

PS. I have actually never given billing information to any mmorpg but have bought a couple game time cards before.

EDIT: Forgot to ask what games have required (besides ESO) billing information to get your free month?

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UO definitely required it back in the day - as did plenty of others. It's not something I care to keep track of, though, and I'm impressed some of you can remember these things.

Note that I'm talking about setting up a subscription that you have to remember to cancel, not that you have to set it up before getting to play the free 30 days.

That's also stupid, but extremely minimal - as you get your money back if you're charged for whatever reason. There's no difference and you can still cancel it immediately.