Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls Online, the MMO-ification of its popular fantasy-verse due early next year for PC and consoles, won’t just ask you to pony up $60 for a copy at the outset, it’ll reach into your wallet each and every month, the game’s director Matt Firor told GameStar this week.
Is the company nuts? Has it paid no attention to what wildly successful post-World of Warcraft MMOs like Guild Wars 2 are up to? Did it miss the Star Wars: The Old Republic memo? Can a subscription-based MMO survive the looming ennui of millions of content-starved gamers? Does it even care about gamers who don’t have dozens of hours to spend and $15 to burn every month?
While TIME Tech’s Matt Peckham thinks Bethesda hasn’t lost its mind, Jared Newman has already resigned himself to ignoring the game at launch.