User blog comment:Jimeee/Elder Scrolls Online will be subscription based/@comment-72.216.36.245-20130907213036

It costs money to maintain servers and constantly keep things running smoothly, without hitches. It also costs money to keep the content fresh and consistently develop and fine tune the game, regardless of what you people might think. If they made the game free to play, it would turn into pay to win, like all other free to play games become, because free to play games still have to generate profit and money for maintenance. I'd much rather pay the $15/mo. (which is not that high of a subscription fee, relatively speaking) and get rewarded for hard work, rather than have to buy every single little piece of special armor or what have you, ultimately spending more money on the game than I would have with a small fee. Unwad your panties and accept that the fee is there to stay.