14 DAY TRIAL // Ryan Dancey, the chief executive officer working on Pathfinder Online, says that his estimates show that subscription-based MMOs are more profitable by far than those relying on microtransactions and their only challenge is to create a solid player base.
The leader of Goblinworks believes that more than 100 million dollars (76 million Euro) is generated by subscriptions, of which a lot is linked to World of Warcraft from Blizzard.
Microtransaction-powered games only generate about half of that, according to the CEO’s blog post.
Dancey states, “MTX revenue will clearly increase over the next several years but until and unless there’s a major shift in the market, it will remain a junior partner to subscriptions in terms of revenue generation.”
He believes the decision to make The Elder Scrolls Online subscription based is the result of a similar calculation.
Pathfinder Online will also ask gamers for money on a monthly basis at launch.