Those of you paying attention to the MMO The Elder Scrolls Online might have noticed something’s gone missing recently from its page of subscriptions. It’s now no longer possible to subscribe to the game for longer than 90 days, with the six month option having been removed shortly before 2014 ended.

The French forums did put up an explanation for the disappearance of the six month subscription when a moderator told users that it’d been removed simply because the 30-day and 90-day subscriptions were proving more popular among the community.

However, past trends with previous MMO games suggest that something else might be going on behind the scenes at Zenimax Online. See, removing longer subscription times has been done with other MMOS. And those MMOs usually had the longer time periods removed as the first steps towards making those MMOs free-to-play mode MMOs.

There’s not a lot of evidence to support the theory that this is what’s happening to TESO, but given that the game hasn’t done as well as expected it would seem a sensible move to alter its model. After all, the game is a decent one. I will admit that. The only thing putting me off right now is that it isn’t good enough in my mind to justify the cost of the monthly subscription.

Until we do know if anything is going on with the game’s model, players have a new update to look forward to this month which will bring Champion and Justice Systems to the game. About time as well.