Mr. GOH!

But an MMO will attract more players and subscriptions and will justify the cost. The thinking is likely that co-op that is just an extra would cost too much to build and build around. It may be relatively easy to implement, but it would still cost money to build and run, especially for console games.

An MMO will *hopefully* attract more players to justify the cost. And if Bethesda had to have a direct ROI on every feature their games wouldn't have mod support.

Absolutely, I'm not sure if this one will attract enough players; I'm just saying that's what Bethesda considered when it decided to go all-out and fund a TES MMO. Mod support has a decent ROI, I'm sure. Keeps folks playing the game and keeps the brand strong. Not sure if drop-on co-op would, especially given that Bethesda wuld have to fuck around with MS and Sony and their bullshit to make it happen.