The Elder Scrolls Online's Crown Store is set to undergo changes, with the web-based version being removed from the official website on July 22nd. ZeniMax community manager Kevin Gbolie announced the shift on the game's forums, explaining that the decision was made to help manage workload and team bandwidth in the wake of recent layoffs at Microsoft, which impacted Zenimax.
Players will still be able to acquire crowns, the game's premium currency, through the website. However, browsing and purchasing items from the Crown Store will now require players to log into the game client directly. This change also affects the monthly Crown Store Showcase blog, which will transition to a more list-like format due to the same team bandwidth concerns.
The move has implications beyond player purchasing habits. The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP) wiki, which relies on easy access to high-resolution official screenshots from the web store, will be affected. Gbolie acknowledged the UESP's reliance, stating, "The goal is to provide what we can," but admitted that "the team responsible for the blog and those screenshots doesn't have the capacity to provide those at the scale we could before."
This adjustment to the Crown Store operations highlights the immediate impact of the layoffs on The Elder Scrolls Online, as the remaining team works to maintain key revenue streams for ZeniMax and Microsoft.