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Yes, with lifetime subscriptions there is both a risk for the customer and for the company.

It must be possible (due to the law of averages) to work out how long a player plays the game for, in years and months, before finally moving on to pastures new. Whilst it is true that there would be a number of players who buy lifetime subs. with the intention of never stopping playing, it is equally true that there are players who get fed up even after the first free month and leave. It must be possible, therefore, to come to an average figure. If it was based on 4 years, then players paying a lifetime's subs. and leaving after 3 years would have made a loss and that loss would be GOA's gain, which would go someway towards paying for those players who stay longer than 4 years with their lifetime subs.

There is a risk both ways, but as long as GOA base a lifetime subs. on the average, or slightly higher, then they can't lose. All that money from lifetime subscriptions would give GOA an initial boost, which could go a long way to making things better.

I nearly always pay month-to-month since I never know at what point I will get bored.

Last time I came back to DAOC-EU I joined a regular PvP group, so I paid a 3 month sub, the database corruption was in the middle of the 3 months, and for whatever reason the group didn't work out. So I stopped playing. Out of the 3 months I played for probably 2 months. In the end it cost me more paying the 3 months than it would have done had I paid monthly.

There is no way I would ever pay for more than 3 months, and it won't be often I pay for that long, but then I do get bored of games rather quick

Gandelf wrote:
There is a risk both ways, but as long as GOA base a lifetime subs. on the average, or slightly higher, then they can't lose. All that money from lifetime subscriptions would give GOA an initial boost, which could go a long way to making things better.

I think the problem is that the average is probably quite high, especially if you only take into account the players who would possible think of taking out a lifetime sub.

That means the price would need to be too high to be attractive to anyone.

The closest that might be practical if the Guild Wars method, where there is no subs, but regular paid updates, but then DAOC charge for paid updates already ... as well as Subs!

The only time it really makes sense for a company to offer subs cheap enough to be attractive is at startup, to cover the initial development and startup costs, but this is the one time you are likely to find very few players willing to pay for a lifetime sub to something so young, that might only last 2 months.

I only ever renew for 1 month at a time
Not interested in anything longer in any way whatsoever.

Buy one for your enemies kids if you want them to fail in life.

Maeloch wrote:Buy one for your enemies kids if you want them to fail in life.

playing daoc makes you fail in life? :glare:

They will do with lifetime subs from the age of 10.

Luckily my daughter tried it & didn't like it
But i guess that's partly cos she's still too young for cyb...errr extensive chatting

Seems impractical, inadvisable and pointless to me sorry.

well I voted yes