Life Time Subscription
By
Angry_Citizen,
Posted on: 2009-06-11 19:39 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Well, if my math does not fail me, thats just about 13 months subscription to CoH, assuming you're paying monthly.
Why would NC Soft/ Paragon want to give you a lifetime of use for just over 1 year of payment?
Sounds like a pretty poor business model to me.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Because there have been 999 threads like this already. Bad idea.
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Well, if my math does not fail me, thats just about 13 months subscription to CoH, assuming you're paying monthly.
Why would NC Soft/ Paragon want to give you a lifetime of use for just over 1 year of payment?
Sounds like a pretty poor business model to me.
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Why does Lotro? Perhaps because the quantity of year-plus vets is lower than one might assume.
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
OK I can see that. If you're building your pricing based on the assumption that your customers will leave before you start losing money on the deal. Then, yes, it might be a useful strategy.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
Some people actually bought lifetime subscriptions to Hellgate: London. $180? $150? Something like that. Can you imagine? (I'm one of the game's few defenders, and even I only paid for it for 2 months, $20 total. Wow was I getting ripped.)
CoH offers a yearly subscription, which is a really good deal. I'm on the 6-month plan myself, also a good one. A "lifetime" subscription would go for no less than $1000, even this late in the game, and I still don't see it happening. This game could go on for at least a decade more.
LOL it's hilarious that people criticize me right out of the box. Of course it's not a sound financial decision but it's done, as Angry Citizen also pointed out, by LOTRO. That was done just as a promo thing when it first came out but you can still get it (I did) even now 2 years after beta. COH could do it if they wanted to and not lose much because most people wouldn't take the offer. I was just saying that I'd love it if they did. Some of you really need to cut down on whatever is making you so .. jerky.
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LOL it's hilarious that people criticize me right out of the box. Of course it's not a sound financial decision but it's done, as Angry Citizen also pointed out, by LOTRO. That was done just as a promo thing when it first came out but you can still get it (I did) even now 2 years after beta. COH could do it if they wanted to and not lose much because most people wouldn't take the offer. I was just saying that I'd love it if they did. Some of you really need to cut down on whatever is making you so .. jerky.
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Sigh...
Enjoy your day please.
hahahah...you think this forum is jerky....you're funny
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A "lifetime" subscription would go for no less than $1000, even this late in the game, and I still don't see it happening.
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what
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hahahah...you think this forum is jerky....you're funny
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You mean it isn't dried-out and chewy? Then what have i been... Oh, that's where all my leather-bound books went.
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LOL it's hilarious that people criticize me right out of the box. Some of you really need to cut down on whatever is making you so .. jerky.
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Don't make flamebait posts and you'll stop getting flamed.
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LOL it's hilarious that people criticize me right out of the box. Some of you really need to cut down on whatever is making you so .. jerky.
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Don't make flamebait posts and you'll stop getting flamed.
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Speaking as a master flamebaiter, this particular one is about as flamebait-worthy as the "Loss of a Hero" thread. In other words, not at all.
I think it's sad that merely mentioning a feature from another game is grounds for the flamebait level. I'd actually love a lifetime subscription. Would mean I wouldn't have to cancel in a few months.
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
"That does it I'm sick of this game, I'm canceling my Lifetime Charter Subscription!! ... wait, what you mean I don't get my two hundred bucks back? I've only played for four years, how would I have used it up??? .. Oh."
To quote some of the more prolific posters of late, "This idea is for lulz."
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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As some of you know, Lord of the Rings Online has a "lifetime subscription" option that can be gotten as an invitation from a Founding Playing. This gives you the ability to pay $200 for membership and then never pay another monthly subscription.
Why oh why can't COH offer this ? I would gladly pay $200, or more, to get a lifetime subscription for COH.
[/ QUOTE ]I wouldnt say no to it, heck, id get it the second offered, but one does worry about the long term effects of it. In an interview a while ago, the former lead developer, jack emmett mentioned that this game has anomalous retention rates, apparently we churn less, and have a lot of longtimers. I myself am getting my 60 month badge in 10 days, they would have been losing money on me for 4 years now at a 200 dollar lifetime rate. the game would cease getting revenue from an apparently not insignificant portion of the subscribers that might eventually constrict available funds for continuing development costs. Not a business fellow myself, but i can see why it may have financial problems. but as said, if they floated it, id be there.
QR
Lifetime subscriptions are use by game companies to quickly make back the money they lost during development; starting a lifetime subscription plan for a period after the game launches (as LotRO did) can help you quickly recoup losses. Starting a lifetime subscription plan after you've already been running for 5 years is a bad idea, unless you secretly plan to shut the game down in the near future.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Flamebait ? Mentioning that I want a lifetime subscription is flame worthy ? Well, hand me the BBQ sauce then, lol. Wow, you guys really are special, aren't you ?
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Flamebait ? Mentioning that I want a lifetime subscription is flame worthy ? Well, hand me the BBQ sauce then, lol. Wow, you guys really are special, aren't you ?
[/ QUOTE ]It must be true. The nice man with the candy who drives a van told me i'm special.
Anyway, what you want and what you're likely to get are two very different things. i concur with Fleeting_Whisper that adding a lifetime subscription option this late in the game's lifespan would probably be a sign that the game is going to be shut down relatively soon. Unless, of course, it's in the thousand dollar range... 
[i]Edit: oops, fixed. 
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Or, just maybe, this has been brought up many times before (at least once very recently) and a search would have revealed all this that others now have to rehash.
Basically, it's to be expected that a good portion of the core playerbase would get this if they could afford it, meaning that it has to be priced high enough to offset the eventual loss of revenue after it pays for itself and those players start essentially playing for free. I'd expect such a thing to cost at least $300, probably quite a bit more, if it ever happened at all.
As Fleeting_Whisper mentioned, we have somewhat anomalously high retention rates in this game - while that could mean some serious coin for NCSoft in the short term, in the long term in could mean a significant percentage of players no longer paying at all down the road, which could be bad for the game.
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"Master Flamebaiter"...
I fill my hands with my Burning Trouser-Snake of DOOOM!
Well, ok, that's what popped into my gutter-mind.
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Because there have been 999 threads like this already. Bad idea.
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It's not a "Bad idea"... it's just not realistic given they have no real reason to do it.
Sorta depends on who you are, the customer or the business. If you're the business, then it's a bad idea. If you're the customer it's a great idea... assuming you're someone who'll want to play longer than a year.
I think the reason why other games do it is because they're expecting a large turn-around on their subscribers, play for a month or two, then stop for a long while, then maybe another month or two. CoH/V isn't quite like that, from what I gather. From what I understand CoH/V is one of those MMOs that has a far slower turn-around, with many gamers staying for years and years on end. In that regard, a life-time sub isn't in their interest.
See... that's the irony. The only time a lifetime sub option is worthwhile is if they're expecting their clients to not be here longer than a year or two at the most. It's the MMOs with clients that stay for years that will never offer the option.
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Just because a failing MMO uses lifetime subscription in an attempt to stop people from leaving the game doesn't mean CoH should follow suit. Why would a company offer a lifetime sub if it was doing well?
Again, LOTRO are probably doing it because the majority of players do not keep playing after a year subscribed, so this would actually make them more money then if you played for 3 months and quit.
making up numbers
monthly price $15/month
annual price $10/month
so paying annual you get a 1/3 discount
at same discount rate - paying for 2 to get 3
2 years at $10/month is $240, call it a round $250
so $250 for prepaying for 2 months to instead get a lifetime subscription probably makes decent sense for the company. Especially with booster packs and expansion packs coming out.
note with a lifetime subscription the free month you get with the extra boxes isn't worth anything to you. So buying an expansion is effectively $10 more.
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As some of you know, Lord of the Rings Online has a "lifetime subscription" option that can be gotten as an invitation from a Founding Playing. This gives you the ability to pay $200 for membership and then never pay another monthly subscription.
Why oh why can't COH offer this ?
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because it isn't a relatively new game struggling to survive.
lifetime subs represent a cash flow problem, not developer benevolence to their subject players.
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My City Was Gone
As some of you know, Lord of the Rings Online has a "lifetime subscription" option that can be gotten as an invitation from a Founding Playing. This gives you the ability to pay $200 for membership and then never pay another monthly subscription.
Why oh why can't COH offer this ? I would gladly pay $200, or more, to get a lifetime subscription for COH.