Life Time Subscription

no.

The more likely you bug the devs on matters like this, the more likely you'll get thrown on the list of players to ignore.

Squeaking a noisy wheel doesn't always mean you'll get the result you want. Sometimes all you'll accomplish is ticking people off and making them mad. There are several suggestions that a small minority of players keep making that our developers and publisher are simply not going to consider. This is one of those suggestions.

Quoted because of the quality of the presentation. Great job Power! Now that we know you can do it, we're going to expect the same in the future.


Sorry I have to shoot this one down tho. I'll try to explain why.

Lifetime subs are offered when a game is first released in order to help a company quickly get back their development costs, and then they are usually only offered for a brief period.

Now when you see a game that's been around a while like CoH that offers lifetime subs that's usually because the game has reached the end of it's life. Players can expect that there will no longer be any more content added. The development team will have been reassigned to new projects. The game will limp along until it finally dies off.

Now it's possible if NCSoft were to release a City of Heroes 2 that they might offer lifetime subs to anyone that wants to keep playing the original version and just mainytain the servers, while the devs work on the new version.


Here another thing to think about, the current number of subscribers we have here is at least 100,000. So with 100k people paying monthly subs for a year CoH earns 18 million dollars.

The average lifetime sub is equal to around 1 years subscription. That would be $180. We all know that we have a large number of vets that would jump at a chance for a lifetime sub.

If 20k people got lifetime subs then the next years profits would drop $3.6 million dollars. If 40k bought them they would drop 7.2 million.

That's a permanent drop. This game has a steady population and wouldn't be able to replace the lost income that would result from offering lifetime subs. So the company would then be forced to do the same amount of work for less and less money.

Oh, this is true : D I guess this is a bad idea

It's not necessarily a bad idea. It depends on the circumstances it's being offered.

Lifetime subs at the beginning of CoH2. Great idea.
Lifetime subs at the end of CoH1 for players that want to continue playing after CoH2 is released. Good idea.

Lifetime subs now with no indication that there is going to be a CoH2 . . . not so good an idea.

I have to second this (as well as what Forbin already said)

Very nice post Power. You already know why it's not such a great idea now, but if you keep this up, some players are going to have to find something else to whine about.

What he said =]

Although Tommy Lee Jones facepalming without facepalming was still win

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Sure. But the quacking duck gets shot.

What I would have rather done and what is a smart business decision for NCSoft are two different things entirely.

Who is to say that offering lifetime subs is a bad business decision? Perhaps link to some article or other evidence that reflects MMO's who offer(ed) lifetime subs are all failures? I'll believe it if I see it.

STO offers lifetime subs and I'll guarantee it is still around years from now.

and STO just recently came out. this game has been around for 6 yrs almost and is to far in to offer anything like this for this game. if they make a CoX2 then fine, offer it for that for the first month or so. for this game, NO.

They could offer one with the release of Going Rogue. Offering a lifetime sub would not signal the deathrose of this game as many seem to believe it would.

why? we all know that most everyone would take it. fine. but what happens when the money generated from the group that didn't take it isn't enough to keep development going? the game shuts down. i will repeat: THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA FOR THIS VERSION OF COX.

I did not mean to imply that MMOs offering lifetime subs are failures. What I mean is that offering lifetime subs to a game which has been around for years and maintains a stable playerbase (ie: CoX, present day) is a bad business decision.

It costs a lot of money to create an MMO. Offering expensive lifetime subscriptions is one way companies gain back that lost capital and move from the red into the black after releasing their game. However, an old game with a stable population has no incentive to offer lifetime subscriptions, as continued player retention is more profitable over the long run than an instant infusion of cash. In fact, for a game that has been out for years, suddenly offering lifetime subscriptions can be interpreted by the industry as a white flag, and a mad dash to grab some extra cash before the game goes under.

You mean like paid expansions (CoV, GR), server transfers, booster packs, character slots etc?

You are guessing that offering a liftetime sub would be interpreted as any kind of "white flag" to the industry.

See above. NCSoft has been making money in numerous other ways to "keep the game going".

STO has at least 500,000 subscribers less than a month from launch and can afford to keep offering lifetime subs. If handled right STO could easily be Cryptics version of WoW with millions of customers.

CoH on the other hand has maybe 120,000 subs. Do you think server transfers and booster packs are going to make up for the lost income from monthly subs after 80% of the players buy lifetime subs and CoH no longer has sub fees coming in a year later?

Lifetime subs would be a death sentence for the game at this point.

Booster Packs, Server Transfers, Character renames, Expansion Packs, and Server transfers all add to Paragon Studios' current profit without impacting their long-term financial gain.

A Lifetime subscription sale could severely impact their long term financial gain in a negative manner.

Is that so hard to understand?

$200 now is a -great- deal for all of us players because we'll save money in the long run. The problem is that the money we -save- is money not being given to Paragon studios to keep up with it's never-ending cost to maintain overhead as well as a team to produce new content for the game. In the Long Run lifetime subscriptions would hurt CoH.

In the Event of a CoH2 being launched offering a lifetime subscription for CoH1 would be fine. Why? Because you'd likely be lowering your overall staff to a minimum for the furthering of CoH1 and would, instead, jsut maintain the server structures to keep the game running for those who like to play it. Issues would likely come at an incredibly slow rate or not at all. Meanwhile the instant revenue from the Lifetime Subscriptions would help to offset the development costs of CoH2. And though CoH1 would lose a substantial amount of long-term financial gain the increased playerbase being applied to the monthly-payment plan of CoH2 would make such a business decision sound, as the company would continue to reap the benefits of that game's revenue stream for years to come.

Boxed Expansions (rather than "Issues" or Updates) are not an attempt to grab money from thin air, either. Nor are they a way to recoup losses or make a quick buck before the game goes under. They are, however, intensely time-consuming for the purposes of development and, therefore, expensive. To offset the cost to the company such expansions are boxed, shelved, and sold for far more than the package and disc are worth.

Ultimately the game is doing wonderfully! And lifetime Subscriptions would hurt Paragon Studios in the wallet two, three, or five years from now in a very big way. You don't want to hurt City of heroes, do you?

And bear in mind, this is being written by someone who is trying to get into the industry. Someone who has read up on business practices and models specifically pertaining to MMOs. Don't believe me? The link is in my signature.

-Rachel-

Beautiful and smart . . . A dangerous combination.

Flattery will get you nowhere... but I still like to hear it.

-Rachel-

PS: Please bear with me on the typos and misplaced capitalization. I'm using a new "Ergonomic" keyboard purchased for me. Very hard to get used to.