If the game is somehow saved...

I'd pay $500 if lifetime meant lifetime. If 10 years from now there was no longer any sign of interest, I would want to be able to at least play this solo any time I want.

I'd give $1000 if my wife would let me. If she argued over $500 I'd remind her who makes the money here

Just wondering, how many MMOs have ever been "saved" by a fan campaign? Anyone got the numbers on that? Or, if it happens with CoH, would it be a first?

There is no "not subbed, but will buy points" option ;p

I've already spend over $1,300 for a lifetime sub--which is about the sum of my monthly sub over the last 8 years. And I'd love to grow that number higher over the years with a continued yearly sub. Lifetime subs are good for a sudden influx of cash. But when those players stick around long enough they are a loss in potential revenue.

I wouldn't remotely consider a lifetime subscription unless:

a) It insures that I will NEVER pay for anything again. No credits, no paragon points, no special VIP pricing. If it comes out, I get it... for free.

b) "Lifetime" is defined in the eula as a minimum time, say no shorter than 24 months of supported operation. If the game ends before that minimum lifetime is reached, I get a pro-rated refund.

c) it would cost me no more than $360-ish (24x14.95)

It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets

... Hit it ...

A life-time sub can't cost more than 12 to 18 months of a normal subscription, because no company can guarantee it will be around longer than that.

Before investing in a lifetime sub, though, I would need to know that there was a plan in place for the eventual wind-down of development and slow decrease in player population. That is, as the game goes into more of maintenance than active development mode and fewer people play it, there needs to be a way for it to "age gracefully" and allow remaining players to continue having fun.

That means there needs to be a way to do cross-server teaming, or change the system to transfer bases to other servers and allow non-unique character names. I know this last is highly unpopular in certain quarters, but it's just not reasonable for players to have give up their names on lower population servers, names they've had for 8 years, when they are inevitably forced to move their characters to higher-population servers and that name is already taken by someone who created that character yesterday.

I've played CO for a few weeks now, and I've never seen duplicate names (except for the ones like "Hulkk", and you see those kinds of duplicates in CoH just as often). You can turn off the @global name display in chat if you don't want to see it (though I wish it was included in CoH, because when you have global friends with 20+ characters it's hard to remember all their character names).

Regular sub only. I was only VIP for 2 months over the last year because of decisions our current developers made. There's no way I'm going to hand some new batch of devs a huge chunk of money in the hopes that I won't end up in disagreement with them as well.

Not a chance, zero, nada, zilch I pay $500-$1000 for a lifetime sub.
I'll just pay my $15 with occasional Paragon Point purchases.

I have paid for Subscription to COX and would be willing to pay for a COX2, even if I have to build all my Alt's and VG/SG's again.

It is not just that i LOVE this MMO, but the Community I found here as well.

$200 for lifetime sub, and probably 100$ worth of points.

$1000 for a lifetime sub?

Err, well... if I was in a position to just throw that kind of money around, I guess.
But really, if I were in a position where $1000 was chump change that I could drop into a pastime like City of Heroes, then I /might/ also be in a position to go straight to NCsoft and say,
"I want to buy Paragon Studios and CoH. What's your price?" and all our beloved Devs would have their jobs back.

Sadly, I can't do that. And I don't know anyone personally that could.

To put it in a different perspective...
$1000 could pay up my car payment for the next three months with money left over.
Or get two months ahead on my house payment.
Or pay up my car insurance for the nearly 2 years.

I have been blessed to be put in a position in life where I can afford to be a VIP.
But I just don't think that the average person is going to have that much laying around, and if they do... well, God bless them.

Even $500 is asking a bit much, I think. When CO came out, they were offering Lifetime Subs for... what? Around $200? (Its a guess, I honestly don't remember anymore...)

I'm not saying I wouldn't if I could /and/ I had a guarantee that the game would be around for a good long while...

I'm going to be even more blunt than usual here ...

What *** did you pull those numbers out of? $500 dollars for a LTS is obscene, nevermind a full grand. You'd be hard-pressed to find a game that charges more than $300 for a LTS.

No game ever made, or that ever will be made, is worth $500 upfront to play.

The short answer is no. The long answer is: I haven't been a subscriber for a while (well, I do have a VIP account now, but that's because of the occasion and because I had a code for it), and I'm not planning to be a regular subscriber. If a Kickstarter style project is started then I'm willing to pay, how much would depend on what I get (although I'll pay a little bit even if I don't get anything). In any case it will not be close to $1000 or even $500.

Thinking about it in Kickstarter terms, I think that a $1000 lifetime subscription is reasonable, although in practice a lower price will likely bring in more money. $250-$500 seems to be a sweet spot for Kickstarter backers who are willing to pay a lot.

Subscription. Even if they upped the fee to $19.95/month so there was a little extra budget for leeway, advertising, whatever, I'd do it, and happily.

OTOH, if they were doing a Kickstarter and needed a one-time donation, then I'd come up with more as a one-off, but would not expect a lifetime sub for it. But I'm weird like that.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

The new owners would have to make a really good case that they would do a better job. Even that, would only get a $200-$300 sub out of me.

Kickstarter ? I don't get.

Ok, so the reason I threw out those numbers:

I want to make it known what the players are willing to spend incase any potential buyers are looking at the forums. From the 79 people that voted so far, the total possible profits seen are $19,264.49 ... from just 79 people. These 79 people make up a miniscule portion of the playerbase.

While the 9 people willing to pay $1,000 for a lifetime sub, the 19 people willing to pay the $500 equal about the same as the $1,000 fee. While 51 are willing to pay $14.99 a month for $764.49, it would take 600 subscriptions to come to the same amount. Granted, the monthly subscriptions will equal more money over time, most companies aren't willing to look at anything unless they know they are going to get some quick money to recoup their costs.

I'd like to see more people vote, regardless of their current money situation. I'm not asking you to pay this amount, I just want to see (and want potential buyers to see) what the players think the game is worth for the continuation of the franchise.