You forgot to say that the horse is shitting gold, close to 8 million subs with a cash shop selling pets and mounts and services like faction/server change, that being said I trully believe that the sub model is dead, WoW is doing great, EVE is holding up and that's it, ESO have all the elements to go F2P since release and let's see how Wildstar does... So my vote goes for Pay once play forever, with orks with unlimited trial (you don't know how many people think the game is F2P but you have to buy factions)
Subcription make me uneasy (and my only try was an abyssal failure, I actually lost money). Unless the subcription is low ( as low as 20 € a year). I don't think it can actually work nowadays.
I wouldn't mind paying for a subscription (I have one to PS2) if it offered some kind of in-game goodies while putting extra cash Behaviour's way. Folks have said that a game of this scale can't survive on subs. EVE seems to be doing okay and is possibly a better game to compare to than WoW. I am concerned about the upkeep costs of the servers and data connections that need to be paid to keep a game like this running. I loved Space Marine but one of it's biggest problems was caused by it hosting issues. EC is touting huge fights...if they can't afford the hardware and technical personnel to run it then things are not going to turn out well. Unless the cash shop for this game is huge (which of course will prompt people to whine about having to buy things and prices of said items.) I'm not sure how much support it will be on purely cosmetic items. If, like PS2, you can buy guns then hopefully it will be balanced with the ability to unlock them in other ways.
I dont care about WoW. Never even mentioned it. Do you have some concrete facts about the success of F2P versus subscription based games other than the obvious barrier of entry difference? If you don't, then you're just posting on feel and not fact. Good games see success in both models. Bad games fail to see success in both models. F2P is growing because the aforementioned barrier of entry is bypassed. Bottom line... A game doesn't fail because of a subscription. It fails because it sucks.
Subscriptions are an antiquated business model by now, and I personally hate playing a game because I feel obligated to do so, and I think many people share that opinion. Microtransactions can be a good business model and many companies do very well just with that, like Riot and League of Legends. I wouldn't concern myself too much about the stability of revenue then, the game just needs to be successful.
Your last point is a very good one IMO. However, everyone that posts about subs being the better model is doing the same, because the stats are heavily skewed due to WoW (and largely WoW alone).
Pretty much sums it up perfectly. In a more traditional, quest hub based game where PvE is the focus you can get away with it. When the AI is the main attraction you only need a handful of people to be able to experience everything the "proper way". Not so much with sandboxes, especially PvP focused ones.
I'm not saying which is better, because both work. My original post was simply about how I prefer sub models because of alts. If people are going to use them to skirt some sort of mechanics (which many will, including me), I'd rather have the account paid for instead of just taken advantage of.
I think the buy to play option with a cash shop is the best option here. They get the burst of cash upfront and then the diehard fans will support it through the shop until they're ready to drop the next expansion. People won't have to ask themselves if they're really getting their money's worth every month. With MWO still in business, I'm fairly convinced that a cash shop can do amazing things. If the mech warrior fans are able to keep that pile of unfulfilled promises going, I'm positive the 40k fan base can make Eternal Crusade thrive.
