Gaming Signal: Lord of the Rings Online - a change in business model

Lord of the Rings Online - a change in business model

While Tim has a great write-up on the gameplay in the about to be released Lord of the Rings Online, I was more surprised at the changes in business model than in the changes to the mechanics of 'run a quest, get a reward'. Sure, you can buy the game at retail and pay a monthly fee (which has yet to be set, but probably won't be too far away from $13.) But Turbine is giving you another option - one that has my interest peaked.

If you pre-order the game (and thus become a Founder) you get a different set of choices. If you choose it, your monthly rate is set at $9.99 - thus providing a monetary incentive to pre-ordering. Personally, I like this choice - it lets you give them some of your money up-front (helping them pay salaries) with a promise of lower cost over the time of your subscription. It seems like a fair trade assuming the non-Founder monthly fee is a few dollars higher - if they set the non-Founder fee to nearly the same then it's not so good. But as a Founder you get a second choice - a Lifetime Subscription option. For $199 you can pay no more fees ever. That's about 20 months in advance, but also means that you never have to pay them again.

What intrigues me here is how many of my old, retired, MMO characters might I return to if I had a lifetime subscription? Certainly I'm still a sucker for Star Wars: Galaxies so I would definately have done that one. And if I could, I'd probably play Planetside sometimes too - it's much less time-intensive. But I have no interest in returning to Everquest, Everquest 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Auto Assault, or Earth & Beyond (the fact that some of those are defunct not withstanding.)

By becoming a Founder you also get the ubiquitous 'exclusive in-game items' and the ability to play in the open beta and have your character transfer over into the main game (albeit capped at level 15.) I'm curious to know what this does to the economy (seems like there will be lots of level 15 characters with time to gold farm, but that's just me) but sounds like a reasonable progression in beta program and pre-orders.