In for life? Hmm

I can actually see a person who is already part of a great group OR someone who has already become popular and has great kickbacks and great stipend bonuses to buy the lifetime deal. What about the people just starting out, beta people that is? The reason I chose the 3 month deal is if I'm broke in 3 months cause of taxes and whatnot why would I wanna continue to play? Main point in this game is making objects in 3-D which you need Linden money to make happen. If you don't have any money in the game it won't be very fun IMHO to play. I know chatting is the other option but who gonna pay 160 bucks for chat? Gotta be something that can be done for people who don't care much for events and who like doing their own thing. Cause it will just rule those people out, and why would you wanna force anyone to become part of a certain crowd cause it's the only means of income? I'm not saying I'm anti social, I like chatting too like anyone else, I'm just taking up for the shy people that don't care for it.

Well there are lots of ways to make and conserve money. If you have $0, then get rid of everything you have so your up positive a bit again. Then you also get your stipend, and if you have no objects, then no tax!

Plus a huge aspect of the game is social. The more you talk to people, trade calling cards, rate etc... the more likely you yourself will get rated which leads to additional L$. There are quite a few people in game I know who actually don't own land or own very little in the way of objects but still have a great time.

Anyway, I think my point is that you might be limiting yourelf a bit in the scope of the game. It involves far more then just building or buying things. But I do completely understand if you would prefer to start with a 3 month membership. I thought about that myself.

My thoughts:
I am quite new myself, having joined just this past Sunday. However, I've also gone ahead and bought a Lifetime membership. In the short time I've been here, I've seen enough to make that decision. Of course, I am one who likes to build, and code, so for me this is an almost ideal place. I've already spent well over the $160 on other MMO games, and I can very easily see myself continuing to enjoy my place in SL for a long time. And after 1 year, 4 months (at the 1 mo beta price) I'll be playing for free.
But most importantly, I am impressed beyond measure with the concepts behind SL. In most online games, creativity is strictly forbidden. So many of them have taken the attitude of "do it our way or else."
SL is a world based on creativity and freedom to use it. A world based on creation rather than destruction.

Personally I think that's well worth supporting.

- Sphereon Nomad
"A Sphere is an infinite construct"

I agree with you on the aspect of creativity. This game is wonderful about that, you have alot of freedom. I see many games out there that are fun for a little while simply because the Publisher Tells the devoloper to make things a certain way and that's that. I see certain games that are suffering right now because they don't listen to what the people playing the game have to say how things should be. You can't have a successful online game if you don't listen to what the players are saying. I just hpe this doesent happen, and it probably won't but it's a likely scenario. If Lindenlabs gets a major publisher like Sony For example, and here's what happens. Sony now has rights to the game and they change rules and ways of doing things, eventually they can ultimately change the billing around where people that were lifers or promised by Linden Lab as Lifers and now say publisher now has rights on the prices they have their hands tied because they can't promise the users who got lifer status the ability to stay on as lifers. I have seen very similiar things happen to games that are in the MMo category. This is all hypothetical and is just a look at what I would hate to see if it did happen. Someone would make up some lame excuse to why their rates increased and then try to explain to the lifers why they must now pay monthly. I know it does sound nutso or crazy, but I'd hate to see lifers get scrwed like that. That's why I look at lifer status the way I do. It's all hypothetical so please just look at it that way and think of it however you want.

Why would LL need a major publisher like Sony? They've already got investors, and they're not publishing the game in a traditional sense. SL requires far less development in terms of content, but a whole lot more bandwidth and computer power than your traditional MMOG so the focus is different, in terms of a business model. In fact, if things were to go the way most MMOGs do, we'd probably be in big trouble, because in a few weeks, the population would explode to many many times the beta size. But that's not going to happen.

SL hasn't gone the traditional route thus far, though. It's not a boxed set sorta game (I dunno if they intend to eventually put out CDs even if they're just jewel cases for $5) where we'd all be talking about going gold and whatever. It's very much a functioning product right now and has been for several months. Honestly, the state it was in a few weeks after I started was the state most MMOGs are released at.

Finally, if I buy a lifetime subscription and they jack up the price, I could take them to court. There's legal language on how long a 'lifetime' in terms of a product is. Truth is, I think the lifetime membership is a good way to keep the seasoned beta players around. Since their model revolves around player content, these are the people you WANT to keep at all costs. They'll make the money by retaining other players. If many people were to play SL for the first time and just see a blank landscape, that'd be the end of that. The beta players have shown what's possible, and that'll help new players get hooked.

Neo, I think there are many aspects to lifer status. Clearly it makes no sense at all if you do not clearly see a minimum 11 month play time which is your break even point. So if that is the case the story ends there. But your stated issues do not seem to be mainly economic. They seem to primarily reside in two areas: how you desire to interact with the game and your trust level of mindless corporate types taking over decision making for the world.

First point: I think by design Linden Labs has made a conscious decision to develop a game that creates a dynamic between what you give to the world and what you can get from it. I think they have done a good job in implementing that design strategy. For the money you pay, you get a small stipend and the opportunity to interact both personally and through the providing of services which need not be personal at all. The Stipend is sufficient to create a small, limited sandbox that you can be forever changing. I don't think I am far off by saying that minus further interaction whether personal or providing a service, that is what you are paying Linden Labs for the right to do. To the degree that you are buying into a game, I believe that is game rule number 1 here. To change this rule is to destroy the fundamental game dynamic. Shy people can make it work, but they have to bring their imaginations with them to make their shyness irrelevant to how they gain further resources.

I personally think the second issue you raise concerning the corporate future is a legitimate concern given any reasonable reading of how things work these days, but with that said, it becomes a roll of the dice. Will Linden Labs sell us out to a high bidder some day? Could Happen. For the time being I wish to believe that creative people who create what in the end is their child will look after the well being of that child for as long as they can. First life interference in second life will never give us any better than that. In the end you have to roll the dice on that part.