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Pricing sounds good, but not too sure about these "blocks of time". Although for an Online multiplayer title, they've got quite a few options on it.
50 hours of play! Eat that Ubicrap!

"The new game is the company's first big online title, with customers buying 50 hours of game-play when they purchase the software for about �34.99 and then buying an additional 20 hours for about �5.59, or longer blocks of 30, 90 or 180 days' unlimited play."
Wow that really sounds unappealing to me. I think pay as you go games will be a disaster for consumers and a windfall for companies.

The 30, 90 and 180 days unlimited are just the standard MMO times hopefully the pricing will reflect or better that. Blocks of time might actually work out cheaper if you play these games casually and with the standard MMO setup as well it can't hurt to give people the option.

I rather like the idea of the hours rather than days payment option, if I'd only play with a friend once a week or so, it'd be a lot more cost effective than a monthly fee

I was looking forward to this until I heard about the pricing. I could buy a new GoG game every month for that after all!

I guess that depends how much free time you can devote - school kid, a fair amount. Worker, not so much. Bill Gates, Work? Stop swearing!
Sign of things to come? Someone actually thought about this scheme, and offered multiple pricing points/time-slots. Now if we can only get the other companies/publishers to think about other important stuff, rather than just trying to shaft people.

I guess if you compare it to other MMOs it's a good system, but I personally can't find the joy in anything beyond "pay X dollars, own the game forever."
I know millions disagree with me though, looking at MMOs, Steam and Xbox Live, so... yeah. I'm an old codger.

Do I still get to chase down hippies in my police car, and ram into litterbugs?

Star Trek Online had a lifetime subscription thing available as a preorder option. The value of X was rather high but would have been cost effective if you could see yourself playing for several years (and it is the best mmo I've played).
Well xbox live isn't relevant unless you're talking about the multiplayer aspect of games but then that's true of every MP game. If live vanishes overnight, as long as either your console or your gamertag exists, you can play any downloaded content. Its a surprisingly fault tolerant system, kind of an anti-ubisoft

MMO's are bit of a different beast, you pay for the service and access to the servers. The whole point of the vast majority of them is that they take place in huge persistant worlds populated with 1000's of people. Its a different experiance to a single player game.
StingingVelvet have you tried any MMO's or just haven't touched them because of the priceing model behind them?

This.

It would also be cost effective if the MMO lasts more than a year or so. *looks at Hellgate: London lifetime subscribers*

I think the hours option is much better. If you don't play a lot, 50 hours can strech over a couple of months on/off play.

Well, I was meaning forever as in forever... there will be a day when Star Trek Online can never be played again, even if you bought a lifetime thing. Same with Xbox downloads, there will be a day when that service is dead, so when your current machine dies all the games go with it.
It's a paranoid fear on some level I suppose, and I assume every quality game with no rights issues would be re-released at some point like on GOG or the equivalent, but I am just of the mindset lately where I am resisting these new account-based ideas.

I bought Star Trek Online because I am a fan of the series but I was very disappointed. The story was bare minimum and I don't like playing with others, so I felt like I was supposed to pay a monthly fee for a worse game than those I play forever with a simple purchase.
I know it is geared toward community players, so that is my fault for buying it.

At some point in the future no computer will be capable of running x86 compiled code and you'll never be able to play current games again. When your last PC capable of running 98SE & XP dies, you'll lose the games. There's no difference