Are seasons subscriptions? There are some good semantics going either way in this thread.
I'm now treating seasons as subscriptions and I have the option of not renewing at the end of Horizons if it doesn't provide me with my money's worth. I'm reasonably sure it will but even if it does that doesn't necessarily mean that something else might not be monopolizing my time and interest instead of Elite.
Stumping up for a lifetime pass is putting too much faith in the developers and my on ongoing interest in this project. My advice is steer well clear of the lifetime expansion pass, do not give FD any more money than you have to. Once they have it you are a hostage to what is good for FD rather than what is good for you as their customer.
This isn't meant to cast FD as unethical money grubbers (I really don't think they are, honest) it's more about preserving what power I have as a consumer.
Hopefully this will make it clear, we are talking video game subscription, not magazine/newsletter/physical media:
Subscription: Paying monthly to be able to play the game. (Eve, WOW etc)
Expansion: Paying a one time fee for an agreed amount of additional content.
Basically you can ignore an expansion and stick to the basic game. Once you pay the £40 for Elite you can always access it, your account is not de-activated if you stop paying each month. So
no the seasons are not subscriptions. Re-name them as update pack 1, 2, 3 etc if it helps.
I fully understand your point and its a good cautious way of approaching it. One could argue that a lot of what has been produced is of high quality, has a large scope and generally is delivering on promises within a degree of flexibility. You could also argue that it is not strictly following the DDF, has no roadmap and has buggy releases with rushed beta testing.
If you don't feel confident that's your decision and you have that right as any other not to buy it. I will, however, say that this is a bit unusual in the gaming industry in that the original founder of Elite has re-energised the series and from that respect I doubt it will be unfinished or of poor final quality. I honestly believe the final final game will be excellent and well worth the cash. I'd love it all the more if their last move was to make an offline mode and open up the Source kit for modding as a classy "alright, here's looking at you now". But I can only dream after my Skyrim games
In the end yes it keeps power in your hands, you may even pick it up at discount after its all said and done. But if everyone did that we'd not have even got past kickstarter levels.
